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I don’t usually read YA — I didn’t read the Twilight series, and I only read the first Harry Potter book. (Which I loved, but didn’t feel “hooked” enough to keep going.) But I’d heard great things about Hunger Games from one of my besties, and I do have a weakness for dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction (I know, weird, right?) so I gave it a shot, and hoo boy. I devoured that first book like a bag of chocolate covered pretzels. I’m on the third one now, and I think I’m going to be seriously grief-stricken when it’s over. Until the movie comes out in March, anyway.
The basic premise, if you don’t already know, is that in a totalitarian North America in the far distant future, every year two dozen kids between the ages of 12 and 18 have to compete in a televised contest to the death. It’s The Lord of the Flies meets reality TV. And it is dark, dark stuff.
So is it weird that me — a mom — is hooked on a series about kids killing kids?