Battle Royale - Koushun Takami

Well this book seemed a logical choice having read Hunger Games.  And I'm very glad I decided to pick it up.  Most people probably know the rough story line; Japanese school class kidnapped put on an island and forced to fight to the death.

The joy of the book is that it keeps you engrossed throughout.  At first it is easy to get lost with the names and working out which school child just died (there are 40 of them after all), but soon enough the main characters come to the fore and you can't help but spot traits familiar to teenagers the world over.

A good read and one that I'll be recommending to people.

El Narco - Ioan Grillo

So after reading several books about teenagers killing each other described in a fun and romantic way I thought it might be good to read something a little more serious and hard hitting.  So I turned to Ioan Grillo's look at the Mexican drug war.

There has been alot of international attention for the Mexican drug war in recent years as the level of violence has peaked leading to piles of headline grabbing corpses and AK47 fuelled shoot outs.  The book paints an interesting picture of how the current situation  came to pass and describes in interesting detail the state of the country at the moment.  Which is a pretty worrying situation with the drug gangs dealing in billions of dollars of currency and arming themselves with the profits.  The killing and corruption at the heart of the Mexican state seems to know no limits.

A fascinating book but in the end another book about teenagers killing each other.  If only this one was a fiction book.