Catching Fire

Catching Fire is a pacy and highly readable follow-up to The Hunger Games. I was gripped by it and piled through it in little more than 48 hours, but I did have a problem with the story which prevented me giving it a higher score.

I don't normally like to include spoilers in my reviews, but I can't really address without discussing some key plot developments, so stop here if you don't want to know what happens, and let me just say that I mostly liked it a great deal.

Seriously, I'm about to ruin the suspense. Stop now.

Right, if you're still here it's your own fault.

My problem is the ending, basically. I was enjoying it all the way through. Katniss is occasionally annoying but mostly resourceful and determined, vacillating between selfishness and selflessness. She is doing a reasonably good job with the hand she is dealt, and then all of a sudden the rug is pulled from under her. We learn that there has been a conspiracy surrounding her about which she knew nothing. Her agency is completely undermined, and that cost the book at least half a star in my rating. Katniss's actions, for almost the entire book, prove to be almost completely irrelevant. It lets the whole book down, and I can only hope it's redeemed in the third part, which I don't think I'll leave so long.

It's frustrating because there was no real need to do that. No reason for Katniss to suddenly turn into an imbecile for thirty pages.

Anyway, on the whole I thought it was great. Really entertaining and engrossing. But because it deflates itself slightly towards the end, I've given it 3.5/5.