Book Review- Suzanne Collins' "Catching Fire"

I read this book between getting home Monday night from work and 10pm the next night. It was too good to put down and being half-awake at work was completely worth it. I very much considered calling out of work so that I could stay up all night and  finish it. Unfortunately, I'm far too responsible and far too broke to have the luxury to do so. This book would have been worth it.

The story starts following Katniss and Peeta jointly wining the Hunger Games. They are brought back to life and made to once again show off to the world. Katniss soon learns though that her acting as a crazy-in-love teen has set the path for the rest of her life because in outsmarting the game she has started a revolution and pissed off the wrong people. During the first half of the book she struggles with trying to keep her life together. Peeta gets hurt when he learns that she acted up most of her feelings for the camera, and Gale gets hurt because he loves her. She doesn't really want either but wants them both and spends most of the book very confused. She thinks about running away, she thinks about staying, she thinks about just going along with what the Capital wants in order to save everyone around her. Then, the unspeakable happens, she finds out she has to go back to the Hunger Games. The rest of the book is her deciding to give up everything and save Peeta as he tried to save her in the first game. She has no idea that she is just a pawn in yet a larger game.

The writing was again superb, but I found one major flaw with the story. While the entire book was interesting and definitely needed to be there, the end seemed too rushed to me. I wanted a little more action from the new Hunger Games arena, I wanted to know more about the characters in the alliances she made and the struggle to survive. I understand the idea of keeping it short, but to me something just felt like it was missing. I laughed, I gasped, I felt sad, but I didn't feel as connected to the characters in this story as I did the last. Mag's suicide didn't leave me hysterical, nothing did. I did not expect the twist at the end, but I did see parts of it coming because her foreshadowing seemed so blatant the minute it happened, it actually annoyed me that Katniss didn't wonder more about certain situations. I also really don't like that she decides to choose Gale over Peeta, girls are just so dumb. That being said, I still do think this story was great, and I am itching to get my hands on a copy of the next so I can devour it, I just hope it leaves me with something a little more satisfying.

Katniss' evolution of a character is great to see. From the first book to the end of the second, we watch her go from a girl who feels the need to take care of her family to one who acknowledges that her mother should be the head of the house. She goes from a girl who is selfish in ways to one who looks out for the lives other others (ie puts Peta before herself). She starts to see good in people who she would normally have judged and lets people into her heart as friends when before she preferred to be alone. The lessons that she is learning seem to be setting her up for the final book, in which I'm sure she will shine even brighter.