I can safely say that even though Catching Fire isn’t the best for many readers, it’s my favourite read. But for many, it is their favourite out of the three as well. The first Hunger Games surprised me by how entertaining it was. And the reasons that I liked the first book is amplified in the second. Maybe it’s because I’m not that familiar with the story, like the original and so I enjoyed the plot twists that come unexpectedly.
Germinating the seeds of rebellion
Catching Fire picks up where we left off — right after Katniss Everdeen’s triumph in the 74th Hunger Games, she and Peeta were invited for a victory round to all the other districts. Little do they know that the world has since changed, catalysed by Katniss’s own rebellion in refusing to kill Peeta which left them both victors. There is rebellion brewing everywhere and President Snow is worried. The storm is brewing on the horizon for them also — they have no idea how close they are to the games that almost killed them in the first place. What’s more, every 25 years, the games are jolted in some sort of surprise.
Catching Fire is a cut above
I don’t think the series break any new ground. It is Battle Royale redone, with the angsty and revolutionary teenager the driving force which topples the established order. There is nothing too ordinary or special about the prose or the structure of the story. The strength of the book, as is the strength of the series, lies in the dystopia that Collins built, with a plausible origin story of how the world came about. The plot is also the strong suit, which makes the book an easy page-turner. The arena for this edition of the games is astounding. For the YA genre, it’s very, very good. But that doesn’t really say much because the genre is swimming in its own shit.
But somehow YA books are often the most highly rated books in Goodreads, which is why for the most part I take the ratings with a bag of salt. Who’s to say that the teenage angst of the Hunger Games is greater than the inter-generational angst in Haley’s Roots? Each to their own, I read the book mainly to clear off the books in my book lists and for the sake of escapism. This book serviced me with both, and it was better than I expected.
Maybe it is the fact that it is about rebellion. We are living in the throngs of war, where the battle for Ukraine is still going strong. Even before this, we have been looking for heroes, and for many, Katniss Everdeen was it. This is a world carefully crafted — each district have the specialisation and colour of their own, the strain against the Capitol is real, and the relationship between the character and the world that they strive to live in, that they strive to change, drive the plot.
Then there’s all the unavoidable cringey romances that plague the YA genre. Yah I get it. I was a teenager once - amisfit of some sort and I really want to change things around me, and get all the ladies. I guess for its target demographic, that sort of romance that make me shudder with the shame of existence (not for me), is just plain inevitable. Hormones flying like house prices in the late 2000s — I could do without it.
Not gonna lie. I really like reading this book because I didn’t expect much. I’m not in the right demographic either, but a good read is a good read. It only took me a couple of days to finish this book, and given the time you can probably go through it in one sitting. It was the hottest thing in YA for a while, but anybody expecting it to break literature in half will be let down.
