Author: Suzanne Collins
Series: #2 - The Hunger Games
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: September 1st, 2009
My Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0
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.
My Review:
Catching Fire, this one wasn’t hard for me at all. After reading the first and going straight into this book, I couldn’t put it down. However, this review will focus on Catching Fire alone, as if it was a book by its own. I will talk about the series later, after the review is finished for all the individual books alone.With the book, the scenery and the characters change dramatically. I found myself more and more yelling at Katniss for being a pansy in this book, rather than the strong, calm, and collected character in the first book. This book is where more or less, I found myself questioning Katniss and her change, and the book where I hate Katniss the most. However, the other characters in this book fill in those gaps where Katniss should be shining, when a prolific main character just isn’t there.
The world building in this book really only came into play with the new set of games coming, and what they bring to Katniss and Peeta. The other districts start to come to life, and what is going on in each of the districts. Seeing them and trying to understand what they are like and how they differ from District 12, brings life to the book and the scenery. However, I do wish the book would’ve slowed down through some of the districts, so they could be built just a bit better.
I felt lost and disjointed from the other districts and I wanted to get to know the others. I was already invested into the series and wanted to know more about the others, but that just didn’t happen. In the other districts though, I started to realize the rebellion and see just how far they’ve come, and what they were willing to do.
The best building block for this book was the character building. Katniss’s transformation into a self-righteous death to save Peeta, and how she became this pansy of a character made me mad. Peeta and Gale took the limelight here; they both got more involved with Katniss. As much as I hate Love Triangles, this one worked. I found myself rooting for Peeta, go Team Peeta! I found that he’s just a more likeable character, and genuinely is more interested in Katniss than Gale seems to be.
Overall the book was a great sequel in the series. I highly doubt this book would have been much more than a sequel if anyone other than Suzanne Collins had done this book. The way the dialogue was done, the world building, and the character details were breathtaking and I found myself wanting more out of this book.
