Book Review - Catching Fire

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


(technically this is another re-read, first finished in 2010)

When you get to the middle of serial fiction - most especially trilogies, but it can happen in other types of series as well - you sometimes reach a point where you feel like the book you're trying to get into is only there to knit together two disparate storylines with no cohesive plot of it's own.

I'm happy to report, that this is most definitely NOT the case with Catching Fire, book two of the Hunger Games saga by Suzanne Collins. Katniss Everdeen, the intrepid heroine of the first novel in the series is doing her best to adjust to life in the Victor's Village back home in District 12. She has all the money she could want, a huge house to share with her mother and her sister Prim, and the freedom to do as she pleases with her days.

What she pleases, most usually, is heading out to hunt in the woods. But life in District 12 has moved on without Katniss, and her hunting partner Gale is now spending his own days working in the mines to help support his own family. Things have been awkward with Peeta since their return, and Haymitch is little help balancing out the lonely days. A little lost, a little forlorn, it almost seems like Katniss is feeling a little sorry for herself, until the announcement of the Quarter Quell - the 75th annual Hunger Games, where Katniss thought she would be a mentor for one of the children of her district. Instead, she discovers that the mystery of who is headed back into the arena hits more chillingly close to home.

Catching Fire isn't short on action, and it isn't short on the threesome dilemma of Katniss, Gale and Peeta that began in the first novel. While the characters and the history carry through, the plot arc is complete in it's own right, a refreshing change from a lot of books of this type. While some of the urgency that the first book had as we all know that Katniss is now the protagonist of the entire series and not just someone to fall for in one book (in fantasy fiction it's hard to say - your protagonist often dies suddenly and is replaced in a sequel by a different person. Not like Darren in Bewitched, I mean a whole other character - it's just usually best not to get too attached in fantasy fic) it's easy to open your heart to her a little more, especially as she struggles with her relationships and shows a bit more of her humanity.

Catching Fire is a solid book, with plenty of intrigue and suspense, and an excellent follow-up to the first in the series, bringing it in as one of my top ten YA reads of all time.



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