Catching Fire

Title: Catching Fire
Author: Suzanne Collins
Genre: Young Adult, Sci-Fi
Price: $17.99
ISBN: 9780439023498

Catching Fire is the second book out in The Hunger Games Trilogy. For fear of spoiling the plot for those who have not read or finished the first book, I honestly cannot say much about the plot beyond it is as gripping as the first. While I often find the second book in many trilogies to be a drag in comparison to it's first and the third, this second installment was incredible (granted, the third book will not be out until next September, so I don't have it as a comparison).

Like the first, Collins manages to grip you and keep you from the first page to the last. At the beginning it feels very much like an extension of the first book, one that you would hope to have (The Hunger Games end making you with for more, and this is it!), but it finishes with a feeling (well, more like a knowing) that things are much, much larger than they appear.

The things I enjoyed in the first book return, like the depth of the characters and the intensity in the plot. I literally could not put the book down (I read it in less than 24 hours). The book kept you going by not giving you a completely clear sense of where Collins was planning on having the ending land. In the beginning it looked one way, in the middle it looked another, and at the end it looked completely different yet again. And, in the very last few pages of the novel, Collins brings the story in a whole new direction. While this is wonderful to read (if you're into that sort of thing), there was one small problem I had. In order to take the story in that new direction, several things had to be explained in about six pages. The information went in so quickly that it took me a couple of reads to really understand what was going on and realize that THIS was actually what was happening, not a daydream or something of the main character's.

For "Comparable Reads" and "Who this book is for", check out my posting on the first book.