Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2) in Be a geek and read

Jul 13, 2009 Rebecca rated it it was amazing

Oh goodness. I'm writing this review on the tails of having finished the book, so my emotions are still high; but I shall try to put something coherent together...

To put it bluntly, this book was superior to its predecessor in possibly every way, and considering how good Hunger Games was, that's saying a lot. The tension, I thought was fantastic, the undercurrent of rebellion not overtly obvious but a definite presence all the same. Another bonus: without the bogging down of back-story, plot and Oh goodness. I'm writing this review on the tails of having finished the book, so my emotions are still high; but I shall try to put something coherent together...

To put it bluntly, this book was superior to its predecessor in possibly every way, and considering how good Hunger Games was, that's saying a lot. The tension, I thought was fantastic, the undercurrent of rebellion not overtly obvious but a definite presence all the same. Another bonus: without the bogging down of back-story, plot and characters were allowed to flourish much more smoothly and freely than in the first book; particularly, in my personal opinion, in the case of Katniss.
In my review of Hunger Games, I admitted to not being as enthusiastic about her as the other characters; however, in the case of Catching Fire, it seems I had warmed to her unknowingly in the lull between books, because I was more interested in her by the end of the first chapter than I had managed throughout the whole of Hunger Games. On the other hand, I've come to a decrease in interest in Gale; he wasn't much of a physical presence in the first book, and he was even less of one in this one (considering the setting,) so we don't know all that much about him. I don't dislike him, it's just that it feels like I hardly "know" him, and I just can't manage to care about him beyond his obviously deep connection to Katniss. But who knows, maybe the author will manage to change my mind in the third installment. As for Peeta...well, he's Peeta: There's very, very little, if anything, to hate about him, and his increased presence in our heroine's life has only served to endear me to him even more than I was beforehand- and I was pretty fond of him to begin with. And in what I hope to be a trend with this series, the rest of the cast was intriguing at the very least, with the plot seemingly and mercifully not pushing you to particularly like or dislike them, but instead handing them to you as they are and letting you make up your own mind.
As for the games themselves, it probably was have been a challenge to make them even more nail-biting than our first taste of them, but with a larger cast of people to be attached to, a very ingenious playing field, and a shortened time-limit, our author manages with flying colors. I won't spoil anything on this front, however, because these challenges really need to be read first-hand.

The front end of the book set everything up without losing the thread of the plot, the middle only built the momentum, and by the third act, I couldn't put the book down. The end left me a messy, jumbled mix of equal parts horrified, angry, and anxious for the next book. I don't think I can wait...patiently, anyway. ...more

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