Set in a futuristic distopia, “The Hunger Games” is a twisted but entertaining story about a teenage girl, Katniss, rebelling against a corrupted government. Against all odds, Katniss defeats the competition that the government has created in order to punish the citizens for revolting against them a century previously. Dimond students love the story. Dimond’s library now holds three copies of the book and two copies of the sequel “Catching Fire”. They are all currently checked out. Emily Carpenter, a Dimond freshman, loved “The Hunger Games.” “It was a huge cliffhanger at the end. It made the story even better,” said Carpenter. Morgan Bloom, also a Dimond freshman, is a “Hunger Games” fan. “It was very well written, very well done,” said Bloom. “If I was a critic, I would give it four and a half stars, because no book ever gets five!” Suzanne Metcalfe, Dimond’s librarian, thinks she can explain its popularity. “The whole idea of a distopian society is popular in the Young Adult fiction list. That speaks a lot to the popularity.” When asked about the society and government style that the characters lived in, Carpenter and Bloom had very strong opinions. “That government, The Capitol, was ridiculous!” said Bloom. Carpenter said, “They should revolt!” “When I try to explain The Hunger Games , a bunch of kids thrown into an arena to kill each other, it just sounds bad. You have to read it to know how good it is,” said Carpenter. I took Emily’s advice and true to her word the book is really good, although it does sound sketchy when you try to give a summary. Metcalfe says that “The Hunger Games” is probably the most popular book of 2009-10, right up there with the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers. She said that she read the books in “pretty much one sitting, that’s how good it was.” The buzz around the library was that most of the kids “hate the killing idea, but they get so caught up in the story and they definitely don’t want the other kids to die, but they still want the main characters to live,” said Metcalfe. Metcalfe herself also experienced the multiple opinions about the series. “The whole time I was reading it I was just thinking, ‘I hate this book, I hate this book, I hate it, what is going to happen next!’” said Metcalfe. The next book in the series, “Mockingjay ,” is due to be released at the end of August of this year and readers are already beginning to form opinions on the Peeta versus Gale battle. Bloom wants her to have Peeta, but Carpenter disagrees, “I would have to say Gale,” said Bloom. “I want her to end up with Gale, she loves Peeta as a friend, but only that, they have a deep friendship bond,” said Metcalfe. Either way it goes, “Mockingjay” is bound to be just as successful as the first two books.