Collins, Suzanne - Catching Fire
Tue, Apr. 6th, 2010 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterHa, my fluffy romance reading kick is now officially over. Instead, I am so depressed about school that I have turned to books in which you feel like you can trust no one and must fight tooth and nail for your life. I suspect the rationale is: "Hey, school sucks! But at least I am not stuck in a game arena with millions of killer traps or stuck in a sadistic school in which half the students would literally knife me in the back. My life now looks so much better!"
You can tell because the next books on my reading list are by Susan Beth Pfeffer and Octavia E. Butler. Any recs for other books like this welcome!
Second book in The Hunger Games trilogy
I liked the first book, and it was an incredibly compulsive read, but I wasn't quite as bowled over with it as most other people were. In the first third, I thought I would absolutely adore this book, but unfortunately, Collins makes some very strange authorial decisions. I don't dislike the book, but it's very flawed.
Also, while book one can be standalone, this one very much cannot.
Spoilers for both books
Even though Katniss has saved both herself and Peeta in the Hunger Games and made it home alive, the trouble's just starting. Not enough people were convinced by her lovesick girl act, and too many are taking her act as a symbol for rebellion against the Capitol. Katniss tries to keep up the masquerade to protect all the people she loves, but things aren't so easy to calm down.
This was the part I loved. I loved seeing the hints of rebellion everywhere Katniss and Peeta went on their Victory Tour, I loved the growing civil unrest, I loved the crackdown on District 12 and Katniss having to decide if she should run or fight. I love that she stays to fight. I love that Gale would never leave and that Peeta and Haymitch knew Katniss would fight. I wanted secret rebellions and getting to learn more about what was going on in the other districts, I wanted more about the backstory of exactly how Panem got to the way it was, I wanted more about Haymitch and Katniss' mother's comments about how District 12 was returning to the way it used to be. I wanted backstory on failed revolutions and a disheartened older generation.
And then, they announced that the former victors would go back into the Hunger Games, and I basically went, "BZUH?!"
It makes no narrative sense. All the drama is building up in the other districts, particularly the talk of the not-so-dead District 13. The important things are worrying about your family getting killed or your neighbors ratting you out. Everything is happening in the districts themselves, with Katniss as their symbol, and instead of having Katniss find out more about what's happening or having her join somehow, Collins... decides to completely isolate her in the arena.
Not only does it make no narrative sense, it is also a retread of the first book. And quite frankly, the reason why I wasn't as big of a fan of the first book as everyone else was was because I felt the Hunger Games were too structured and too predictable. Sure, the unexpected challenges and the narrative of forming and breaking alliances and always having to distrust everyone makes for very compelling reading, but all in all, it means nothing. That's the whole point of the Games: that they kill 23 people for nothing. And while it's horrifying and a Message about Media the first time around, the second time, it loses all the cool value and remains an empty game while continuing the themes of untrustworthiness, media empire critiques and etc. without adding to it.
Still, I will say that I enjoyed seeing more outfits on Katniss (the dress bursting into flames!), and I did like that having former victors changed the tone of the Games somewhat. But then, given the first third of the book, I was expecting all of them to somehow team up and forment revolution outside while they were still trapped in the Area, or to have the Games go by faster, or... something. And I can see why it would be a bit of a stretch to have a seventeen-year-old girl single-handedly organize a giant revolution. (Even though this is YA and it happens!)
Which is when they short circuit the force field, yank everyone out, tell Katniss she's been the mockingjay all along, and by the way, there's a full-scale revolt going on. Again: "BZUH?!" If Collins absolutely had to have Katniss in the arena again, I think the book would have benefited much more from a POV-change, much like the difference in POV between Turner's The Thief and The Queen of Attolia. The main action is not happening in the arena! Everything Katniss does in there is for pretty much nothing. If she had to be in there, at least let the readers follow where the real action is happening, rather than have major, major stuff going on off the page and then info dumping it in the last five pages.
It is like Collins had an awesome book planned about the rebellions turning into a full-fledged revolution in Panem (and I would have been completely in love with it, believe me), and then decided she had to somehow to do a repeat of book one, randomly stuck it in the middle, and then cut back to the ending of the book she had planned to write. While also making her active, smart, kickass heroine basically look behind the count and passive.
On a side note, I am now no longer on Team Gale, since Katniss herself doesn't seem to be in love with Gale. I am kind of on Team Peeta because though I thought they were incompatible in book one, shared nightmares about the arena is a fairly compelling argument. I do wish they'd let Katniss remain single though. Oh well.
I really hope the third book knocks it out of the park, because the trilogy deserves a great final book. Alas, this one doesn't just succumb to middle-of-the-trilogy problems (made particularly obvious because I read it right after Duey's book 2 in her trilogy), it succumbs to all the normal problems and then adds a few more of its own!
You can tell because the next books on my reading list are by Susan Beth Pfeffer and Octavia E. Butler. Any recs for other books like this welcome!
Second book in The Hunger Games trilogy
I liked the first book, and it was an incredibly compulsive read, but I wasn't quite as bowled over with it as most other people were. In the first third, I thought I would absolutely adore this book, but unfortunately, Collins makes some very strange authorial decisions. I don't dislike the book, but it's very flawed.
Also, while book one can be standalone, this one very much cannot.
Spoilers for both books
Even though Katniss has saved both herself and Peeta in the Hunger Games and made it home alive, the trouble's just starting. Not enough people were convinced by her lovesick girl act, and too many are taking her act as a symbol for rebellion against the Capitol. Katniss tries to keep up the masquerade to protect all the people she loves, but things aren't so easy to calm down.
This was the part I loved. I loved seeing the hints of rebellion everywhere Katniss and Peeta went on their Victory Tour, I loved the growing civil unrest, I loved the crackdown on District 12 and Katniss having to decide if she should run or fight. I love that she stays to fight. I love that Gale would never leave and that Peeta and Haymitch knew Katniss would fight. I wanted secret rebellions and getting to learn more about what was going on in the other districts, I wanted more about the backstory of exactly how Panem got to the way it was, I wanted more about Haymitch and Katniss' mother's comments about how District 12 was returning to the way it used to be. I wanted backstory on failed revolutions and a disheartened older generation.
And then, they announced that the former victors would go back into the Hunger Games, and I basically went, "BZUH?!"
It makes no narrative sense. All the drama is building up in the other districts, particularly the talk of the not-so-dead District 13. The important things are worrying about your family getting killed or your neighbors ratting you out. Everything is happening in the districts themselves, with Katniss as their symbol, and instead of having Katniss find out more about what's happening or having her join somehow, Collins... decides to completely isolate her in the arena.
Not only does it make no narrative sense, it is also a retread of the first book. And quite frankly, the reason why I wasn't as big of a fan of the first book as everyone else was was because I felt the Hunger Games were too structured and too predictable. Sure, the unexpected challenges and the narrative of forming and breaking alliances and always having to distrust everyone makes for very compelling reading, but all in all, it means nothing. That's the whole point of the Games: that they kill 23 people for nothing. And while it's horrifying and a Message about Media the first time around, the second time, it loses all the cool value and remains an empty game while continuing the themes of untrustworthiness, media empire critiques and etc. without adding to it.
Still, I will say that I enjoyed seeing more outfits on Katniss (the dress bursting into flames!), and I did like that having former victors changed the tone of the Games somewhat. But then, given the first third of the book, I was expecting all of them to somehow team up and forment revolution outside while they were still trapped in the Area, or to have the Games go by faster, or... something. And I can see why it would be a bit of a stretch to have a seventeen-year-old girl single-handedly organize a giant revolution. (Even though this is YA and it happens!)
Which is when they short circuit the force field, yank everyone out, tell Katniss she's been the mockingjay all along, and by the way, there's a full-scale revolt going on. Again: "BZUH?!" If Collins absolutely had to have Katniss in the arena again, I think the book would have benefited much more from a POV-change, much like the difference in POV between Turner's The Thief and The Queen of Attolia. The main action is not happening in the arena! Everything Katniss does in there is for pretty much nothing. If she had to be in there, at least let the readers follow where the real action is happening, rather than have major, major stuff going on off the page and then info dumping it in the last five pages.
It is like Collins had an awesome book planned about the rebellions turning into a full-fledged revolution in Panem (and I would have been completely in love with it, believe me), and then decided she had to somehow to do a repeat of book one, randomly stuck it in the middle, and then cut back to the ending of the book she had planned to write. While also making her active, smart, kickass heroine basically look behind the count and passive.
On a side note, I am now no longer on Team Gale, since Katniss herself doesn't seem to be in love with Gale. I am kind of on Team Peeta because though I thought they were incompatible in book one, shared nightmares about the arena is a fairly compelling argument. I do wish they'd let Katniss remain single though. Oh well.
I really hope the third book knocks it out of the park, because the trilogy deserves a great final book. Alas, this one doesn't just succumb to middle-of-the-trilogy problems (made particularly obvious because I read it right after Duey's book 2 in her trilogy), it succumbs to all the normal problems and then adds a few more of its own!