I personally think that the single first person POV of Katniss ruined a lot of tension I had when reading the Hunger Games. (HG spoilers: ) As it's so obvious who will stay alive not only during the arena but the entire series.
I personally much preferred the arena scenes over the rebellion scenes, which happened to be a major part of the sequels.
I really dig the "arena" idea though, so through online searches I found Ender's Game and Red Rising. I don't know why Ender's game came up since I really didn't think it was an arena book, or at least wasn't what I was looking for (i.e many contestants pitted against each other for an extended duration) . It's a good book, just not what I was looking for.
Red rising (book 1) however scratched the itch. The arena is different but I quite enjoyed, despite some issues. But again it does have the similar problem where it's a single POV character. So I'm looking for an arena book that has multiple POV characters. I think the uncertainty of who wins, rise the stakes for any encounter as not all the POVs can live. Ideally, it should end with the game ending as it's meant, not some rebellion story. Are there any books like this?
by 0xcedbeef