Review'd: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

**SPOILER ALERT!** Within my own review and the Goodreads Summary the entire first book before this is more or less ruined. So PLEASE do not read past this if you do not want the first book ruined.

Book Review:

Title: Catching Fire

Author: Suzanne Collins

Published: September 1st 2009 by Scholastic Press

Rating: 4 Stars

Goodreads Summary:

Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark won the annual competition described in Hunger Games, but the aftermath leaves these victors with no sense of triumph. Instead, they have become the poster boys for a rebellion that they never planned to lead. That new, unwanted status puts them in the bull's-eye for merciless revenge by The Capitol.

Delibrarie (Nichole) Review:

I was slightly disappointed with this book, hence the 4 stars instead of 5. I loved this book, it was just that it was way to similar to the first book in my opinion. It followed almost the exact same plot outline as the first one. I feel as thought this book was simply a middle-man between her sparking the rebellion and the war. Collins needed a way to get the war in motion and I can't help but wonder if there was another way for her to accomplish that without having to go into the games again. Although the way she did Catching Fire worked; it made sense and fit with the story. I just felt like I was reading The Hunger Games over again when I was wanting something new.

That point aside, the writing style was, as always, brilliant. The story was also a little frustrating to me because nothing was really happening between Katniss and Gale and Peeta. At the end of The Hunger Games I was REALLY looking forward to her reunion with Gale and hearing his reaction to everything that had happened during the games. But I got nothing. He was mentioned, but more as an after thought. Him kissing Katniss was a huge event for me and she just explained it later when it needed explaining. It was as if she had no relationships with Gale or Peeta even, which is sort of explained in the book but even then you expect more.

I realize I'm sort of railing on this book right now and I'm not trying to say it's bad by any means. It was really good and I enjoyed it and I would suggest it to anyone interested in this series; I just had a few misgivings with it that were difficult for me to get over. Please read and enjoy! I know I did. It made me want to read the third book even more; it was good at keeping the reader interested and it definitely accomplished its job of introducing more characters and by developing/setting-up the war for the third book.