Discount Priced Books for You.

C. R. Swanson:

I had serious problems with the first book in this series, “Hunger Games”. I thought it was a trite rip-off of “Battle Royale”, complete with an asinine, unworkable premise and a veritable checklist of sci-fi, distopian future cliches. My opinion of it remains unchanged.

Thankfully “Catching Fire” is somewhat better, but only somewhat.

The story picks up with the end of the first book, showing Katniss (what a stupid name), and her friend, Peeta (what a stupid name), traveling across Panem (what a stupid… oh, you get the idea), on a victory tour. They’re basically being sent out to quell any notions that the local districts might have about rebellion. Hmmm… the government rounds up and basically murders large groups of children every year and, surprise, there’s a rebellion? Big shock, and just part of why the premise is fatally flawed, but moving on.

Eventually it’s announced that there’s going to be a Big Super Special Hyper-Mega Cool Hunger Games this year with several of the survivors from the earlier games going in to compete. Guess who ends up getting picked?

Mostly the book is just rather dull. There’s some interesting scenes, like Katniss meeting up with the President and a nice moment involving a wedding dress, but even some of the more interesting scenes just come off as retreads of the first book. Even the set-piece, the Games, aren’t that interesting.

There’s also an odd morality to this story. There’s a huge amount of violence in the book, as there was in the first (way more than one would want any kid under a certain age to read, and I’m surprised Scholastic publishes this), but there is no sex at all. None. Katniss is seventeen and when she gets kissed at one point towards the end of the book, it’s like she’s having her first orgasm. She’s allowed by the author to go around killing people, but clearly must remain a virgin. Yeah, that had me rolling my eyes. Also amusing; there’s no Bad Language in the book.

I’m sure fans of the first book will be wetting their knickers with the chance to read this one. I’m sure if they liked that, they’ll like this, since large parts of it are pretty much the same. Anyone else, probably not.
Rating: 3 / 5

Brodie:

repetitive, no character development, no climatic point, flat with a lack of substance therefore making the cliff hanger intolerable, a filler novel, did i say repetitive?

i know suzanne can do better, at least her editors should.
Rating: 2 / 5

T. shaw:

I’ll be up front – I gave Hunger Games 5 stars based on its strengths in a specific genre which is ya scifi- great plotting, descriptions, subtext, etc. I was eager to pick up Catching Fire. When I did, I couldn’t get beyond chapter 2 and returned it (not to Amazon).

Everything that I liked about the Hunger Games was completely destroyed in the first 2 chapters and I figured it wouldn’t get much better. In reading the other reviews of 1 and 2 stars, I see some people agree with me.

My concerns:

1. story isn’t told in the voice of a 16 year old. I had this issue with Hunger Games, but the plotting was strong enough to make me overlook it. But in Catching Fire, a lot is told in flashbacks, and the adult like voice of the narrator becomes more noticeable. We should see and not be told – why we don’t see her reunion with Gale is a huge missed opportunity.

2. Repetitive – others have mentioned this in their reviews as well. I understand that the author needs to bring first time readers up to speed – but it wasn’t very well done. To those who read HG, it was another device that took you out of the story. I have read other reviews here and now know that Kat returned to the Hunger Games arena, and that too just felt lazy.

3. Plotting – (spoiler) the President makes an appearance at Kat’s house in the 2nd chapter and has a very frank discussion with her, and she with him. This was just ridiculous. There was no subtext. Again, it just felt lazy.

with all due respect to the author, who wrote a wonderful first book in this trilogy – when one book is so stellar, the second one is held to a very high standard. Perhaps as a stand alone book Catching Fire would be fine. But I agree with other reviewers that the 2nd act is always the most difficult to pull off and I would suspect that the 3rd book will be much better and I do look forward to reading it, though I may skim it in the bookstore before I actually commit to buying it this time.
Rating: 1 / 5