: Far future. The Hunger Games are a reminder of the brutally crushed rebellion. To survive the Games, the heroine must kill a friend, but she remains herself, choosing love and friendship.

The novel is written on behalf of the main character Katniss Everdeen.

Part I. Attributes

The state of Panem, formed on the North American continent after a series of natural disasters, is divided into twelve districts and the capital, Capitol. Once there were thirteen districts, but after a big uprising, brutally crushed by the authorities, District 13 was completely destroyed. As a punishment for the rebellion, the Capitol instituted the annual Hunger Games, which are televised throughout the country. Each district must send a boy and a girl to the Games. 24 tribune members are killing each other in the Arena. The Capitol provides the only surviving winner with a well-fed and comfortable life.

Seventeen-year-old Katniss Everdeen lives in a poor district of District-12, whose inhabitants are engaged in coal mining. At the age of twelve, after the death of her miner father, Katniss remained the only support of the family and learned to hunt with bow. The girl does not want to get married and have children who can get to the Games. Today is Harvest Day - the time to choose the tributes. Katniss has a great chance of getting to the Arena. The names of the tributes are written on cards that are thrown into two glass balls and pulled out like a lottery.

According to the rules, they begin to participate in the harvest from the age of twelve. The first time your name is entered once, at thirteen years - twice already, and so on, until you are eighteen.

A poor man dying of hunger can make his name again and get a meager rations for a year. That is what Katniss did. Her name will be on 20 cards. The girl is reassured that there will be only one card with the name of the younger sister Prim.

Harvesting takes place on the main square of District 12 and is televised throughout Panem. In addition to the manager from the Capitol, the mayor and Haymitch Eberneti, the only living winner from District 12, are sitting on the podium near two glass balls. To Katniss's horror, the manager pulls out a card with the name of Prim. By law, anyone can replace a tribute by volunteering. This is what Katniss does, because her weak little sister will not live in the Arena even for a day.

From that very moment when I took the place of Prim, something has changed - I have gained value.

Among the boys, lots fall on Pete Mellark, the son of a baker. Katniss recalls how Pete saved her family from starvation right after her father died. He deliberately ruined two loaves of bread and managed to give them to Katniss, for which he was punished by his mother. The girl did not dare to thank him.

After a heartbreaking farewell to their relatives, Katniss and Pete are taken to the Capitol on a luxurious train. The steward and Haymitch, the tribute mentor, are traveling with them. Winning the Games depends not only on strength and dexterity, but also on the number of sponsors. The more they will be, the more often the tributes will receive medicine, food and weapons in the Arena. Attributes should appeal to the public. For this, a solemn procession, training sessions, which are watched by potential sponsors, and a series of interviews in which each tribute should show what it is capable of are organized before the Games.

Mentor ... is the only thread connecting players with the outside world. The one who gives advice, finds sponsors and organizes the presentation of gifts.

Towards the end of the journey, Katniss and Pete manage to bring Haymitch's drunkard to his senses and make him help. For the opening ceremony, they sew outfits embraced by the tongues of the synthetic flame, which produce a splash. This is followed by a series of workouts.Attributes live in a luxurious Training Center, where they are served by the mute - political criminals with their tongues cut off. Haymitch insists that Katniss and Pete act like friends in public and at other tributes - this will add to their popularity and attract wealthy sponsors.

Nevertheless, the moment will come, and we will have to quit playing the fool and become those who we are - cruel opponents.

Three days later, individual shows begin, at which the stewards of the Games evaluate the tributes on a twelve-point scale. Impudent Katniss shoots with a bow in the direction of stewards sitting at the table, knocks an apple from the mouth of a roasted pig, and gets eleven points. Then it’s the turn of the interview. Before the whole country, Pete admits that since childhood she loves Katniss.

Part II. Games

Katniss doesn't trust Pete. She believes that he pretends to be in love, trying to attract the attention of sponsors and survive in the Arena, and get angry at Pete because of the interview, although the “unfortunate lovers” have already become universal favorites. The night before the Games, Katniss does not sleep. She rises to the roof of the Center and finds Pete there. He does not expect to survive at the Games and wants only one thing: not to break, not to turn into a monster, to die by himself. Katniss is going to do everything to win.

I can’t leave without a fight. I just ... I want to somehow show the Capitol that I do not belong to him. That I am more than a pawn in his Games.

Early in the morning, the tributes are taken to the Arena, where they have to survive for several weeks. For each Games, the Arena is reissued. It may be a desert, a jungle or an active volcano. Deadly traps are set up throughout the Arena, which are launched by the chief administrator. The 74th Hunger Games begins at the Arena with a lake and a pine forest. Between them on the trampled platform stands the Horn of Plenty, filled with things, food and weapons. At the Horn itself, Kiniss sees a silver bow, but she can’t get there. She follows Haymitch's advice and flees into the forest. At the Horn, a massacre begins. The death of each tribute is reported by a shot from a cannon, and with the onset of darkness, portraits of the dead are displayed in the night sky.

For several days, Katniss survives alone, sleeps on trees, almost dies of thirst, but finds water in time. Most of all, she fears tributes from rich districts. There, children are taught to fight from early childhood. These tributes are strong and tall, they are often called by volunteers and win. The remaining participants in the Games call them pros. At the beginning of the Games, the pros conclude an alliance and kill the weakest. It was such a gang that Katniss noticed one night. With amazement, she notices Pete in this company.

From the conversation, the pros Katniss understands: they put up with Pete to find and kill her with his help - a dangerous fool who got eleven points.

On the third day of the Games, the girl falls into the center of a forest fire. The stewards summoned the fiery wave so that the capitol audience would not get bored, because there were no murders that day. Katniss is fired at with fireballs, one of which hurts her leg.

By evening, the pros find wounded Katniss, but they can’t get her - the girl climbs trees perfectly. Then the pros are left to wait under the tree. On a nearby tree, Katniss notices a baby from Rutu District 11. She points Katniss to a nest of genetically modified wasps whose bite is caused by crazy hallucinations. The Capitol brought these wasps to fight the rebels. At this time, the first gift of the sponsors, an ointment for burns, descends on a silver parachute.

At dawn, Katniss dumps a hornet's nest on the pros and takes away their bow and quiver of arrows. Katniss herself is also stung by killer wasps. Through the dope of hallucinations, she sees Pete, who makes her hide from the pros, and protects her from the most powerful - Cato. He stabs Pete with a knife.

Katniss regains consciousness in a few days. The girl gets her food and concludes an alliance with Ruta. They decide to defuse the pros by depriving them of food supplies.While the girl distracts their attention, Katniss makes her way to the lake and discovers that a huge pile of supplies from the Cornucopia are mined. The girl manages to activate the minefield. The reserves, without which the pros cannot survive in the forest, are destroyed, but Katniss herself is shell-shocked by the explosion and stalls in one ear.

Katniss searches for Ruth for a long time and discovers her, entangled in a network trap. She does not have time to free the baby - she is killed by one of the pros.

The death of Ruta made me with all my skin feel the injustice that is being done to us.

Now Katniss, like Pete, wants the Capitol to understand: the stands do not belong to him without a trace. In protest, she adorns Ruth's body with flowers. Katniss is exhausted. She hides in a tree until a voice from the host of the Games is heard from above, informing about changes in the rules. Now, two can win the Games if they are from the same district.

Part III. Winner

Katniss sets off in search of Pete and finds him seriously wounded. She drags Pete into a small cave and tries to heal. To get help from sponsors, she has to act in love. Pete begins a blood poisoning.

At this time, the host of the Games announces: the essentials are waiting for each of the six surviving tributes by the lake. Katniss realizes that only there she will get a cure for Pete. At the lake, another surviving couple from Discreta-2 will be waiting for her. Pete is about to go with her, and then another silver parachute brings a strong sleeping pill. Katniss euthanizes Pete and goes for medicine.

At dawn, a table with numbered backpacks appears at the Cornucopia. Katniss manages to grab a tiny backpack number twelve when she is attacked by a girl from Discretion-2. A strong, high pro presses Katniss to the ground and wants to disfigure. The girl is saved by the fellow countryman Ruta. Upon learning that Katniss was Ruth's ally and destroyed her killer, he lets go of the girl. The wounded Katniss hardly returns to the cave, injects Pete with the medicine and faints. Recovering, the girl sees Pete almost recovered.

It rains for two days. When it ends, the tributes go hunting. Pete finds poisonous berries. They are stolen by one of the participants in the Games, she dies, and three tributes remain. In the morning, Katniss discovers that the stewards drained the springs and streams in the Arena, leaving only drinking water in the lake to drive the remaining tributes to him.

Approaching the lake, Katniss notices a guy from Discret-2, but her arrows bounce off a tribute pulled into chain mail. At this point, the stewards are releasing mutant re-generators, a mixture of wolf and human. Attributes climb onto the Cornucopia, Pete manages to hurt. The guy from Discrete-2 grabs Pete to cover himself with him, but Katniss shoots him in the arm, he falls into the clutches of the reins and disappears inside the Horn. Girl puts tourniquet on Pete's leg. All night they wait for the death of the enemy, but in the morning he is still alive. Katniss has to finish him off. Pete and Katniss are waiting to be picked up from the Arena as winners, but the presenter announces the cancellation of the new rules. Only one can remain alive. Pete asks to kill him, but Katniss understands:

Without a winner, all their ingenious plans and all Games lose their meaning. The capitol will remain stupid, and stewards will be to blame.

Katniss and Pete are about to eat poisonous berries when they are stopped by a frightened presenter and declared the winners of the 74th Hunger Games.

Pita amputated leg and make a skillful prosthesis. The entire Capitol welcomes the winners, but Haymitch warns Katniss that Panem’s authorities are furious: the girl made them a laughing stock. Her only chance to escape is to play the role of a lover. Pete is unaware of this danger and looks in love, but Katniss does not believe him. Finally they are taken home to District 12. On the way, Katniss confesses to Pete that she was pretending to be amazed that Pete actually loves her.