Book Review #12 - The Hunger Games - Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

Reason of the choice

Not taking into account the fact that I have already seen the movie adaption of this book and the fact that I really liked it, I loved the first book of this trilogy and it made me see this series in a completely different way. Therefore, I felt I had to read this book and that I needed to know how the series would keep going.

Reaction to the first pages

Since I was used to Suzanne Collins’s writing style, I wasn’t caught by surprise with the beginning of this book but she managed to make me want to keep reading the book since the very beginning, because, despite knowing the story, the way she tells it can give us a bigger insight.

Summary

After winning the Hunger Games, along with Peeta, they return to District 12, where they stay for a while before departing to the Victor’s Tour, throughout all the Districts and the Capitol. However, before leaving, Katniss is visited by President Snow, who tells her that she must convince everyone that her last decision in the Games was made due to love and not to defy the Capitol, or her family would suffer or even be killed, like Seneca Crane, the Head Gamemaker, who was murdered after letting Katniss and Peeta live.

During the Tour, Katniss did the best she could to do what the President asked but it wasn’t enough to convince him. After, they returned to District 12 and Katniss saw Gale being whipped because he went to the house of the Head Peacekeeper with some game he had hunt to sell him, which was illegal but the previous Head Peacekeeper allowed them to do it, but he didn’t know that the Head Peacekeeper had been changed. As soon as she saw it, she put herself between the Head Peacekeeper and Gale and the whipping only stopped when Haymitch and Peeta appeared too.

Then, it was announced the rules for the next edition of the Hunger Games, which were special, since it would be the 75th anniversary of the Hunger Games. The tributes would be chosen from the poll of the living victors, which meant that Katniss had to go again into the arena, since she was the only living female victor of District 12. Until the Reaping Day, the three victors from 12 prepared themselves for the Games to be able to face whoever they had to. In the Reaping Day, it was no surprise that Katniss was picked but Peeta volunteered to go to the Games as well, not to save Haymitch but to protect Katniss.

After that, they went to the Training Center in the Capitol, where they met most of the other tributes. Haymitch, who knew most of them, told Katniss and Peeta that many of them, like Beetee and Wiress, from District 3; Finnick Odair and Maggs, from 4; or Johanna Mason, from 7, wanted to be their allies.

In the interview that they had to give, Cinna, Katniss’s stylist, made a change in her wedding dress, since she and Peeta were fiancés by imposition of President Snow, which she showed everyone: when she spun, the fabric turned to Mockingjay’s feathers. Before going to the arena, Cinna was spanked in front of Katniss by his act of defiance against the Capitol, as she was unable to do anything to protect him.

Then, they went to the arena, where, soon, Katniss made an alliance with Finnick and Maggs. After some time and some people have died, Katniss’s group found Johanna, Beetee and Wiress, who helped Katniss to understand that the arena was like a clock, meaning that, depending on which time it was, there was a different way to hurt/kill the tributes. When there were just a few tributes left, Beetee made a plan to use the electricity from a thunderbolt to electrify the water to try to kill the tributes from District 2.

The plan didn’t go as it was supposed to and Katniss, who was in charge of taking a wire into the lake, returned to the tree where they were expecting the bolt to fall. In there, there was only Beetee in bad shape and it was hard for her to understand what he wanted to do but, as soon as she understood, she shot an arrow, with part of the wire knotted in it, against the force field, which was destroyed as soon as the thunderbolt hit the tree.

The book ends when a hovercraft picks Katniss, Finnick and Beetee but leaving behind Peeta, Johanna and Enobaria, from 2. With that new act of defiance against the Capitol, Katniss triggered the revolution in all Panem’s Districts and, only a few days after being picked, she was able to understand that she was going to District 13, where the rebels were gathered and that Peeta wasn’t with them.

Highlights

As it was already mentioned in the review of the previous book of the trilogy, the author’s writing style is very light, which is very helpful to engage us in the story but, once again, the political criticism must be the main highlight, because Suzanne Collins keeps showing us how could be the things in a country where there is a dictator ruling and it could be seen in several parts of the book:

For example, even though Katniss had won the Games and had a higher social position, President Snow was able to turn things against her by putting her back in the Games, although the “rules” said that, once a person is a victor, he is safe from going into the Games, which, in this case, didn’t happen.

Naturally, that wasn’t the only case when the Capitol forces were set against her: Katniss was whipped by the new Head Peacekeeper. Before entering the arena, Katniss was forced to see Cinna being beaten as she couldn’t do nothing to protect him. It also happened when some birds created by the Capitol were reproducing the sounds of screams of people Katniss knew. Since those birds were designed to copy the sounds they heard, Katniss understood that those people were forced to make them, which devastated her.

However, despite all these things, Katniss and most of the other tributes fought against the Capitol the better they could, showing that the people should fight for what they believe, having that culminated in a general uprising across the Districts after she destroyed the arena’s force field.

Recommendation

Although I really appreciated the first book, I liked this one even more because it is very clear what Suzanne Collins wants us to understand. I think this is brilliant because this book is targeted for young adults, but the truth is that everyone would be able to read this book and understand it. After stating this and pointing out the previous highlights, I definitely recommend this book.