Savannah Miller, 26 years old and a "Hunger Games" reader for half of her life, has only grown in admiration for Suzanne Collins' dystopian novels.
"As a kid you focus so much on the plot and the action," says Miller, a researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and among hundreds of fans at the Barnes Noble in Manhattan's Union Square who attended the midnight launch party for "Sunrise on the Reaping," published Tuesday. "As an adult I connected to the characters a lot more and had more of an emotional response. I also appreciated the writing a lot."
"Hunger Games" fans gathered in bookstores around the world for celebrations of Collins fifth novel in her blockbuster series about a post-apocalyptic society in which combatants are forced to fight on camera for their survival. Attendees in New York - some dressed as Haymitch Abernathy, Effie Trinket and other characters - went on scavenger hunts, attempted to solve "Hunger Games"-themed puzzles and tried out a "Hunger Games" trivia game so challenging that even Collins' editor, David Levithan, said he couldn't answer them all.
Fans who fell in love with series as children continue attachment
Many arrivals Monday night were women in their 20s and 30s who had loved the books in middle school and renewed their attachment when Collins unexpectedly resumed the novels five years ago.
