Catching Fire

A friend recommended these to me, and I ended up listening to the audiobooks narrated by Carolyn McCormick. The stars tell the story, really. I found the first book, The Hunger Games to be a very interesting examination of a dystopia where our current obsession with reality television has

Show More

degenerated to the point of the government staging fights to the death among groups of teenagers, one boy and one girl from each of the 12 "districts" in the country of Panam, which is what remains of the United States. The lead character, a teenage girl named Katniss, was sympathetic and believable, and the resolution was satisfying if a bit abrupt.

Catching Fire picks up Katniss' story back in District 12, where she learns her actions at the end of The Hunger Games have displeased the leaders of Panam. The first half of the book is a drawn-out contrivance that ends with Katniss back in the fighting arena. Despite the fact that the scenes in the Arena were the best and most compelling, it felt like a cheat that Katniss ended up back there. The book would have been more successful had another teen taken her place, I think.

Mockingjay wraps up the trilogy with Katniss as the public face of the districts' rebellion against the Capitol. It suffers from the complete lack of any Arena scenes (although the fighting in the Capitol comes closest), which were the strongest parts of both Hunger Games and Catching Fire. Ultimately, not only is Katniss still the focus despite being on the outskirts of the action for most of the book, the civil war seems much too easily won to be believable. Both of these things are significant weaknesses that lead Mockingjay to be the weakest book of the three.

It's difficult for me to give these books a fair review, since they were written for a young adult audience, and my young-adult days are all too far behind me. Still, I found them to be mostly worthwhile reads, and Collins does have some interesting points to make regarding consumer culture and popular media, although both are themes I would have loved to see her explore further. I think Collins' biggest mistake was the decision to stick with Katniss as the narrator of all three books. Shifting focus to other characters in the second and third books, while still keeping Katniss in the picture, would have improved the series quite a bit.

Show Less