Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins #review

Title: Catching Fire (book #2 of The Hunger Games)
Author: Suzanne Collins
Publisher: Scholastic, 2009

It’s always tricky to review a novel that has had so much hype surrounding it, and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins is no exception. We continue from where things were left off in book one for our plucky heroine, Katniss Everdeen, who discovers that her reward as victor of the Hunger Games is not all it’s cracked up to be.

She’d hoped to enjoy a life of quiet comfort with her family, and perhaps pursue her intended love interest, Gale, but there’s the not-so-small matter of her much-televised engagement to Peeta. And, of course, the rather dastardly President Snow, who’s coercing her to get married.

In surviving the Hunger Games, Katniss has unwittingly become the figurehead of a rebellion and the districts are on the verge of open revolt. She has no choice but to go along with Snow’s plans, because he has threatened her loved ones.

While the first half of the story leads you to believe that Katniss will begin to get actively involved in overthrowing the Capitol, she and all the victors from the past 25 years find themselves swept up in a Reaping again – this time as unwilling participants in the Quarter Quell games.

In this sense, Catching Fire is doomed to repeat the theme of The Hunger Games and doesn’t cover much in the way of new ground. It lacks some of the uncertainty and tension that we faced in the first book.

Once again, and perhaps regrettably so, Katniss is robbed of the opportunity to explore the moral issues surrounding the act of having to kill others to survive while providing entertainment for the masses. This time it is thanks to a hostile arena that conveniently does the killing on players’ behalf – verging on deus ex machina to a degree. When she does kill, the act hardly seems to make a dent on her emotionally or intellectually and the victim is reduced to a mere name.

As a character, Katniss doesn’t grow much; she is still as self-absorbed as she was in The Hunger Games and I was often left wondering about what redeeming qualities (beyond her propensity for self-sacrifice to save others) she possessed. Her childish outbursts at key moments didn’t make me warm to her either. I suspect she appeals to readers in her blandness, as a sort of everywoman.

Catching Fire is still an engaging read despite pacing issues of the first half, touching on many issues that make dystopian settings so fascinating.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins #review

Title: The Hunger Games (book #1 of The Hunger Games)
Author: Suzanne Collins
Publisher: Scholastic

A lot of hype surrounds Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy. The novels have been international best-sellers and have spawned a successful movie franchise. The premise for the trilogy certainly isn’t new, however, and it can be argued that it was a case of Collins’s manuscript being in the right place at the right time. In 1999 Japanese author Koushan Takami had his novel, Battle Royale, published, and it follows a similar theme – teens in a dystopian future battling it out to the death, their efforts televised.

In Collins’s vision, the region once known as the US has been reduced to 12 districts subservient to a decadent Capitol. Each year, each district has to send tributes – a boy and a girl – to compete in the annual Hunger Games, the ultimate in reality TV. The winner not only gets to live, but will have enough food to eat for the rest of their life, in addition to being a celebrity.

Indeed, there is little that is more chilling than the individual’s objectification and loss of sovereignty. The novel’s apt nod towards ancient Rome is a not-so-subtle dig at the socioeconomic disparities of those times.

Our protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, steps into the arena when she volunteers to take her younger sister’s place as tribute. Her hunting skills also makes her an ideal contender. She is well aware that the stakes are high, but her emotions become conflicted when she gets to know the other candidate from her district – Peeta.

Herein lies the rub – and the almost ubiquitous young adult love triangle. Katniss is in denial about her feelings towards her best friend back in the district, but Peeta has apparently held a torch for Katniss for ages. She just never knew about it until now. While they play out a supposedly sham romance for the benefit of their viewers, Katniss questions her own loyalties. At some point she might have to kill Peeta.

Some might find the casual violence in the novel shocking, but it pales in comparison to the gladiators in the popular television series Spartacus, where main characters kill their opponents without compunction.

The Hunger Games presents an ideal vehicle in which to examine how being in the arena would affect young Katniss. Her kills are mostly by accident rather than design. Katniss faces challenge after challenge, yet one does not step away with the sense that she has grown much as a character. Indeed, in that respect, the ending goes off like the proverbial damp squib.

While The Hunger Games is an adequate dystopian read, by the same measure I feel the hype surrounding it has hugely inflated its popularity. Don’t expect literary fireworks.