Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2) in Easley Library Bookworms

Jan 15, 2013 Werner rated it it was amazing

Shelves: action-heroines, science-fiction

As the second volume of the Hunger Games trilogy, many of the comments I made in my review (www.goodreads.com/review/show/297275418 ) of the first book apply to this one, too. That review should probably be read before this one; the series opener definitely should be read before this second installment. (Some series can be read out of order; this is NOT one of them.) If you haven't read the first book, this review and the above Goodreads description will obviously contain some spoilers.

One of my As the second volume of the Hunger Games trilogy, many of the comments I made in my review (www.goodreads.com/review/show/297275418 ) of the first book apply to this one, too. That review should probably be read before this one; the series opener definitely should be read before this second installment. (Some series can be read out of order; this is NOT one of them.) If you haven't read the first book, this review and the above Goodreads description will obviously contain some spoilers.

One of my Goodreads friends thought it was completely unrealistic that the Panem government allowed both Katniss and Peeta to survive at the end of The Hunger Games. I don't, but it's important to be clear that the decision was a very grudging one, made only in the face of the credible threat that the couple's mutual suicide would mean the Games would have no winner, which would result in serious disaffection among the Capitol's own residents. (Disaffection in the Districts, of course, would mean nothing --although, as we find in this book, the Capitol may have underestimated what thoroughly desperate and disaffected people might do.) It was also, by necessity, a snap decision made without any reflection. But the evil President Snow and his regime aren't gracious losers, and they don't plan to let anybody get away with anything. So the stage is set for the tautly suspenseful intrigue in this volume.

The Goodreads description accurately portrays the premise as the book opens, a few months after the 74th Hunger Games. From the turning of the cover, Katniss and those close to her are walking a tightrope, and the tension mounts steadily --until both narrator and readers are back, against all custom and expectation, in the horror of the Arena, with its pulse-pounding fear and its gut-wrenching, lose-lose, kill-or-be-killed choices. For me, all the strengths of the first book are here as well; there's no second-book-in-the-trilogy slump, and this is no time-marking place-holder --the plot will be advanced in very significant, and often very surprising ways. Collins develops her fictional world a bit more (note to the author for the next edition: a map of Panem would be even more useful here than in the first book!), as well as her characters, new and old.

Katniss in particular (who's 16 at the end of the first book, and 17 by the end of this one) grows here, as a result of a few epiphanies that cause her to look at others, and her lot in life, in a more mature way. Some reviewers take quite a negative view of Katniss' character; one of my Goodreads friends found himself frequently not liking her, and characterized her as a "selfish, thick twit." We can freely concede, I think, that there are times when she does appear thick, if only because she views events from within a box of socially-conditioned pessimism; the reader, who's able to see outside that box, is apt to correctly interpret some events well before she does. But I can understand what shapes her pessimistic perspective. On the score of selfishness, though, I have to differ. This is a girl who's ready to sacrifice or risk life and limb to protect others that she cares about, who goes hungry in order to give food to strangers, who feels compassion for others at every turn and naturally thinks about their needs. (In all honesty, I wonder how consistently some of us older people would do the same as readily, in her situation!) Yes, her narrative voice unblinkingly describes the horror and ugliness of her situation, and the realities of life for everybody in her world. If that wasn't a constant backdrop, and usually at the forefront, of her consciousness, I submit that she'd be the most unrealistic and out-of-touch fictional character since Dr. Pangloss. For the most part, on the rare occasions when the horror of her circumstances overcomes her and she loses it for a time, I'd say she's entitled --and afterward, she bucks up and keeps on trucking. (view spoiler)

Some critics of the series sneer at Katniss' complicated feelings for both Gale and Peeta as a juvenile, high-school style triangle, with the implication that any mature and responsible female would have experienced total clarity and honesty about her feelings from the get-go, with no complexity or ambiguity whatsoever; and that if one imagines a female falling short of that standard, her ditherings about the matter should be beneath the notice of a serious author. Well, that's one perspective. Personally, I think it's possible for a woman (not necessarily just for an immature girl or a "twit," but for any woman under certain circumstances) to have romantic feelings for two guys at once, and for her not to fully acknowledge or understand all of her own feelings. (No, I'm not a woman --but I am a guy, and I think the same range of possibilities exist for males' feelings, too.) And I think any honest and realistic depiction of the possibilities for human feelings is grist for serious literature, as long as it's not treated in a superficial or over-the-top way, which I don't think Collins does. I was originally motivated to read the series by a sort of challenge to compare/contrast Katniss and Bella in the Twilight Saga, and found some similarities as well as differences; to further provoke Twilight haters to gnash their teeth, I'd say this is one of the former. :-) (To continue the analogy, you could say I'm solidly rooting for "Team Peeta" --though I like and respect Gale, too.)

Finally, one of my Goodreads friends equates the regime in Panem with "socialism." To be sure, any oppressive system that concentrates all power in the State and represses and exploits the masses of people will have obvious similarities to the agenda of today's statist Left. But it will also have similarities to the agenda of the statist Right (another Goodreads friend used the word "fascism"). The basic fact of political life in the developed Western world today is that all of the establishment parties, whether they rig themselves out in "liberal" or "conservative" regalia and shibboleths, share the same Panem-style agenda of support for a Leviathan State run by and for the wealthy and powerful, and against the interests of the ordinary citizenry, who in their view exist to be their servants and doormats. Collins is wise, IMO, to call out that agenda, without identifying it with one or the other supposed "ends" of today's putative political "spectrum." (If she did, half of the potential audience would dismiss and disparage the book without a read --even though the social content of her message would be exactly the same as it is now, or exactly the same as it would be if she reversed the left-right identification.) She's sounded a warning that can and should be heeded by every reader, whether he/she self-identifies with the Right or the Left. That's something future critics, if democracy rises Phoenix-like from its present-day pyre, may yet recognize and praise! ...more

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Dec 30, 2010 Crystal rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

Well - the middle of a trilogy... a YA trilogy.... cliffhanger at the end.... so you'd better have the next book lined up or you'll be like being stuck at the end of the first season of LOST. I was glad to get through this one. But I am ready to see this resolved so I'll be moving on to Mockingjay pretty quickly. These books make me curious to see what Collins will do next and if she can do something as good in an adult genre.

Is this the next Harry Potter... we'll have to see after the movie com ...more

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