Catching Fire
By: Suzanne Collins

Dear, blog-Reading audience
We have recently finished Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, the widely known sequel to the dystopian hit, The Hunger Games. Catching Fire is the second of the three Hunger Games books. This sequel was published in 2009, is science fiction/dystopian, and is 391 pages long. We chose to read Catching Fire because we enjoyed the first book and movie in the series.
In the novel catching fire, the capital is in control of all the districts in panem. All the citizens have been told what to do and where to live without their input. In the first book katniss and peeta win the 74 hunger games and start to become famous capital wide.After arriving safely home, Katniss and Peeta discover that they must do a quick turnaround and begin a Victor’s Tour. As she and Peeta travel throughout the districts, Katniss is realizing that president snow was right and their is a rebelling starting. President snow makes sure that people know that he is in control, but he doesn’t realize that the districts have thousands of worked, unfairly treated people hungry for revenge.

We really enjoyed Catching Fire and felt that it was a fantastic sequel to the amazing first book. I noticed how the author used suspense throughout the novel. For example when the author, in the beginning of chapter 2, katniss is walking home from a day of collecting gales snares. She opens the door to her mother who is looking frightened then a man from the capitol tells katniss to follow him, in our mind we were thinking, “i wonder what is going to happen, will she get in trouble” she continues walking inside and goes into the study, she comes face-to-face with the president of panem, president snow. This caused a lot of suspense for use because she does not have the best relations with president snow, (assuming you’ve read the first book, you would know why). After she enters the room he tells her to sit this is suspicious because, she is in her own house, president snow tells her there will be uprisings if she does not act like she loves peeta. This made us wonder, “does president snow know that they are not really in love”, the author then creates more suspense by ending the chapter by president snow telling katniss that he knows about her kiss with gale. This causes a suspence because we dont know how he knows that, and if he knows more.

The main character, named Katniss Everdeen, is one of the two winners of the 74th Hunger Games, along with Peeta Mellark, who she pretended to fall in love with in order to fool the capitol, in order for them to change the rules so that they could win together and be a happy couple. She is a very caring individual, who cares most about her mother and little sister and her best friend Gale, who proved it the most by volunteering as tribute when her sister was drawn at the reaping. During Catching Fire, Katniss is in a very tough place, as President Snow visited her just after the victory and told her he was aware of how she fooled the capitol, and how uprisings are occurring as a result of the capitol changing the rules over a fake affair. She is told that she has to prove to the other districts that she is in fact in love with Peeta in order to prevent another rebellion or conflict, or else, which is the main issue because Katniss has no idea what the consequence could be, and therefore considers running away, or even helping the people rebel. She also does a few contradictory things that we wouldn’t expect from her, such as getting drunk with Haymitch.

In the novel we were surprised because of how the capital treated the distances and the people. For example the capital gave their word to the winner of the hunger games that they would be treated with love and eternal wealth for giving the district entertainment. katniss and peeta didn’t want to play but they were made to leave their family and play. In the end they both win together and now are expecting a life like never befor, until the capital makes them play in a victor’s game against many other winners of the hunger games. This was surprising not because they were have another game but because the winners had to play and because of how different it is from our everyday life that we get to live.

One quoted passage that stood out to us the most was when katniss asked peeta if he would join her while running away. This passage goes like this:
“President Snow wasn’t convinced by me. THere’s an uprising in district eight. We have to get out.” I say.
“By ‘we’ do you mean just you and me? No. WHoe else would be going?” he asked.
“My family. Yours, if they want to come. Haymitch maybe.” I say
“What about gale?” he says
“ I don’t know he might have other plans” i say
“I bet bet he does. Sure katniss, I’ll go.” he says.
We rate this book a 8 out of 10. This book is a 8 out of ten because it takes the readers through a journey through katniss’s eyes and shows the reader a different world where not everything is fair. As our group read this book we all notices the suspense and the development of the characters with so much detail. This book was very surprising because of the government and how different it was from the everyday life that we get to live.

Sincerely Jackson, Brody , Joe and Tom