The first book was, on the whole, rather fascinating as the reader thrusts themselves into the world of Panem and the Capitol. Like many first novels of a series, is more informative than anything else and sets the premise and the tone for the remaining two. I found the character of Katniss to be rather unappealing and found myself lacking any empathy with her. Of course, she has a sad life with her father having died and she then having to support her mother and sister single-handedly due to her mother's apparent mental breakdown. However, there are some things which lack sense. A prime example of this is her reaction to Peeta being chosen at the reaping. Her dreading of "Please not him" implies to the reader something dreadful happened between them but Collins drops our expectations of a cliff with the actual reason: Peeta gave Katniss bread. To say Katniss' behaviour in the novels is ridiculous is a complete understatement. In the first novel she seems to despise her mother, noting that she never lets her mother hug her or have any physical contact whatsoever, because of her inability to cope following her husband's untimely death. This selfish behaviour does not stop here and leaves the reader not caring about Katniss' long winded evaluations of her relationship with Peeta and Gale.
