Catching Fire
Book Two of the Hunger Games Trilogy
Suzanne Collins

Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.
Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

While The Hunger Games is the best out of this series, Catching Fire definitely holds its own. Once again, the beginning might seem to be a bit slow, but there is a reason for this - this book gets much more in depth with some of the other characters. We had gotten to know both Katniss and Peeta very well in the first book, but it's in this book that we get to know Haymitch and Gale. Even the stylist Cinna has some secrets revealed and there's a startling surprise regarding his character.

The Victory Tour needs to be in place to establish the unrest in the various Districts and the fact that when even one person steps out of line in the slightest, they will be publicly executed by the Peacekeepers. It also shows the downward spiral of District 12 when the Peacekeepers move in and put a lock down on the District. In other words, the beginning of this novel is needed primarily for character development and to show the reasons for the growing rebellion.

When the Quarter Quell Hunger Games are announced (it's the 75th year of them and that means there will be something special), they are used as a way to get back at both Peeta and Katniss for the way they survived the previous Games. The new arena is extremely innovative and from the moment these Games begin, I once again had a problem putting the book down. My only wish is that every section of the arena would have been mapped out so that we, the readers, could know what horrors every section held.

The ending comes as a bit of a surprise and the book ends on a down note. This somewhat depressing ending is what will lead us into the third book of the series.

My Rating: Five out of five snails.