Review: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

*** Spoiler Alert - If you don’t want to ruin the book for yourself, please take caution when reading ahead… ***

I was super excited when I sat down to read this book. I loved the first one in the series and I was told that my issues with the first book would be cleared up in the second. What issues? I had problems with the characters going along with the demands of the Capitol and not rebelling enough. So I was told by more than one person that this changes in Catching Fire, which it does and which makes me happy.

So the book goes on with Katniss being a victor and going on with her Victory Tour with Peeta before returning home. There are obvious signs of unrest in Panem which she can’t help but encourage. The Quarter Quell is approaching, the special anniversary of the games where they make them extra “special,” is well on it’s way. The announcement calls for previous victors to be reaped and called back into the arena.

This is really my only problem with this book. I was terrified of this happening and in my crazy plot brain-storming I sort of thought this would happen. More games. Don’t get me wrong, they were interesting in the first book, but now it’s like Miss Collins can’t write about this society without having half, if not more, of each novel set in the games. Even when I read through the rest of this book and saw the end of these “games” I was still a little bothered by them having to occur at all.

That said, when the novel finally came to and end I was pleased with where it was heading for the final installment. I love a good uprising, and this is one of those few books in my entire existence of reading that has brought out such an emotional reaction from me.

Much less annoying issues I had with this book include the speed. I don’t know what Collins was after in some parts. At first she’s going at a fine pace and all, details riddling the pages, emotions in every corner of the paragraphs, and then in a few short lines she’s jumped ahead several weeks or months like we’re supposed to just assumed what happened anyway. It didn’t ruin any of the story for me, but I was still shaking my head and wish she’d done so a little more fluidly.

Second, the love triangle is confusing the crap out of me. Who is Katniss in love with? At first it’s Gale, and she’s so sorry for what she’d done to Peeta, dragging him along and all. Then she’s in love with Peeta and can’t stand not to be out of his arms and thoughts of Gale are nowhere to be seen. I just wish there’d be a healthy page somewhere the outright explains what’s going on with her screwed up love life.

But onto the book…

Once again I commend Miss Collins for her dystopian world that is so screwed up you can‘t help but want to dive in. It’s only the second book, and I read the first book a little while ago, but when I read this one I felt as if I’d never left. I suppose you really bring out the Hunger Games fan in you when you understand it all and “know the drill” so to speak.

If you are considering reading this book because you read the first I highly suggest you do so. I feel it was much more in depth and driven than the first. It gets down to the main idea of the plot and the reason I think we all want to sit down and read these books.




View all my reviews