The Hunger Games was an action-packed romance novel that had just enough of each in every sentence. The Hunger Games was written by New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Collins. The main character of The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen, had to overcome many obstacles, including discovering her love for a boy, Peeta Mellark. Katniss must find a way to balance keeping her family alive and keeping herself alive. The main elements covered in the novel are action, romance, and how the two things fit together. The action in The Hunger Games is straight out of the book in the first chapter. Katniss is with her best friend, Gale, and in a flashback we are told how Gale and Katniss meet while she is hunting in the woods. They eat and return home to prepare for the harvest, a ceremony where tributes from each neighborhood are chosen. There are twelve districts and two people (one boy and one girl) from each district to compete in the "Hunger Games" against each other. The Hunger Games is where all the tributes from all the districts fight for their lives in an arena with only the weapon of their choice and many people watch them kill each other for their lives. The last one alive wins the games and is the winner. The winners receive income from the capital for life and can live in the winners' village with their families. In exchange, the victors must train future tributes to prepare for the games. Katniss is good with the bow and arrow and this will be her weapon for the games. She received the arrow when her father showed her how to use it when she was little, before her father was blown up in a mining accident. Katniss becomes a tribute when her sister, Primrose Everdeen, is chosen to be a tribute; Katniss volunteers as a tribute and she is in the middle of paper......if she starts a rebellion for her action during the game, she will be killed. The only defense she can keep is that they are too stupidly in love to know otherwise. She doesn't even need to act like them since Katniss is stupidly in love with Peeta. They are on their way home when Katniss grabs Peeta's hand and "dreads the moment when I finally have to let go" (374). Katniss and Peeta's love triumphs over death and the ideas of game creators. Action leads to romance and romance is the basis of the book. The book is full of action and romance, and they balance each other out. Action and romance go hand in hand in this novel. The novel ends on a cliffhanger when Katniss and Peeta return home and they don't know what will happen next; all that remains is to read Catching Fire and see the rest of the trilogy..