Julia

This is going in my “was not expecting that” list. After coming to an abrupt and unexpected ending in The Hunger Games, I had no choice but to move swiftly to the next book. Ah, the benefits of reading popular series years after they were released! To put it simply, I was excited for Catching Fire because I thought the entirety of the book would take place during the Victory Tour. I imagined we would go with Katniss and Peeta to visit all of the other districts; we would get an inside peek at how they all work, their industries, the landscapes, what the people are like, and their relationship with the Capitol. I had a sort of anthropological curiosity about it.

But no, Catching Fire is not a travelogue of their trip round Panem. I was startled to find the Victory Tour over in a minute, and besides the fiasco in Rue's district, we didn't get much information on the other districts at all. It's interesting, because Katniss and Peeta have this newfound understanding of the other districts, at least on a superficial level. They have seen people gather, they have walked on a beach, they have gone across the whole country. Yet us readers are still pretty much left in the dark about what goes on in these places.

I think that ultimately us not coming along for most of the tour was beneficial, because our complete lack of knowledge about most of the districts mirrored Katniss's lack of real knowledge about the districts. Sure, she saw what their center squares were like, and she looked into the faces of a gathered crowd. But this is surface-level. What she really wants to know, and what I really want to know, are about the lives of these people. Are they as discontented with the Capitol as Katniss? What do they really think about the Games? Are they willing to rebel?

Our understanding of the situation in other districts doesn't come from their staged Victory Tour. No; it comes from the people we meet and the connections Katniss makes, which are woven tightly into the story as a whole. When we meet Bonnie and Twill, or accidentally see the news on the Mayor's television, or get to know Finnick and Beetee and Wiress, we begin to put the pieces together about the Districts they are from. Through these characters we get a far deeper understanding than if we simply witnessed Katniss and Peeta on the victory tour. Thus I am glad I didn't go along with them, because learning about the Districts through the characters was far more satisfying.

Oh yeah, and they go back into the arena. I most certainly didn't see that coming when I first picked up the book, but then I heard a sort-of-spoiler about it. I thought Ha! No way. Wouldn't Collins want to explore them in a different situation?

But the hints of the Quarter Quell were concerning. And then the yellow envelope came. If I hadn't heard the half-spoiler, my mouth would have dropped open. Maybe everyone else saw this coming. Alas, since the seed had been planted in my mind, I just thought, “Oh, wow, well, okay. Here we go again.”

It was more of my favorite: Katniss in the (simulated) wilderness, us discovering with her how this environment works, what in it will save her and what in it might kill her. Yet it had a whole other dimension, a different flavor, and different stakes. Finnick really grew on me. I hoped and hoped there would be a rebellion starting from within the arena (the only way it seemed both Peeta and Katniss could come out of this alive), but we're still too close to the events to understand how they will affect the greater whole. Everything is still so immediate. And then the book ends.

And yes, I was fooled again! You'd think I would have learned by now that the Hunger Games trilogy on Kindle does not end at 100%, because there is a preview of the next book to follow it. But no! I thought I had a whole 8% left!

“Katniss, there is no District Twelve.” THE END.

SUZANNE!!

This was incredible. I don't just mean incredible as in extremely well done, which it mostly is, but that it continued to shock me, draw me in, thrash me around, and throw me out again. The book mingled with my own dreams, and the fact that I read it whilst sick and in isolation made it all the more riveting and relatable.

For me, this was not a feel-good book, nor did it have a particularly “happy” ending. It made me angry, but this was because I cared so deeply for Zan, for Burrum, Lishum, Sonte, for everyone. I felt a little played, too, because this book has been lying around for as long as I can remember – I believe my mother read it back in the 70's – and the cover had sparked my own ideas about what the book was about. Reading the back cover, for some reason my brain concluded that the two naked children were faeires. Thus, I expected a child-friendly, fantastical story in which Zan discovered a magical world that she could easily go back and forth from. If I had gone on Goodreads and read the summary, I would have seen it was something else! But I am glad that I had the wrong idea; it left me completely unprepared for the visceral, terrifying, harrowing, wondrous, and joyful physical and emotional experiences inside.

Something that does bothers me, though, is that Zan did not speak the language of the People when she returned. If she began speaking their language, perhaps people might listen to her story a little more? Of course, they might think she was in even more need of help, but the book didn't even mention the language once Zan returned home.