Now that I'm finished with the Dresden novels I'm looking for something new to read. My wife and several coworkers have all mentioned "The Hunger Games" series, but it's hard to base on a jacket cover. Wiki puts them in the "young reader" category however. Anyone tried these books?

Movie is out very soon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9a5V9ODuY

i've only just started them myself, after a year or so of my cousin trying to get me to read them. Up to chapter 7,it's fast paced so far and holding my intrest, but I'll see the more I read.And as I've been reading, it does seen specifically geared towards younger people , just the style of writing.

Unfortunately, I would say that the 'young adult' market is the fastest growing novel genre out there.

That said, I have all but stopped buying fiction, in favour of books on Germanic (Viking and Saxon) history.

I refuse to get involved in this blatant rip-off of Battle Royale!
Some friends of mine (who are all girls not that much out of their teens) really enjoy this series though. Mind you, they've not heard of Battle Royale so that may be why.

Oh I don't disagree, although taking it from neo-Japan to post-nuclear future is enough to make it unique.

I picked it up on audiobook and have been pleasantly surprised. The main character is very flawed, and the book is the better for it. You really feel for her in this atrocity of a society.

I'm about halfway through the second book but not enjoying it as much. Hopefully the third will pay off.

I've read the first Hunger Games and watched the first Battle Royal movie as well as read some of the manga. I feel that they are different enough that to me it doesn't seem like a rip-off. I also feel that if that is going to be argued then Battle Royal could be seen as a rip-off of Lord to the Flies. Over-all though my major gripe with the book is that it seems far to violent for young readers but the story while engaging is certainly not what I would call advanced reading by any stretch so to me this feels like this book doesn't have a proper niche audience, maybe it should be market to adults as something along the lines of an action movie where you don't have to really care a whole lot for the storytelling just come along for the ride. Then again I may just be getting old and teens today can read this with out it negativity influencing them more than any of the other crap out there.
:gets off soapbox:

Everybody is going nuts about these series, but I dislike dystopias which doesn't include vast and dark galaxies and I think that if I read another book in which a teenage girl is wondering which boy to choose, I will turn inside out, like that poor bastard in the Madness Maze. I prefer more adventurous YA books like "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" by Rick Riordan or the "Jake Ransom" series by James Rollins.