Catching Fire

Prelude: This seems like the right time to comment about book reviews. I won't be doing many unless they have seriously chasm-like plot holes, as I simply read way too much. I don't want to rip apart a book just because - authors work very hard, obviously, and every single one of them will make mistakes. It's not fair to pick at all of them. Any bad reviews, unless specifically mentioned, are never directed toward the author. The book is a book, the author is a person, and they are two separate entities.

Written September 5th, 2009

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I remember with odd clarity, about a year ago, I was searching through the YA shelves for a book that was a standalone and not in a series, because I was broke. I saw The Hunger Games. I read the description and fell in love - there couldn’t be a sequel to that, anyway! I read the book in a day and saw the words: End of Book I. Ah. Well, all right. That’s fine, but there’s no way a sequel could be as interesting.

I was correct. Catching Fire, while good and almost as addicting as the first, left far too many things to be desired. A disappointment, as I had expected, but even worse than that already low standard.

The thing that bugged me the most was hinted at in The Hunger Games. That Katniss and Gale, two best friends, might actually, suddenly, be in love. This has been my biggest pet peeve in literature for over a year, and it infuriated me more than usual in this book. It wasn't pulled off well at all, having them realize their ‘passion’ when they weren’t even around each other. You could claim it’s the threat looming over their heads, but if so, they should be more worried about staying alive than playing I Love You No I Don’t. I am sick to death of a cross-gender friendship not being allowed because boys and girls can only Love. And to make it worse, it only fed into a badly played love triangle, which I’m not even going to comment on beyond that.

The continuity was awful. All throughout The Hunger Games, we hear about how no one speaks ill of the Capitol inside the district fence. And even after the kiss with Gale being discovered, Katniss spews plans of escape and rebellion without a second thought. Annoying, and, as we find out later, completely pointless. Also, something more obscure but still noticeable. There are specific editors that search for words that can be spelled more than one way and make certain it’s spelled the same way consistently throughout the book. Like blond and blonde. This isn’t exactly the same thing, but the writing regularly switches from saying District 1 to District One. Sometimes even in the same sentence. This really doesn’t mean anything, and I don’t exactly care, but it was noticeable as there was no significance in the change.

The book was clearly filler. Had they cut most of it and jumped into the plot of the third, no one would have known. Taking the victors back to the arena might make people think the author simply ran out of ideas (I don't think so in this case, though), and it was no where as interesting as the first time. Besides that, we’re already halfway into the book when this twist comes up. The first half could have been easily cut if planned, and have more time spent on actually having the arena make sense. This, along with so much of the book, was rushed into and quickly over with. Book montages suck almost as much as movie ones. And it happened so much, even with things we should have seen, like the Capitol tour. And the training. And everything else cut for other seemingly pointless things.

For all we hear about Prim, shouldn’t we see… something about her? No? Okay, then.

The ending. Bad cliffhanger. My reaction was a big ‘duh’ to Katniss, because really, how can you not be expecting that? As usual, I am completely confused as to why she hates Haymitch. It makes no sense to me. There’s no reason to it. Something else this book lacked was tension, because you knew Katniss would get out, and probably Peeta, too. With another book left, more love triangle angst is required. Now he’s been captured and… I don’t care. Katniss will get him back, probably perfectly all right, even if he’s missing another limb. Because that doesn’t bother him in the slightest.

Gale will probably die, because he’s my favorite character and they always always ALWAYS die. And it’ll make room for the Peeta/Katniss Epic Romance™. But here, I am assuming, and therefore have no right to go on further.

A few little things: If they were trying to kill Katniss specifically, there would have been no bows and arrows in the arena. None. Not two! None. That, along with a few other things, made the book very fanfictiony. Unlike the first novel, they never really hunted in the arena, there was no noticeable struggle to survive, and no matter how many times the characters got hurt, they were always still able to do what they needed to do to keep the plot going. Never learned what happened to Cinna - and Katniss stopped caring rather quickly, but in her circumstances I can definitely excuse her. The presents, for all their rarity, kept appearing just in time to keep the characters from doing anything useful. The problems were figured out all too quickly. The Cornucopia? Supposedly a bloodbath? No, it’s the perfect place to chat!

I am definitely still looking forward to the next book. Despite all I’ve said, I did love it, and with it being a filler book, the actual content should be in the next one. This one had no real climax, character development, or anything else, really, but with hope that will be corrected, and at the very least us fans got some extra material.