"Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
After reading The Hunger Games, I was pretty excited to continue reading the series. I was definitely disappointed in the next installment since the character development was poor, and the story ran a bit too juvenile for my taste. As I mentioned in my earlier review of Book #1, I never read Young Adult fiction, and this is mostly because I am too old to care about teenager's drama. Collins tries to create a "love triangle" between Katniss and her two male friends, Gale (her hunting buddy), and Peeta (the boy who adores her who happened to go the Hunger Games with her). Unfortunately, the two characters are essentially the same. Sure, the boys have a few differences, but they both fall into the group of "boys who are friends who are attractive and like me." Katniss doesn't really love either of them either which is clear. She pities both of them and likes them as friends. (Not only that, but the dialogue and thoughts between her and Peeta really made me ill. "Let's get married! Let's pretend you are pregnant!" Great message for teenage readers.)
Another thing about this book is that there are so many characters to keep straight. With 24 characters competing in the Games and other miscellaneous characters, I felt as if I needed a spreadsheet sometimes to keep them straight. It is nearly impossible to do proper character development in only 380 pages of text. (Look at the Harry Potter books... great character development but the books were gigantic!)
Also, I had a problem with Katniss' attitude in this book. This could have been because of Collins' flippant and fragmented writing style. The transitions of action scenes were difficult to picture. Perhaps Collins was forced to churn a new book out? I'm not sure when this series came out, but perhaps that was a reason for the jarring text.
I did like a few aspects of this book. I had an idea that Katniss would become a bit of a "Phoenix" character since the cover has a bird on it and fire is involved. (In Book#1, Katniss wears a costume which looked like she was on fire.) I always like a good Phoenix story, but this was poorly executed.
Overall, I will read the final book, but this was not the caliber of Empire Strikes Back where the second installment is better than the first.
Jen's Rating: ***