Review: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (Book 2 of The Hunger Games Trilogy)

The second part of a trilogy is bound to be difficult, for writer, for poet, for filmmaker, and for the audience.  A delicate balance must be achieved.  The creator of the trilogy has to give the audience enough to satisfy their curiosity, but leave enough questions unsolved that the audience has no choice but to continue.

Like many other "second of three" stories that come to mind (J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers, or the film The Empire Strikes Back from the Star Wars Trilogy, Catching Fire is dark.  It has to be.  In the final pages of The Hunger Games (its predecessor), the heroine, Katniss Everdeen, through desperate means, has done something so unexpected and revolutionary, that she has accidentally thrown the inhabitants of her world into a deadly combat, from which there is no escape.  And for her actions, the powers that be decide, she must be punished.

I was not expecting a happy ending.  You really can't, from a second-of-three.  Catching Fire, like The Hunger Games, leaves you on the edge of your seat, constantly wondering what's going to happen next to Katniss and the others.  It is a fast-paced story of survival in the face of the impossible.  And yes, it does leave you hanging.  Shortly before dinner last night, I found myself on Instant Messenger, begging my cousin Jennifer to send me the third and final book in the series, Mockingjay.  I started it last night -- and since I am home today, with a relapse of my spinal pain -- expect a review tomorrow.

Catching Fire is good, but I liked it a little less than The Hunger Games -- if only because it does leave so many questions unanswered.  But of course, this is to be expected.

Rating: **** and 1/2