“Catching Fire” Rides On The Momentum Of “Hunger Games,” But Lacks The Urgency Of First Book

After racing through “Hunger Games,” I pretty much had to move directly to Suzanne Collins’s next installment, “Catching Fire.” The opening scenes depict Katniss struggling to adjust to her new role and life as a victor.

“I mourn my old life here. We barely scraped by, but I knew where I fit in, I knew what my place was in the tightly interwoven fabric that was our life.”

As the embers of uprisings begin to glow in certain districts, the story jumps rather quickly and suddenly from this development to another reaping. In the lead-up to the Games, I found myself wondering why the champion tributes didn’t take the next logical step of defiance and band together to refuse participation in the Games.

“ … even if all of us meet terrible ends, something happened on that stage tonight that can’t be undone. We victors staged our own uprising, and maybe, just maybe, the Capitol won’t be able to contain this one.”

Also, a plot that was revealed later on in the story made it easier to make sense out of other developments that took place during the Games.

One of the issues for me with this version of the Games was that I found it difficult to envision the geographical layout of the arena. The lack of smaller alliances, hunters and individual character development led to a lack of intensity and excitement surrounding this competition, though I was amused by envisioning a bunch of junkies (“morphlings”) running around in the jungle, wigging out.

Personally, I think it would have been a cooler plot twist if the forcefield were broken and then the remaining tributes all made a dash into what lay behind, forcing the Capitol to try to track them in the actual world without the benefit of a controlled environment.

There is purposely a lot of ambiguity about how Katniss truly feels about Peeta, but the point is that she wants to decide her future for herself—not have it dictated to her by the Capital. Though she’s loved by both Peeta and Gale, Katniss is mostly dead inside, and thus incapable of returning those loves, a point that Collins works hard to convince us of. It’s apparent that she associates Gale with safety and life, while Peeta symbolizes danger and death. Unfortunately, she is given the ultimatum of being forced to marry Peeta to quell the revolution, or risk having her family and everyone she knows killed.

At times, Katniss’s stubbornness and inability/unwillingness to see the larger reality of the rebellion becomes frustrating; to me, it took her too long to understand the sacrifices and get over her selfishness. Gale completely embraces the rebellion, while Peeta mostly stands around hoping Katniss eventually notices him again. Finally, Katniss sees the light, realizing that she must “become” the Mockingjay in order to make the rebellion truly meaningful and worthwhile.

Collins continues with a great concept for a story, maximizing the fast and easy read. Her themes of girl power and fight the power propel the book naturally, but the searing intensity and drama of the first book are dramatically diminished this time around. Yet the sinister final line of Book Two -- “Katniss, there is no District Twelve” -- serves to bridge the final gap in the trilogy, and once you’ve come this far, it’s too difficult not to immediately move to the last installment.