Hunger Games Trilogy

I would have loved these books even more if they existed in 1987. The fourteen-year-old me loved Stephen King's "Bachman books" which strike me as the most obvious antecedents. The best Bachman book, "The Long Walk," centers on a futuristic America where oppressed young citizens elect to take part in a marathon walk where the last person standing wins a lottery and all the losers face death by firing squad. Oh how I loved this story. The Hunger Games books have a similar conceit: dystopian society in which a reality tv competition pits teens against one another in a fight to the death. I don't want to say more about the plot because you should read these books before the first film adaptation comes out this March. They're quite compelling and I admired how damn dark they were too. Relentlessly dark at times. The third book, "Mockingjay," dragged a bit, but the first two--total page-turners.