The Hunger Games Companion: The Unauthorized Guide to the Series [Paperback]

Lois H. Gresh (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 8, 2011

The ultimate companion guide to the blockbuster Hunger Games trilogy

For all those who adore Katniss and Peeta, and can't get enough, this companion guide to the wildly popular Hunger Games series is a must-read and a terrific gift.

Go deeper into the post-apocalyptic world created by Suzanne Collins than you ever thought possible—an alternative future where boys and girls are chosen from twelve districts to compete in “The Hunger Games,” a televised fight-to-the-death. When sixteen-year-old Katniss learns that her little sister has been chosen, Kat steps up to fight in her place—and the games begin. This unauthorized guide takes the reader behind the stage.

The Hunger Games Companion includes fascinating background facts about the action in all three books, a revealing biography of the author, and amazing insights into the series’ main themes and features--from the nature of evil, to weaponry and rebellions, to surviving the end of the world. It’s everything fans have been hungering for since the very first book!

This book is not authorized by Suzanne Collins, Scholastic Press or anyone involved in the Hunger Games movie. 

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...belongs in any collector's or fanatic's library." 

    --TEEN INK, EDITOR'S CHOICE AWARD: The Hunger Games Companion, an interview with Lois Gresh

"What is just as exciting (well, almost) as the Hunger Games? THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION, of course! The reader will be taken through details that makes The Hunger Games the exciting, fast-paced, nerve-wracking series fans around the world obsess over."
     --Krystal Larson, Fresh Fiction

"Interesting and useful material ... Worthwhile exegesis."

--Kirkus Reviews

From the Author

THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION includes facts and insights into the main ideas and themes of the novels -- from the nature of evil to weaponry and rebellions to surviving the end of the world.  I dig deep beneath the surface and offer opinions as to how the world has ended up in this hideous post-apocalyptic state; why Katniss agrees to be the Mockingjay, why she chooses Peeta, why she becomes intensely depressed, why she becomes addicted to morphling; why the Capitol is so evil, why the government lets their own people starve, why they send children into these deadly arenas, why they justify binge-eating and plastic surgery and fine clothing while letting everyone else die from grotesque torture.  The book covers everything from the various type of muttations, including how they might be created in real life, to the poisons and medicines, the Avoxes, the hovercrafts, the Career Tributes; Thresh, Finnick, Plutarch Heavensbee, Haymitch, President Snow, Cato, Beetee, Johanna, Katniss' mother, Buttercup, Effie Trinket, Caesar Flickerman; and very interesting to me, the complex nature of the arenas themselves.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; Original edition (November 8, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312617933
• ISBN-13: 978-0312617936
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #621,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LOIS H. GRESH is the New York Times Best-Selling Author (6 times), Publishers Weekly Best-Selling Paperback Author, Publishers Weekly Best-Selling Paperback Children's Author, and editor of 27 books and 50 short stories. Her books have been published in approximately 20 languages. Current books are NIGHTFALL - new adult paranormal romantic fantasy with a ZING! , dark short story collection ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS, DARK FUSIONS, THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS COMPANION, and THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION. Lois has received Bram Stoker Award, Nebula Award, Theodore Sturgeon Award, and International Horror Guild Award nominations for her work.

BLOG: http://loisgresh.blogspot.com
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TWITTER: @lois_gresh
PINTEREST: http://pinterest.com/loisgresh/
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

178 of 198 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't be fooled by Lois Gresh-only reviewers November 11, 2011

By Crystal Watanabe

Format:Paperback

UPDATE: I have to say, I am not as jaded about Amazon's reviews after seeing that they removed all 8 reviews before mine that looked suspiciously like they were written all by the same person, giving the book 5 stars and boosting its rating.

I write this review not because I have some kind of thing against the author, but because I honestly believe that people should be warned about this book. I was given an ARC to review and was shocked at the book's content. Find my full review by Googling the title and "mockingjay".

While the other glorious reviews praise how much this book is about The Hunger Games, let's get real here. The book is BARELY about The Hunger Games. The chapter on Tributes is about Spartacus. The chapter on weapons is a disgusting how-to on how to kill a person. The chapter on torture gives you disgusting accounts of botched executions by electric chair, describing frying skin, eyeballs popping out of sockets, and other disgusting details that don't directly relate to the book.

It reads like a textbook on the details behind the world of Panem but does NOT mention anything about district specialties, whether you really can eat pine and what it does for you nutritionally, compiled facts about characters, or a theoretical map of Panem. These are things I would expect and want in a Hunger Games Companion, but they are nowhere to be found in this book.

If you want to hand your 14 year old a book telling you how to make exploding arrowheads, how to properly hold an axe, and how to kill someone with a spear, by all means, this is the book you're looking for. Otherwise, wait for the official one. I know I almost vomited reading this book.

And on that note, examine the suspicious activity on the reviews on Lois Gresh's books. If you look at the 5 star reviews on her Twilight Companion, which got completely ROASTED by that fandom, they're mostly from anonymously protected kids under 13 with perfect grammar or people who ONLY review Lois Gresh books. All the reviewers preceding mine have only reviewed Lois Gresh books.

38 of 42 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth reading February 3, 2012

By SCurry

Format:Paperback

There are Hunger Games SPOILERS included in this.

Being an avid fan of The Hunger Games series, I perused this book at the local bookstore. Thankfully I did that prior to purchasing it because all in all, I feel that buying the book would be a waste of one's money.
While the author brings up some interesting points, her ideas are really just that: her own ideas and opinions. Calling this a "companion" to Collins' series is completely false. At times I wondered if Gresh had even truly read the books because she had many glaring inconsistencies with the books' plots.
As another reviewer mentioned, the Quarter Quells were not always the same; only the one in Catching Fire picked tributes from among the existing victors. Also, Gresh seemed to have skimmed the information available in the books regarding District 13. She repeatedly claimed that it only existed underground and that nobody was able to come above ground. However, in the books, Buttercup comes and goes through a window *above the ground* in Katniss's family's room, Katniss and Gale are allowed to hunt outside and give the meat to the cooking staff, and some of the propos were filmed under a tree outside. Somehow Gresh missed these details.
She also mentioned a theory that 13 was allied with the Capital and that's why they didn't help the other districts. In the book, Collins wrote that many of the survivors of the rebellion had no knowledge of their military utilities and that their main goal was rebuilding so that they could eventually help and actually be successful.
I did not finish the book because I still wasn't enjoying it after an hour spent reading it. However, even though I occasionally skimmed the more unsavory chapters (such as the one telling the potentially young readers how to throw different weapons), I still found enough plot errors to really question Gresh's reading comprehension abilities.
While the historical comparisons were interesting, she dwelled mostly on them rather than actually tying in the Hunger Games in depth. While the weapons chapter did explain what the different weapons were, she skimmed over some of the most used weapons (tridents--like Finnick favored--were lumped in with spears and hardly given attention even though main characters spoke of the trident more often than spears). When talking about the arenas in the series, she gave more attention to the set up of the Roman arenas. I can read about the Colosseum in history books or online; I would have preferred her own drawings about how she felt the Hunger Games arenas looked.
I feel as though the title of the book is erroneous and misleading. Gresh should have named her work "My Opinions on Historical and Current Events and Their Relation to the Hunger Games." This was NOT a companion to the series and it is definitely not child-appropriate (though the series does contain violence so they could probably handle it; I just wouldn't want to give the book to a child personally). Overall, Gresh misses the mark here and true Hunger Games fans would likely be disappointed with her inability to comprehend the plot points of Collins' series.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars No New Information or Insight into the Series March 3, 2012

By Eliza79

Format:Paperback

This book was disappointing and misleading.
As a fan of the series, I was hoping to read more about the Hunger Games characters and the world of Panem --- and instead, it contained a bunch of side notes about real-life historical "parallels" and such insights as "How the Body Eats Itself" (the biological process of starvation) as well as "Hype over Substance", a rundown of some modern-day reality shows... Um, Okay.
Readers of the Hunger Games books want to be further immersed in the imagined world of Panem - not given information on real-life examples of "killer kids".
After all, I didn't get into the series because I am curious about historical killing techniques, weaponry, or human survival instincts-- I became absorbed in the world itself and with the characters who inhabit it!
...and this book does nothing to illuminate that.