Catching Fire (The Hunger Game #2) by Suzanne Collins

★★★½

*** Warning!! This review contains spoilers!! ***

First, the negatives. As the book opened, I really thought the first-person narrative voice of Katniss sounded forced, somehow not as natural as in the first book. The writing improved as the book progressed, but it was a bit of a hurdle to get over.

I never liked the idea of this kind of violence being in young adult novels, and I actually found Catching Fire a lot more violent than The Hunger Games, what with all the descriptions of Katniss's nightmares, the violence of past Games, and the violence of the current Games.

Finally, after Peeta's character was built up a bit in District 12, it was disappointing to see that once the Games began, he was again relegated to being little more than dead weight. It would've been nice to see him be more useful in the arena this time.

Anyway, despite the above, there were plenty of positives to keep me interested in this trilogy. The first thing that struck me in this book was the way it lends itself to potential discussions about revolutions. What makes people want to rebel? What does it take to spark a rebellion? Why would one district be more willing or able to stage an uprising than another?

I thought the mockingjay as a symbol of hope and rebellion - and the idea of Katniss as the mockingjay personified - was great. I really loved the resurrection of District 13, though Ken tells me that kind of thing is a very common plot device in sci-fi fiction. (But I didn't know! So it's new to me.)

In some ways, this book redeemed the trilogy in terms of complaints I had about the first book. The significance of the mockingjay pin is made more clear, and I liked that some of Katniss's inner psychological struggle of having to kill other tributes finally surfaced in these Games.

The ending was unsatisfying, but I think that can be forgiven because it's a trilogy. I'll just have to read the final installment and hope that its ending doesn't disappoint.