The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The second book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire is a fantastic read, equally as rollicking, shocking, thrilling, and brilliant as its predecessor. 

Katniss Everdees survived the Hunger Games, but at a terrible cost. Other districts have been uprising against the Capitol and President Snow has sited Katniss with her trick with the berries at the closing of the Games, as the cause. Now, as all of Panem watches Katniss and Peeta on their Victor’s Tour, the stakes a higher than ever and one false move will bring consequences more dangerous, brutal, and horrible than they could ever have imagined. 

In one way, I found Catching Fire to be even better than the first book because, even though it is still written in a very simple and frank way, the darkness and drama of the story is so strong that it cannot help but shine through. Collins’ addition of elements of conspiracy, politics, and rebellion; generally making the entire story much bigger than initially anticipated, proves to be the real hook of this story. 

One thing that I did notice, and it does sort of contradict my beef about the books being too simply written to convey the darkness and drama that they hold, it that Collins’ simple writing is actually quite effective in setting the mind going as well as the reader working themselves into an excited frenzy by forming characters’ and the general story’s journey themselves. To explain, a simple sentence such as “they’ve been using the same footage for as long as anyone can remember” instantly sets the reader’s mind alive with electric ideas about conspiracy, underground communities, and a whole lot of other well-kept secrets. When you look at this from a film angle, you could even go as far as to say that Collin’s achieves in The Hunger Games what Hitchcock achieved in Rear Window: successfully freaking and exciting the reader by letting them do most of the work. Needless to say, the simpleness of the writing now no longer bothers me because it really does do its job. 

Filled with more action, politics, rebellion, romance complications, violence, and even a bit of science, Catching Fire is the fantastic second instalment in the Hunger Games trilogy and, at the moment, I think it’s my favourite book of the three. Everything is bigger, more complicated, and it’s here where the series takes on a more rooted genre form, turning them into wonderful fantasy fiction thrillers. ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!