Book Review

Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins
I have to admit, I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. In fact, I liked it considerably more than imagined and I'm now sorry I waited so long to give it a try. I always hesitated pulling the trigger on sequels to The Hunger Games. Part of the problem was the composition style, that of first person-present tense. But that's not high on my list of deal-breakers if the story is good. Although I found it distracting years ago I discovered, while rereading the first book, I could easily ignore the sentence structure because the story was absorbing, and much better the second time around. Another factor was that the brief, teaser synopses on Catching Fire that I'd always read only summarized a small portion of the first third of the book. I was concerned that the teenage love triangle would supersede the burgeoning revolution in this 1984-meets-Bladerunner world. I'm all for a supporting love story as long as it's not the center focus when there's other objectives to be achieved, like stopping the madness of the Games and fighting for freedom from the oppressive rule of Capitol. Also, I've become suspicious of author motives in dystopian stories, using their work as a thin veil for lecturing about their own ideologies and biases.
But I had nothing to fear in this case. The politics are simple and evergreen and distilled down to the basics of the oppressors versus the oppressed. And instead of the love story overshadowing the narrative, it was utilized to give me more of what I wanted to see... more of how Panem is set up with the 12 remaining districts. More of how the unrest among the proletariat had found a focus in Katniss' act of rebellion at the end of the first book. More small uprisings that would lead to a full out rebellion at the end of the book. More of how this society is distasteful even to those who don't suffer. More of the chipping away at the control in Captiol City. And the love story itself isn't a bunch of silly slush either. It's sufficiently complicated because Katniss is complicated. I wasn't sure when I read the first book how to react to her personality. I'd never seen a protagonist who was smart and intuitive when it came to her survival instincts but clueless when reading other people or understanding how she was perceived in the eyes of others. I think I found it off-putting at first ... like an unrealistic naivety. But now I see that she's not naive, but blinded and numbed to empathy by the need to calculate, plan, and be in complete control of her circumstances. It all makes perfect sense within the context of a world that can strip someone of their humanity. The romance, as well as other bonds she must continue to form, is teaching her humanity and that complexity is just as interesting as the rest of the unfolding story.
At first I was little disappointed when the story reverted back to the Games a second time. I thought it would move on to outright revolts and leading "armies" of dissenters overthrowing the government. But these are relatively short books and the misdirection wasn't enough to confuse me entirely. I quickly figured out that another round of the Games was necessary to move the revolution forward at a realistic pace as well as continuing to mold and shape Katniss into the leader that I think she'll become. Character development is critical in stories about heroes facing forces bigger than they are. This second set of Games was used to augment the character development and to play with more of the science fiction which is kept simplistic and unexplained. It's refreshing. Sometimes I think sci-fi has a tendency to get too caught up in explaining how everything works instead of just taking it at face value.
As the second book of a trilogy it ends on a down note but the character I've grown most fond of hasn't died yet. A second favorite may or may not be dead; it remains to be seen and bodes ill for the survival chances of the character I'm soft on. We'll see. And we'll see soon because I intend to get the third book, Mocking Jay very soon. I like this series and I'm not putting off the finale for another 6 or 7 years. I can't wait to see how it ends.