I was inattentively sitting in the back of my seemingly empty 10th grade English class when I heard my teacher talking about some book. She was suggesting to the class that we read the The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins for our quarterly personal reading book. I always thought that being required to read a book each quarter was such a drag in school; I hadn’t any plans to even read one until my teacher gave a brief description of this book. “It’s about 24 kids who go into an artificial bio dome and fight to the death and the winner gets fame and fortune,” said Ms. Kylen, my previous English teacher. This immediately changed my careless and lazy attitude into a more attentive and responding one. Since the book was due tomorrow in class, I stealthily texted my mom asking her to purchase this book if she had the time. She said it was no problem and she would be able to get it on her way home. Immediately and strangely, I was anxiously awaiting nothing but going home and starting on this book, but I had a long day ahead of me until I could meet it.

In my hands lay a paperback novel about the size of large brick and the color of newly opened match light, Kingsford charcoal briquettes. It was peculiar how anxious I was to open this book because I’ve never been a big reader. However, I was somewhat hesitant to because throughout the day, I heard a few things about it that was not what I would expect such as gore and love. Since these were just rumors, I didn’t know which to expect, a massive, exciting bloodbath filled with unsettling details and awesome fight scenes or a sappy and slow love story with barely any fighting or excitement or even the two combined. I decided that the only way I could find out is if I dove right in and read through it. I knew it would be a challenge to read through that whole book, but I was determined.

As I expected, the first couple chapters were boring and nearly put me to sleep, but by chapter three, I was unable to put the book down. I would lock myself in my room and just read all throughout the day, and if we were to go out to dinner, the book came too. The author had a way in conjuring a thrilling plot with relaxing rest points while weaving in fascinating characters, such as my personal favorite, Cato, a brutal 18 year old beast who was trained from childhood for this event. The diction and composition of the chapters created a suspenseful story, thus making things more exciting. Since I was so entranced with this book, and read it at every opportunity I could, I read through it within a week. Consequently, I felt as though a void had formed and I didn’t know what to do.

Luckily, I found out that this was a trilogy! After blasting through The Hunger Games, next up was Catching Fire, and then the final book called Mockingjay. I didn’t feel as though either the second or third book quite matched up to the original, but either way, they all had a tight grasp around my attention and heart. Since I read these books, I’ve decided to give books, as a whole, a chance and read more of them. So far, I read four more books in addition to those three, and I have acquired a sort of fondness for reading. Suzanne Collins was the spark in my life that led to a wildfire of reading. Personally, I thought The Hunger Games was so good, that no other book could even compare. I was wrong.