Review: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Title: Catching Fire (Hunger Games, Book 2 of 3)
Author: Suzanne Collins
Released: September 1, 2009
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Pages/format: 391 (Hardcover)
Genre: YA, Sci-Fi – Dystopian
Source: From the publisher

Quick Synopsis: In the second installment of the Hunger Games trilogy, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark return from their victory to find unrest growing in the districts of Panem and must face the growing threat of the Capitol.

From the book jacket:

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.

Quick Review: While Catching Fire is an extremely compelling continuation of the Hunger Games series, I did not like it quite so much as the first book because of the repetitiveness of certain plot elements.

In-Depth Review:

Note: While I always do my best not to drop major spoilers in my reviews, I would advise proceeding with caution if you have yet to read Catching Fire and I do not recommend reading it at all if you have not read The Hunger Games.

After joining the bandwagon of readers captivated by The Hunger Games, I was thoroughly looking forward to reading Catching Fire, the second installment in the trilogy. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. After the smashing success of The Hunger Games, could Collins write Catching Fire even better? (After all, that is what readers generally expect form a series––a progression from amazing to out-of-this-world.)

Overall, I felt that the plot of Catching Fire was almost as compelling as The Hunger Games, but the recurrence of Katniss and Peeta’s entry into Games felt somewhat redundant. I understand the necessity of this to keep the plot moving in the right direction, but still, the wading through 100+ pages of arena killing and misery all over again was a little tedious, despite the introduction of some interesting new characters.

I mentioned in my review of The Hunger Games that I thought it best to write more about the history of Panem in later books, either Catching Fire or Mockingjay. After reading the former, I firmly think that said history is best worked into the latter, though I don’t think I will be terribly disappointed if it is not discussed in much depth.

The character development in this book was excellent. I got to know both Gale and Haymitch a little better, which gave me a new perspective on both of them. There wasn’t a whole lot of progress in Peeta and Katniss’ relationship, which I thought was interesting but perfectly acceptable with the development of Gale and Haymitch (not to mention the new guy, Finnick) as main characters. I suspect this will progress more in the third novel.

I’m sure by now you are wondering which “team” I am on––Peeta or Gale? While my opinion is subject to change once I read Mockingjay, I would have to say that at this juncture I am Team Peeta for two reasons:

Peeta shows up on more pages in the first two books than Gale does. I still feel like I don’t really know Gale all that well.
Peeta is motivated by a true sacrificial love for Katniss. While Gale is content to run off into the woods with Katniss and leave Peeta behind, Peeta is willing to sacrifice his life for Gale because Katniss cares a great deal for Gale.

That being said, I think that Mockingjay could end satisfactorily without Katniss ending up with Peeta. The way I see it, there could be one of two endings, either of which I would be content with:

Katniss could end up with Peeta and Gale could end up with someone else. I’m not comfortable with the idea of Gale being killed off.
Peeta could end up dying in some self-sacrificial act and Katniss could end up with Gale. (That plot line kind of reminds me of Pearl Harbor…)

Of course, Collins could always bring about a stereotypically happy ending with Katniss and Peeta together, Gale and all the family alive, the Capitol defeated, and freedom restored to the districts, but I think it would be very difficult to finagle this kind of a conclusion in a way that would not smack of a five dollar romance novel. Unfortunately, I think that loss will be inevitable to make Mockingjay both realistic and compelling. And I do suspect that one of those losses will be Haymitch, which makes me dread reading the final book just a little bit.

Catching Fire was compelling and engaging, but compared to The Hunger Games I did not like it quite as much. It took much the same course as The Hunger Games did and thus felt a little repetitive.

About Suzanne Collins:

Suzanne Collins has had a successful and prolific career writing for children’s television. She has worked on the staffs of several Nickelodeon shows, and is the author of the bestselling Underland Chronicles. Suzanne currently lives in Connecticut with her family and a pair of feral kittens they adopted from their backyard.