The Romance
Love triangles are a tad overdone nowadays, and the romances within The Hunger Games are hardly the most important aspects of the books. That said, you can’t deny that Katniss’ back and forth between Gale and Peeta is engaging, to the point where it’s often difficult to know which relationship to root for, even if you do favor one character over the other.
Part of what makes this love triangle so compelling is that both contenders are fully fleshed out characters who serve a purpose beyond just being the main character’s love interest. That makes it easy to relate to them — and feel sorry for them — as the story unravels.
It’s also refreshing that Katniss herself is defined as so much more than either of these relationships, and that she very well could have ended up on her own at the end of the trilogy (though we’re okay with how things actually turned out).