Book Review

Catching Fire

By: Suzanne Collins

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Publish Date: September 2009

Genre: Young Adult, Fiction

Series: Second book of The Hunger Games (for review of first book Hunger Games click here.)

Recommendation: YES!!! But read The Hunger Games first. You will appreciate this book much better.

First Sentence:
I clasp the flask between my hands even though the warmth from the tea has long since leached into the frozen air.

Book Synopsis:

SPARKS ARE IGNITING.

FLAMES ARE SPREADING.

AND THE CAPITOL WANTS REVENGE.

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 her 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 Summary and Thoughts:

This book starts just months after Katniss and Peeta return home from the Hunger Games, which they won by tricking the Capitol with those poisonous berries. Here we are in the morning of when the Victors Tour starts. Things have changed for Katniss in District 12. Katniss is not sure where she fits in now, she is rich beyond her dreams and has more fame than she wants with being a Victor, let alone the Love Struck Victor, of the Hunger Games. Then there is her relationships that have changed due to those Games; Gale, Peeta, her Mother, Prim, and the people (who helped her by donating what little they had to send her gifts along with all others). And Katniss is well aware she is hated by the Capitol Authorities for her trick that won her and Peeta the Hunger Games, when there is only to be one winner.

President Snow graces Katniss with his presence before her tour and makes her aware some people believed what she did that won her the Hunger Games was inteded to save both Katniss's and Peeta's lives due to the crazy young love they shared, yet other Districts took this as an act of defiance towards the Capitol leading to possible uprisings. President Snow makes Katniss aware she is to do what she can to convince the people in all the Districts she is truely in love with Peeta and that is what drew her to come up with the idea with the berries, or else something will happen to anyone she loves (not nice either).

Katniss, Peeta, Haymitch, and the rest of their crew go on the tour. They are heavily guarded and watched as they go from District to District. Then you read of all the changes that happen in District 12 as we come to the next years Hunger Games. Even though this sounds as it may be boring, there are a lot of happenings that keep the pages turning and pick up small clues to what is going on around the different Districts and maybe even for later in the book.

The next years Hunger Games come about with great celebration in the Capitol, being this is the anniversary of 75 years of games. Every 25 years the games are called the Quarter Quell, which are set up with special circumstances established by the Capitol when the games started. No one knows what these celebratory circumstances are until the sealed envelopes of years ago are opened and read. Katniss and Peeta are slightly relieved, as being Victors they are not entered in the drawings of the games again, yet they still worry over their siblings and friends who are in the age range. Or are they?

Katniss gets tidbits of information as to what is going on outside District 12. But what is really going on? With District 12 being of such a small census will they be affected? Will Katniss be able to help sooth what people think of rebeling? Does she even want too? Where does Katniss stand on the rebellion and worries of her families and friends?

You are going to have to read the book. There are very great details given along the way to help you out as well.

The pacing is wonderful, everytime I went to set the book down to go back to work or go to bed (so I could get up for work) something else would happen and I had to keep going. The many rises and falls of the story are very well set to keep you going, no interest lost quickly here. After reading both books I feel I really know these characters very well, through what they have done or not done along with how their friends and family react or what they say.