On February 11, students and teachers at University City High School recently formed a new Book Club centered around The Hunger Games, and they meet in Room B-17 on Fridays during lunch.

The Hunger Games is a young-adult, dystopian novel written by Author Suzanne Collins. The series has been well-received by critics, and was named Publishers Weekly‘s “Best Books of the Year” in 2008. This led to numerous Book Clubs based on the franchise that could be found on internet websites such as Celebuzz or at high schools such as UC High (publishersweekly.com).

According to Advisor Jessica Huntsberger, the club was established to allow readers of any age attending or working at UC High to discuss the book in preparation for the upcoming film adaptation, which was released on March 23. She said, “I consider it an informal discussion group that we created, because it is not an official UCHS club.”

Senior Gabriella Bermudez has been to every meeting of the club and revealed that members converse about the book’s plot through questions and speculation. “We talk about the philosophy of the book and relate it to real-life, modern events,” said Bermudez.

The club promoted themselves by creating posters that they put up around school and flyers that they handed out to students. Sophomore Alyssa Medina still plans to join the club, but she participated in spreading the word about the new club on campus. She said, “I haven’t been to a meeting yet, but I hope that the club was able to bring fans of The Hunger Games closer together.”

Despite the film already being released, Bermudez hopes that the club can further continue to talk about The Hunger Games. “We can still compare similarities and differences between the movie and the book,” she explained. “Plus, there are still two more books [Catching Fire and Mockingjay] in the series that we haven’t even started discussing yet.”

“I hope that the film adaptation created a bigger audience for The Hunger Games, so that our club can keep growing and living,” said Huntsberger.