The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, is a novel set in future America, in a time when the country is divided into Districts and each District must, in essence, pay a yearly sacrifice of one boy and one girl as a punishment for having rebelled once. They call this process the Hunger Games; however, the Games are not played for fun, nor are they played fairly.

Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch – this is the Capitol's way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion.

The Hunger Games last as long as it takes for all the tributes (participants) except for one to die or be killed. In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mallark participate in the 74th annual Hunger Games representing District 12, and it takes them eighteen days to win the competition. Cato is the last of the other tributes to die, and he dies on the eighteenth day. Immediately Claudius Templesmith announces that there can be only one winner, but he has to recant that proclamation when Kat and Peeta make a suicide pact. This is the first time two winners have been proclaimed in the Hunger Games.