My Goodreads review- Catching Fire

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Considering I rated #1 at 2.5, I'm surprised to be rating the second book at a 4. This book is so much better than the first. The first book was just following Katniss as she was a pawn in the Capitol's awful game. She defied the Capitol in the end of that book, but her reasons for doing so weren't entirely clear even to her. In this book she is, and it turns out that others are also.

I still have problems putting the bloodlust that people in the Capitol are supposed to have with the people from the Capitol that we've met. The Capitol people that we've met make me think more of vapid pets than bloodthirsty monsters. They're stupid, kind of unrealistically so. That's one complaint that I have for the book actually, that that isn't fleshed out better. I know that people are able to be entertained by bloodsport, gladiators used to fight to the death for real after all, but I have a hard time applying that to what we've seen of the Capitol people. I'm sure that there are plenty of more bloodthirsty Capital citizens, it's just now what we've been actually shown and that's where my issue is.

I felt like this book meant a lot more than the previous though, and I assume that this is part of the reason that this series is so popular. I didn't like the first book very much, but it was probably necessary to set the tone for the rest of the series.



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Mockingjay thoughts

So today I finished reading the Hunger Games trilogy. Mockingjay was actually harder for me to get through than the Hunger Games was in ways. I haven't written a review yet, partly because I don't know what to say. It certainly ended on a better note than I was expecting, much like Les Mis where my expectations based on what others had said was that everyone was going to die and everything was going to fail and nothing happy would ever happen.

Some thoughts about the book, not terribly spoilery.

Peeta reminded me of Harvey Dent- the charasmatic good guy that the other characters felt was the best of the group. Joanna reminded me of Tamsien from Lost Girl. I think Joanna was a brunette but in my mind she was the blonde Valkarie in my mind. lol

The reason I had more problems with this book than the others I think is it's starting to deal with the characters facing all the broken parts inside of them. It made me think of all the broken parts inside of myself. There are times that I look at myself and think, where is that girl that I was and how far am I from her now?