katniss everdeen wakes up on harvest day, when tributes are chosen to participate in the hunger games. his mother and his little sister, prim, sleep nearby. her father died in a mine explosion years before. She goes hunting in the forest outside of her district, District 12, with Gale, her best friend. That night, at the harvest ceremony, the mayor gives a speech describing how the governments of North America fell and the country of Panem rose in their place. a war ensued between the capitol and the districts. The Capitol won, and as a reminder of their loss, the Capitol holds the Hunger Games every year. Then the mayor introduces Haymitch Abernathy, District 12’s only living Hunger Games winner, and he’s so drunk he ends up falling in his own vomit.
The district’s female tribute is chosen and, to Katniss’s horror, she is prudish. Katniss immediately volunteers at Prim’s place. then the male tribute is selected. This is Peeta Mellark, and Katniss remembers how years before, while she was looking for food for her family in the dumpsters behind the town stores, Ella Peeta gave her bread from her family’s bakery. Katniss credits him with saving her that day. Katniss and Peeta say goodbye to their friends and family and board a train to the capitol. During the trip, she and Peeta convince Haymitch, her mentor in the games and the person responsible for getting them gifts from sponsors, to take her duties seriously.
Once there, Katniss meets her stylist, Cinna, who is designing her dress for the opening ceremony. At the ceremony, Katniss and Peeta wear simple black outfits lit with faux flames. The outfits are a big hit with the audience and make Katniss and Peeta stand out among the tributes. The next day, Katniss and Peeta attend group training, and tributes from wealthy districts who have trained for the games their entire lives, called career tributes, show off their skills. Later, the tributes are interviewed by Caesar Flickerman, a television host. In his interview, Peeta reveals that he has had a crush on Katniss for several years.
The time has finally come. From a small underground room, Katniss is led into the arena and the games officially begin. all the tributes are there, and in front of her is the cornucopia, which houses an abundance of provisions. Instead of fighting, she runs away as Haymitch advised her. she walks all day before camping. after dark, someone starts a fire nearby, and it’s not long before a group of professional tributes arrive and kill the person. To Katniss’ surprise, Peeta is with them. The next day, Katniss goes looking for water. she walks for hours and collapses from exhaustion, but eventually finds a stream. She is awakened in the night by a wall of fire moving in her direction and, as she flees, one of the numerous fireballs raining down around her grazes her leg, injuring her.
You are reading: Summary of the hunger games books
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That night, while hiding in a tree from the racing pool below, he notices a young woman named Rue from District 11 in a nearby tree. Rue points out a nest of tracker jackers, wasps designed by the capitol to be deadly, on katniss’s head, and katniss cuts the branch that supports the nest, letting it fall onto the racers. two of them die from the stings and the rest scatter. Katniss is also stung several times, but as she runs away, she remembers that one of the girls she died had a bow and arrows, the weapons with which she became an expert in hunting. She runs back to retrieve them, and Peeta arrives as she is grabbing the bow. She yells at Katniss to run just as Cato appears, a very large and dangerous run from District 2. Peeta stops him so Katniss can escape, and soon after passes out in a ditch.
katniss runs into rue again, and the two quickly form a bond. They can get food by hunting and foraging, and Katniss realizes that the races would have a hard time surviving without the supplies in the cornucopia, so she and Rue come up with a plan. As Rue lights decoy fires, Katniss sneaks up on the cornucopia. The supplies are in a pyramid away from the main camp, and after the Careers leave to investigate the fires, Katniss manages to blow up the supplies by cutting a bag of apples with her arrows, which activates the mines placed to protect the pyramid. . When Katniss can’t find Rue at her meeting place, she goes looking for her and finds her just as another tribute stabs her with a spear. Katniss kills the other tribute, and when Rue dies, she covers her body with flowers.
Katniss is depressed all day the next day, until an announcement is made that there has been a rule change: now, two tributes from the same district can be declared the winner. Katniss goes looking for Peeta, it takes her a day but she finally finds him. he is badly injured from his fight with cato and can barely walk, but katniss helps him get to a cave where they will be hiding. Thinking Peeta might die, Katniss impulsively kisses him. A moment later, she hears a noise outside and finds a pot of broth sent by Haymitch. she realizes that haymitch will reward her for hyping up her and peeta’s romance. The next morning, Katniss sees that Peeta’s leg is badly infected and that she will die without treatment. she makes another announcement to herself, this time saying that each tribute will find a desperately needed item in the cornucopia. katniss knows that means medicine for peeta’s leg, but peeta thinks it’s too dangerous and she doesn’t want katniss to go. Using a sleeping syrup sent by Haymitch, Katniss knocks him out.
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At the cornucopia, Katniss tries to run and grab the item marked for District 12, but gets into a fight with a female tribute. the tribute is about to kill her when thresh, the male tribute from district 11 who came to the games with rue, kills the girl instead of her. he forgives katniss for the way she treated rue, and katniss returns to the cave. She injects Peeta with the medicine just before he passes out. They stay there for a few days while it rains non-stop outside, and in this time the romance between Katniss and Peeta advances. when it stops raining, peeta and katniss need to find food. Katniss leaves Peeta in charge of foraging for food while she goes hunting. she returns hours later to find a small pile of poison berries that peeta picked thinking they were safe. They discover the body of a tribute whom Katniss nicknamed Foxface, and Katniss realizes that she died from eating the berries. At this point, Cato, who killed Thresh, is the only tribute left, and Katniss decides to keep some berries in case she can trick Cato the same way. eventually the streams and ponds dry up, and they know that the only source of water left is the lake near the cornucopia. With no other choice, they start walking towards the lake.
By the lake, cato suddenly comes running towards them. unexpectedly, however, he runs right past them. Katniss realizes there are strange creatures chasing him, and they all run to the cornucopia and climb up. The creatures are mutated wolves designed by the Capitol, and Katniss realizes that they are actually the dead tributes, who have turned into these monsters. Taking advantage of the situation, Cato attacks Peeta, but Katniss and Peeta manage to push him over the edge. The creatures overpower him, but due to the armor he is wearing, he stays alive for hours, until Katniss shoots him out of pity. Just when Katniss and Peeta think they’ve won, another announcement is made that there can only be one winner again. neither katniss nor peeta will kill the other, so katniss pulls out the poison berries. Just as she and Peeta pop them into their mouths, the announcer yells at them to stop and declares them both winners.
They return to the training center and Katniss is left alone for days while she recovers. When she is let out of it, Haymitch warns her that she is in danger. the capitol took her trick with the berries as an act of defiance, so she has to convince everyone that she was desperate at the thought of losing peeta and not being a rebel, or even her family might be endangered. In her final interview, she is reunited with Peeta, who lost his leg and now has a prosthetic leg. later, when haymitch tells him that she did great, peeta wonders what she means, and katniss explains everything, including the romance strategy during the games. Peeta is angry and hurt, but when they return to the 12th precinct, they hold hands once more to wave to the crowd and the cameras.
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