6 months have passed since the ending of the first book The Hunger Games in The Hunger Games trilogy. Katniss and Peeta have returned to District 12, the poorest district in all of Panem, (the only known surviving country left in the world) and they have recently survived the 74th Hunger Games, a grueling, fight-to-the-death competition where a boy and a girl from each district must compete for their own survival. Their successful victory is all for naught, however, when Katniss is visited by President Snow, who informs her that rebellion against the Capitol (the people who rule over and basically torture the 12 districts) has spread through the districts because of her actions, much to the Capitol’s dismay. Snow threatens the 17 year old with her sister, mother, and close friend’s deaths if she does not lie and say that what she did was from her love for Peeta and not the truth, which was rebellion. The duo are sent on a tour to the other districts, and Peeta, in an effort to get on the better side of Snow, proposes to Katniss live on TV at the Capitol, and Katniss accepts. Snow is unhappy with her though, and Katniss immediately fears for the ones she cares about. When the duo gets back to District 12, Katniss learns District 8 has taken part in a failed uprising. Gale, her best friend, has been caught illegally hunting animals and is publicly whipped in front of the entire district, that is, until Haymitch (the mentor of Katniss and Peeta) steps in. Katniss heads to the woods, where she runs into Twill and Bonnie, a couple members from District 8, who are headed for the seemingly abandoned District 13 in hopes of its citizens secretly being alive underground. The Districts of 3 and 4 have also rebelled as Katniss is preparing for her wedding with Peeta. The 75th Hunger Games comes around, but a Quarter Quell has been added, where surviving victors from previous games must compete in the competition. Katniss is helpless as she is forced to take part, being the only living female tribute. Peeta stops Haymitch from going and volunteers to go with Katniss. The District 12 competitors try hard to mess with the Capitol in varying acts of rebellion, from hanging a portrait of Rue (Katniss’s dead ally in the 74th Hunger Games), Peeta, and a former Gamemaker, to Katniss wearing a feathered black dress made by her stylist and friend Cinna. Peeta makes an attempt to slow the games by lying that Katniss is pregnant, but his actions were in vain. In the games, the District 12 duo ally with fellow victors Finnick Odair, Mags, Johanna Mason, Beetee, and Wiress. Wiress says the arena they are in acts as a clock, where danger at a specific place and time strikes. Mags and Wiress die, and the other members focus on Beetee’s plan, which is electrocuting the District 2 victors, who mess with the plan. Katniss shoots an arrow into the force field surrounding the arena and blacks out. She wakes up traveling to District 13, and the Head Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee tells her she was in a plan to be rescued. To her horror, she learns Peeta has been apprehended and in the Capitol, and her home District 12 has been annihilated.
I have to give this sequel a rating of 4/5, just like the previous book. I feel like the protagonist Katniss learns more about herself throughout the book, as well as what she has taken for granted. I also appreciate President Snow serving as a more central antagonist than the first book, where the true antagonist was not a single person, but a whole group. Katniss is also more bearable for me in this book, though at times she frustrates me (ex. Her slightly cold behavior to Peeta, her oddly rude thoughts towards people and other situations, etc.)
To summarize, Suzanne Collins’ novel Catching Fire was ultimately better in my opinion than The Hunger Games, but I would not give it the rating 5/5.
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