Pretense reviewed Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games, #2)
Review of 'Catching Fire' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This is my first time reading Catching Fire, and maybe you could say it’s a bit overdue. Having seen the movie helped somewhat, because I had an idea of what to expect, though some of the deviance was also surprising. In the second book, we do get a sizeable dose of that mid-trilogy slump—the first two-thirds of the book largely felt like rehashes and dull aftermath summaries following the first book. Much of the interesting action happens in the last third, so the pacing was off, but there are some redeemable qualities to that last section. The book does end on somewhat of a cliffhanger, so I also understand that Collins is setting up some suspense and anticipation for the third book. In spite of that, I’m taking a break with another book for a while before continuing with the series. (It helps that the movie version goes a …
This is my first time reading Catching Fire, and maybe you could say it’s a bit overdue. Having seen the movie helped somewhat, because I had an idea of what to expect, though some of the deviance was also surprising. In the second book, we do get a sizeable dose of that mid-trilogy slump—the first two-thirds of the book largely felt like rehashes and dull aftermath summaries following the first book. Much of the interesting action happens in the last third, so the pacing was off, but there are some redeemable qualities to that last section. The book does end on somewhat of a cliffhanger, so I also understand that Collins is setting up some suspense and anticipation for the third book. In spite of that, I’m taking a break with another book for a while before continuing with the series. (It helps that the movie version goes a bit further.)
One aspect in which this book improves over its predecessor is the inclusion of a greater cast of characters, which is necessitated by the plot. One would think the resulting new faces we receive might be an unwieldy amount, but Collins manages to focus the reader’s attention to the ones that have significant roles and hinted-at backstories. Thus, the new characters we get to meet add a lot to the world and the unfurling of the plot. Finnick Odair, of course, is a fan favorite in any medium, but I also appreciated meeting characters like Wiress, Beetee, and Johanna. They felt distinct, though their strengths and attributes were formulaic; but it was a nice change of pace from the repetitive Gale-Katniss-Peeta drama. (Which was no less of an eye-roll in this volume, by the way.) I also want to give a shout-out to Plutarch Heavensbee, who should win an award for having a badass name and also being such an intriguing character. Peeta gets slightly more fleshed out in this book, but Katniss’s limited perspective is not always favorable.
As I mentioned, the book gets off to a very slow start. Not much happens plot-wise until the last third or so of the book, which I forgive slightly since it is the second book of a trilogy. Still, you would think we might at least get some worldbuilding or additional information from the duller parts, but it is more or less Katniss’s ruminations after the Games in the previous novel and a recapitulation of life in District 12. Of course, there are some changes afoot in the District and in Panem at large—we get hints to that throughout the novel, and manage to see some of its consequences as well. Even so, I didn’t much feel that Katniss was impacted by much of that until a certain event occurs; even then, it felt heavy-handed.
Once again, the first-person perspective felt like it narrowed the scope of the novel and prevented the reader from truly grasping all that is going on in Panem. For a dystopian book though, this means that a lot of the dystopian ‘content’ ends up being rather… not quite arbitrary, but lacking in context. The themes are hinted at, but not fully explored. Perhaps there is more to come in the third book, though. I did appreciate the shifting focus of Katniss’s motivations and self-conception about her role in the larger events; she seemed to have finally matured a bit and considered the possibility of thinking outside of her own life for a brief moment. She isn’t a perfect protagonist by any means, but in this book, she at least gave me more reasons to be sympathetic. On that note, the portrayal of dealing with traumatic events and uncertainty were well done.
I have had some of the third book spoiled for me already, but it will be fun to see the payoff of the events in this book and how it all plays out. At this point, I’ve only seen the first of the two movie adaptations of Mockingjay, so there is still some suspense I can look forward to. It will also be interesting this time to compare what and how the last parts of the next book were adapted. So far, as the forerunner of early 2000s era YA dystopian series, The Hunger Games holds its own fairly well.
