Catching Fire, the fellow-up to the highly popular The Hunger Games certainly does not disappoint. I loved revisiting this world and found myself more emotionally involved with the characters than I did with the first book. Suzanne Collins is definitely one of my favorite authors now!
The plot structure was a little different from the first one. I like it when authors don’t fallow the same formula when they write a series; it gives every book a special flavor. While the Hunger Games was marking the beginning of a greater storyline, we get to go deeper in this book and explore new things and themes that were not addressed in the first one.
The characters were amazing! Katniss is a great main character because she doesn’t try to be anything but herself. She knows her own flaws, but doesn’t care enough to try and be better. She only has one thing in mind, and that is keeping the people she loves safe. Peeta is a great character too. It has been a long time since I've read a character that is genuinely good. It’s not as bad as some people thing. Sometimes we need characters like that in our books and even in our own lives. The rest of the characters were amazing as well. I don’t have much to say about them because I didn’t get to see enough of them, but I can say that Haymitch is one of my favorite characters.
I love Katniss’s voice. Collins knows how to make you feel the character’s emotions. I felt like I was there with Katniss. I usually don’t like books with first person narration and this one is the first to make adore that style of storytelling and writing. That’s saying something! The ending doesn’t bother me that much because I’m reading Mockingjay right now, but I can see how readers must’ve felt when Mockingjay wasn’t released yet.
The thing I found was annoying about Catching Fire is that sometimes it summarizes some of the events that I wanted more details about. This is something I didn’t like in the first book as well, but there was more of it in Catching Fire. However, this is just a minor complaint. And because I’m a character person, it bothered me a little that we didn’t get to see more of the other characters like Gale or Prim, but it didn’t change how I felt about this book.
This book is certainly for everyone! If there is a series that deserves all the hype it’s getting, the Hunger Games is definitely it! If you haven’t read the Hunger Games yet, you’re missing out one of the best YA series ever published!
Final Rating
4.5/5
