Book Review: Catching Fire

Catching Fire (Hunger Games #2)

By: Suzanne Collins

Published By: Scholastic

Publication Date: September 2009

Page Count: 391

Buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound

Source: Purchased by Reviewer

Audience: Young Adult - Dystopian

After reading The Hunger Games, I don't think there are many people who wouldn't want to dive right in to the sequel, Catching Fire. It nearly killed me to wait a year for it! During that time, I did what any fan girl probably would, try and dream up what could possibly happen and build it up in my head until I was sure it couldn't live up to my expectations. I was delighted to be wrong. I couldn't ever dream that President Snow could be so despicably dastardly as to decide what he does about how to get revenge on Katniss and ensure a most intriguing 75th Hunger Games. I think Catching Fire was just so aptly named - I had already fallen for the characters hard, and my desperation at wondering how they could all survive was just ridiculous. Catching Fire took everything to another level. 

It depends on how much you know about Catching Fire as to how spoiled you could be, so I'm going to be incredibly vague here just in case. Something is announced by President Snow, which just about blew my composure to smithereens, and has some very very serious implications for our adored characters. It also makes the next batch of tributes extremely interesting and it cranked up my anticipation of the games to another level. 

The new tributes were a really diverse set of characters - even more than the previous reaping's batch - and this time I learned a lot more of their names, their back stories and felt their deaths more keenly. I really loved Finnick, and his smug charm. He is one of my favorite characters from the series, along side Cinna, and it was great to see him develop from the swaggering rich woman's plaything into a man of surprising emotional depth. Again, I enjoyed watching Katniss snub the 'careers' and make friends with the under dogs. I loved the mad mutterings of Wiress, and the babblings of Mags, an eighty year old woman who volunteered to be reaped for this, the 75th Hunger Games. 

The arena was so different and yet again, wildly inventive. There was a moment when everyone realizes something about the arena which just blew me away with how clever it was. I can see the next movie in the series just taking this idea and going crazy with it - and yet again I am waiting a year for Catching Fire like a morphling addict craving the next hit!! 

Summary:

Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create. 

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying. 

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before... and surprising readers at every turn.