Catching Fire is the second book by Suzanne Collins in her The Hunger Games Trilogy.
The Hunger Games is set in a post-apocalyptic United States where the country is divided into 12 districts and children are chosen by lot to fight to the death in a controlled environment by the ruling class. In the last novel we saw Katniss, a sixteen year old girl, win The Hunger Games with a clever trick. Problem is, it set off a chain of events that lead people to subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, challenge the authority of the ruthless rulers in this anarchic world. And they are to change this by using Katniss again.
Here we once again see Katniss being clever but we also learn she is an unwitting pawn in a larger game. But what she is a pawn of I’ll have let the reader figure out.
This second novel was as entertaining as the first, and maybe more so, as Collins drives the plot along in some unexpected ways. The characters in the book are its strong suit, as well as how Collins weaves the outcome of the book into subtle narrative as we get to the end of part two.
While I have reservations about the setting of the novel, which make it bit less believable to me, the story and characters are fabulous. It is greatly entertaining, a real page turner, and in this case rather clever as well. I look forward to the final installment.
