I never thought I’d see The Hunger Games.

When I first saw the preview of it before watching Wanderlust, the concept really freaked me out — 24 kids in an arena, and only one can survive? It reminded me of what I’d heard about Battle Royale, another book and movie that includes a blood bath involving children — a concept that was really disturbing.

But the preview intrigued me enough — the story takes place in a dystopian world, where The Hunger Games serve as a way to intimidate the population because of a previous uprising that resulted in the destruction of one of the districts. Katniss, a 16-year-old in the poorest District 12, volunteers to be a Hunger Games participant after her 12-year-old sister is drawn in the unfortunate lottery. One of her competitors, Peeta, a baker’s son who once gave Katniss a loaf of bread in a kind gesture, declares his love for Katniss despite having to kill her in order to survive. His pining ends up benefiting the pair, though, as the world watching may send gifts to the children they are most enamored with — and in this case, Katniss and Peeta’s star-crossed lover aura works in their favor.

I read the book right before I saw the movie, and the film stayed very true to the book. I don’t really have a preference of what I liked better, but I have to say the movie’s costumes were beautiful to look at. The acting in The Hunger Games was also excellent, almost disturbingly so when it came to some of the more negative characters, and I thought the movie was easy-to-follow and fun to watch, even though it clocked in at a lengthy 2-and-a-half hours.

If you still haven’t seen the movie, I’d encourage you to read the book first — it’s a very easy read, and it’s neat to see the action from the novel play out of the big screen. The Hunger Games is hyped-up for a reason — this would be a horrible world to live in, and hopefully the scary events in the movie are a reminder of what we should avoid in our world.