Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc. (September 1, 2009)
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages (Hardcover): 391
Series: The Hunger Games (Book 2)
Source: Bought
ISBN-13:
9780439023498
Genre: Dystopia
Author:
Website
Series Reviews:
Book 1 (5
★)
Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark won the annual competition described in Hunger Games, but the aftermath leaves these victors with no sense of triumph. Instead, they have become the poster boys for a rebellion that they never planned to lead. That new, unwanted status puts them in the bull's-eye for merciless revenge by The Capitol.
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Overview:
The thrill of this book takes a considerable amount of time getting started. Unlike The Hunger Games, this book starts out very slow, with a long setup of the theme for this book. There is the agonizing threat and changes that are beginning to take place in Panem since Katniss and Peeta won the Games. The delicate balance of the love triangle is thrown into a tighter net with the announcement of the Quell. This book has interesting deaths and interesting desire behind it, but was missing something that gripped me like the first book, though I still really enjoyed it.
Review:
While lackluster in comparison to The Hunger Games, this book still has all the rights of being the sequel. The first thing that you notice about the first book is the thrill of action and it maintains that theme throughout the whole book. The first thing you notice about this book is that the beginning is a complete opposite.
With no further creation and depth of characters, we stay on the mainstream plot lines that were established for the characters through and at the end of the first book. We know that Katniss is strong, fierce, and independent but this book doesn't really continue to nurture that side of her; instead it takes her down the path of confusion and unable to bolster the responsibility of her actions. The same lack of definition exists with Peeta and Gale as well. What was once a carefully constructed and fragile love triangle is now a mash up of teenage confusion and anger.
However, once being able to get past the first half of the book and into the action heavy part, we are introduced to thick plot of conspiracy and rebellion all the while we are set in an amazing new arena. While the deaths were not as thrilling or unique, the remaining support characters that we witness were interesting and mysterious which adds a connection to the action.
Overall, this book was considerably slow in the beginning and the characters lacked further growth and depth but we were still thrown into the dystopian world of Suzanne Collins that we grew to love in the first installment. In this book, we got a new concept aside from a misconstrued existence in Panem; we were thrust into the middle of the underground, of the rebellion, of the conspiracy and what an intriguing place it is to be.
Rating out of 5:
