Young adult novel RAVE

So I'm at best ambivalent about Twilight, and it's what all the kids are reading these days, so I started to worry that there was no good stuff out there for kids to read, and then a friend of Clare's recommended The Hunger Games, and I was in Sacramento visiting family and went to a Borders, and I picked up a copy to read the first couple pages, and then I was in line buying it and then we went to my grandparents' house and instead of, you know, talking to beloved family who I don't see very often, I lay on the living room floor and read it in a breathless gulp.

Then a few days later I went to the Sacramento airport and was pissed to find that none of the bookstores there had the sequel (Catching Fire) but fortunately I had a layover in Minnesota (praises upon Minnesota!) and one of the bookstores there had it. And again with the breathless gulp.

Now I am desolated to report that the third and last book won't be out til August 24th. Nobody should plan on hearing from me on August 24th.

Oh, what's that, you want some details? Well, it's set in a dystopian future US (I guess there's not really any such thing as a dystopian past) where a central government demands tribute from each of 12 Districts each year. The tributes are children, and to punish the Districts for a past rebellion, the children are sent into an arena to kill each other. The main character is a girl from District 12 (which we can deduce is where Appalachia used to be) who volunteers to replace her beloved sister as tribute. And I'm not going to tell you anything else except to say that it is awesome. (Although my extreme love for Fahrenheit 451, Blade Runner, Nineteen Eighty Four, Neuromancer, and other futuristic/dystopian-sci fi-with-political/social-commentary does not make me the most impartial judge.) But it has fantastic characters, a very well-conceived world, excellent plotting - and reading it made me realize that actually, Twilight kind of sucks. (Ha - I didn't mean to do that, but still, funny. I will elaborate on these thoughts later, after Jess is done with Twilight and [hopefully!] I have persuaded her/others to check out these books.)