The Hunger Games

I just read the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It takes place in a future where the US has collapsed and been replaced with Panem, a country made up of a capital and twelve districts. Every year, each district is forced to send one boy and one girl called "tributes" to the capital to compete in the hunger games, a competition where the 24 tributes are put into a giant outdoor area and have to fight to the death until the one remaining tribute is crowned victor. In the book, 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister Prim's place in the games. Now Katniss will have to face 23 other tributes in a fight to make it back home. There's also a little bit of an interesting love story that questions what your feelings will tell you when loving someone is the difference between life and death.
I absolutely LOVED this book! It is so suspenseful and exciting that I finished it in two days and the sequel in three! I'm a person that is easily repulsed by guts and gore, but although people are killed, the book never gets too gory. I'd rate this book a 9 or 9.5 and can't wait for the third one next fall!

~Lily

Unwind

Unwind is probably the best book I have ever read. Unwind is about a world where human body parts are harvested from people when they turn thirteen. Not everyone is unwound, only the unwanted or problematic children. Unwind is from the prospective of three main characters. Two of the characters are "normal" unwinds, which were chosen to be unwound because they were unneeded, but the other one, named Lev is a tithe. Tithes are honorary unwinds. Their unwinding is looked at as a privilege, rather than a death sentence. So the story follows the three main characters, and their struggle to escape their doomed fate, but meet constant snags.
I read this book from a suggestion in library by Ellen, and reinforced my decision from raves by Lily.I loved Unwind because all of the problems they face seem impossible to avoid, and some don't get avoided, which makes unwind a very unpredictable book to read. Unwind was a thoroughly riveting book that twisted and turned too many times to count. For your own sake, READ IT!!!