Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy.
After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion.
The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Suzanne Collins continues the amazing story of Katniss Everdeen in Catching Fire, the second novel of the phenomenal Hunger Games trilogy.
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Well, I liked the first one, but all the teenage angst and internal drama is really grating after a while and I try to just ignore and skip all the parts where Katniss is confused and torn between Peeta and Gale. Very annoying. If anything, I now have even less of an idea why these books became so successful. They are OK at best. I'll still move on to the last one and re-watch the movies, but more out of a sense of duty to finish what I started. The story is not bad enough to drop, but not good enough to enjoy it.
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.
I kind of see why I had zero memory of this book compared to the first. There are two standout scenes I really, really love, but the rest of it has already turned into brain soup.
The Katniss vs. Snow scene at the beginning is great. I love the tension, the intense rose/blood imagery that Snow gets. He’s a fun villain!
I will be forever chasing that bombshell weight of that Peeta interview reveal line as well. That hit like a truck.
But everything else is just kinda… eh? I don’t like Gale. I couldn’t tell you why. He just sort of annoys me, so the love triangle between him and Katniss and Peeta doesn’t really give me much other than a dull yawn.
However, for a YA? The pro-direct action messaging is really nice.
I appreciate that the book has some more fun SF world-building, but it suffers from a lot of repetitiveness. I guess it is necessary to set the stage for the final book in the trilogy, but too much time is spent re-hashing plot points from the first one. The romance is a bit frustrating, but that is excusable since this is a children's book.
menudo re-read,, el poder leer el final ya entendiendo lo que iba a suceder? mucho mejor. recuerdo cuando lo leí en su día que no me enteré de nada, como ocurre todo en dos páginas y media más o menos... pero eso, que muy disfrutable, no os voy a mentir
Review of 'Catching Fire Movie-Tie-in-Edition [Paperback] [Nov 10, 2014] SUZANNE COLLINS' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Es bleibt dabei, der zweite Panem Band bekommt 4 Sterne von mir.
Zwar haben mich die beiden ersten Drittel außerordentlich bewegt, aber der letzte Part konnte mich einfach nicht mitreißen. Ich finde den politischen Aspekt der Reihe einfach viel spannender (deswegen liebe ich Mockingjay auch so sehr) und der bleibt in den letzten Kapiteln ja größtenteils aus.
I'll have to go back and see what I rated [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358275334s/2767052.jpg|2792775] but I think I enjoyed Catching Fire more. Maybe it's because it's been so long since I've read the first in the trilogy but I was completely involved in this story and enjoyed the political aspects and the alliance between the victors. And I swear I never thought I'd like Peeta but I did.
The only thing that I didn't like very much was the choice of narrator. I'd go 4.5 but rounding up.
Ok, I'm off to start [b:Mockingjay|7260188|Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)|Suzanne Collins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358275419s/7260188.jpg|8812783].
May 2014: 2nd reading, still 4 stars. I have since seen the first two movies. I hadn't realized how much the second film omits until I reread it. At least 2/3 of the book takes place outside the arena (in District 12, in the other districts on the victory tour, in the capitol, in the training center), with only a short section of the book taking place in the arena. Which makes sense, given that the time spent in the arena is so brief; only a few days, versus a couple weeks in a typical year, according to the book.
Whereas a much bigger section of the second film takes place in the arena. Which also makes sense, given that they assembled a pretty amazing supporting cast who needed something to do to justify their presence. It made for a very watchable film …
First read in November 2011. 4 stars.
May 2014: 2nd reading, still 4 stars. I have since seen the first two movies. I hadn't realized how much the second film omits until I reread it. At least 2/3 of the book takes place outside the arena (in District 12, in the other districts on the victory tour, in the capitol, in the training center), with only a short section of the book taking place in the arena. Which makes sense, given that the time spent in the arena is so brief; only a few days, versus a couple weeks in a typical year, according to the book.
Whereas a much bigger section of the second film takes place in the arena. Which also makes sense, given that they assembled a pretty amazing supporting cast who needed something to do to justify their presence. It made for a very watchable film -- I remember thinking it was a better film than the first one.
The sappy teenage love triangle is escalated to pretty ridiculous heights in Book 2. But with all the pre-arena time to fill, Book 2 also emphasizes a slow burn political plot, which (for me at least) is more interesting reading than Death Arena v2.0. It makes for a nice contrast with Book 1, which is essentially All Arena All The Time. The books are distinguished in a way that the films aren't.
If you haven't read Hunger Games, then stop now; you need to go back and read it! This book is a sequel to Hunger Games, and, unlike some sequels, it really depends on the previous book. That said… When I first started reading this, I wondered if I had rated its prequel to highly. As I got into it, I realized that I hadn't. But the two books really do depend on each other. This particular book helps complete the story from the first, although the cliffhanger ending of this reminds the reader that the third book is definitely needed to round out the story. I guess that'll be the next book I read… This book really does pick up at the end of Hunger Games with the continuation of the story. The personalities and characters follow and continue from the original; the characters are true. The story …
If you haven't read Hunger Games, then stop now; you need to go back and read it! This book is a sequel to Hunger Games, and, unlike some sequels, it really depends on the previous book. That said… When I first started reading this, I wondered if I had rated its prequel to highly. As I got into it, I realized that I hadn't. But the two books really do depend on each other. This particular book helps complete the story from the first, although the cliffhanger ending of this reminds the reader that the third book is definitely needed to round out the story. I guess that'll be the next book I read… This book really does pick up at the end of Hunger Games with the continuation of the story. The personalities and characters follow and continue from the original; the characters are true. The story itself is intricate and complex enough that it really is not the same story as is told in the prequel. At the end, several questions that were raised in the mind of the reader to during the story were answered, but I'm not yet convinced that the answer is totally satisfying (thus the need to finish the series…). This skill of the author to weave and tell a tale that's totally engaging is not quite as clear in this book as the previous, which is not to say that it's not worth the time. The intricacies of the game are intriguing and captivating, although it's clear that the point of the author in this book is quite different than her point in the first. It's clear that the point of this one is really to give a segue into the end. It's a reasonable segue, but it does feel more like a segue than a complete story in and of itself. I still found myself always anxious for more during each of my own forced breaks. I would like to rank it 3 1/2 stars as opposed to three or four.
Review of 'Catching Fire Movie-Tie-in-Edition [Paperback] [Nov 10, 2014] SUZANNE COLLINS' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
The second installment in the Hunger Games trilogy is exactly the same as the first. The style is as plodding and functional as the first novel and the narrative twists and turns as predictable. The concept is still interesting but the writing brings down a good idea.
