Hunger Games

My sister and roommate finally convinced me to pick up The Hunger Games. I haven’t read at all since finishing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because I’ve been catching up on my Criminal Minds episodes, but today at lunch I finally started. I’m only 60 pages in (so please don’t leave any spoilers in your comments), and I can’t stop thinking of the short story by Shirley Jackson called "The Lottery." Have you read it? I read it in a lit class my sophomore year of college. It made me sick to my stomach at the time, but it’s one assignment from my college studies that I actually remember, so I guess it left an impression. If you’ve read both, do you see a correlation? "The Lottery" was published in 1948. I’d be interested to know if Suzanne Collins has read it. I bet she has.