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From Dueling Wizards to Fighting for Survival
- Jill Brashear
- Sep 4
- 2 min read
In 2012, I was a busy mom rushing to and from swim meets. If you’ve never been to a swim meet, I’ll let you in on a little secret—the days are endless. We swim moms had a saying: if it’s your last day on Earth, you better hope it’s at a swim meet, because it will last forever.
Needless to say, there’s not a lot to do in between events but wait. If you have ADHD, it’s hell. If you’re a reader, it’s heaven.
That fall and winter, I remember seeing all the young kids at the swim meets with their noses buried in the same book: The Hunger Games.
We’re talking kids as young as ten or twelve years old. Last I checked, they had been reading Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. Now, they were glued to The Hunger Games, which had just come out in the theaters. Intrigued, I picked up a copy of the book by Suzanne Collins. Talk about shock. I was expecting wizard adventures or superhero antics—not children forced to fight to the death in a televised spectacle of survival.
The idea was brutal, chilling, and wildly farfetched, yet somehow disturbingly possible.
There was no way I was letting my daughter read these books or see the movie. At ten years old, she were too young! It was too scary! My mom would have never let me consume something this horrifying as a tween—of course, she didn’t know about Flowers in the Attic.
The kids at the swim meets were captivated by the book. The central themes of a dystopian society where violence, political manipulation, and survival were written for young adults
. They had graduated from wizard duels to Katniss Everdeen’s defiance of an oppressive regime. And the book rode that wave of fascination straight to the bestseller list.
The Hunger Games became a blockbuster not only because it was a gripping story with a high-concept hook and unforgettable characters, but also because it perfectly matched its audience’s evolution.
Its success signaled that YA could handle darker themes—violence, trauma, class struggles, even sexuality—without losing its accessibility to young teens.
This shift marked a turning point in the YA market, opening the door for future books with higher stakes and more adult topics.
In many ways, The Hunger Games redefined YA—for better or worse.
Interesting insights. What do you think about the film. As someone who hasn't read the book, I'm interested to hear how it measures up. I thought it was a fun movie, with a strong performance by Jennifer Lawrence. Great cinematography and lots of great allusions to other dystopian fiction. But as an action story itself, I felt it was kind of predictable leading me to not have interest in reading it. Should I change my mind?