Catching Fire

Title : Catching Fire
Series : Hunger Games #2
Author : Suzanne Collins
Rating : * * * *

Characters : Katniss and Peeta are back in action. Gale takes a beating. Prim is just as delicate as ever. President Snow is seeing red. Haymitch grunts and grumbles. You get a new hord of Hunger Games contestents that you love to hate--actually, most of them you love to love, unfortunately.

Setting : Back in Panem, but this time revolt is on the lips of citizens--if you can call such residents of the Districts citizens.

Basic Plot : The team is back and this time the shock, horror, and emotion are redoubled. Katniss and Peeta return home to District 12 to find their new status awkward and instead of empowering, the wealth starts to destroy them. Turns out their cavorting in the previous games has turned the President of Panem against them. They tour the districts as the most recent victors, working hard to squelsh any sorts of revolt they may have inadvertently fueled. The tour culminates with a gathering of all past victors where they make some friends and some enemies. But the surprise comes with the new rules of the Quarter Quell, or the 75th Hunger Games. We return to the ring, but this time you want all the characters to escape with their lives instead of just two.

Comments : I am usually apprehensive about sequels—afraid to be let down, afraid to find that my favorite characters have been lost/forgotten, afraid that I might like it even more than the first and will have to wait months and months for the third and final book before I can finish the series. Silly, I know. Turns out my apprehension was justified. Reading Catching Fire made it extremely difficult to wait for the final installment and I did end up loving the second at least as much as the first. The characters introduced in the first book are back, more mature with the past games behind them and the new years games ahead, but still back all the same. Old flames are not only sparked, but torched. Old fears are reignited and burn twice as deep. The continuation of this story is just as thrilling, heart wrenching, and provoking as the first. I would recommend this sequel to anyone and everyone, but only if you have read Hunger Games.