Hunger Games. By Suzanne Collin.

This may be the best book I've read this year. 

It's a Young Adult novel, but most adults who enjoy science fiction will like it, too.

"Hunger Games" is set in a future North America.  The population has been divided up into the Capitol and the twelve Districts. (The thirteenth district was destroyed when it rebelled.)  The Capitol exacts annual tribute - taxes, goods and two children between the age of 12 and 18. These children are entered in the Hunger Games.

Katniss, 16, is well acquainted with hunger.  For the last five years she's kept her mother and her younger sister alive by illegal hunting and gathering plants from the dangerous area beyond the district fence.  But she knows she's going to the Capitol to die, because 23 of the 24 participants in the Hunger games always die. The last survivor - the one who manages to kill and endure the longest - is the winner.

The other player from her district is Peeta,  a boy who once saved Katniss' life.  She knows he won't survive long; he's gentle, and the weak die first.  But as the Games commence, she finds that Peeta again holds her future in his hands, as the two of them maneuver  to keep their lives and their souls, against a  system designed to reward treachery and corruption.

My description doesn't do the book justice.   It's complex and exiting, funny and sad, enraging and uplifting.  You have to read it yourself.