Read: 5 March, 2012After Katniss defied the Capitol in Hunger Games, forcing them to allow two winners of the Games for the first time in their history, she returns home and tries to patch together a life that has been irrevocably changed by recent events. Her budding feelings for Peeta become even more confused now that Gale is once more by her side. But for now, she's tried to put the events of the Games aside as best she can while she carves out a new routine. Unfortunately, the Capitol is not so willing to forget her defiance.
Discussing Hunger Games with a friend on Facebook recently, someone chimed in to say that they truly enjoyed Catching Fire and actually considered it superior to the first book. I'm not sure I agree, but I can certainly understand where she was coming from. It starts out fairly slow, showing us a Katniss who is trying to make sense of her post-Games life, but then the story really catches fire (har har) and I found it impossible to put down. And with the fictional world and character exposition taking care of by the first book, Catching Fire was free to focus on development.
There were some weird authorial issues. I don't want to give too much away, so... this next bit is a total spoiler. Sorry. So, in both books, Haymitch communicates with Katniss in the games through the gifts he either gives her or does not giver her. So when there are five people in Katniss's alliance and they keep receiving bread rolls in multiples of 6, I assumed that Haymitch was trying to tell Katniss that her group should be looking to include Chaff (since Chaff was Haymitch's friend, and because Peeta had so easily remembered that he was still unaccounted for). And yet while much page space was given to Katniss trying to interpret all of Haymitch's other gifts, she barely gives the rolls a second thought. The only reason I could think of for this is because Suzanne Collins knows the answer, knows that it isn't anything she wants Katniss to guess, so she's just dropped it. It feels like a missed opportunity for some character development. Up until that point, Haymitch's gifts were always communicating to Katniss, but this time the message was meant for her allies. Katniss could have tried to guess the meaning and come to the wrong conclusion, and then had to deal with her feelings later about Haymitch "cheating" on her (which, frankly, would have made her anger at Haymitch's supposed betrayal at the start of Mockingjay - which I've only just started reading, so forgive me if this does get covered - far more palatable).
Buy Catching Fire
from Amazon now!Other books in the Hunger Games trilogy:
- The Hunger Games
- Catching Fire
- Mockingjay
No comments:
Post a Comment