'Catching Fire,' Suzanne Collins' sequel to 'The Hunger Games': from lovebird to mockingjay

 

Since The Boy Who Lived, since everyone's favorite sparkly vampire, the young adult fiction genre has been avalanched with fresh fantasy and science fiction tomes. Some are quite good (Jonathon Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy or Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series); some are embarrassingly awful (Alyson Noel's Immortals series).

One that is certain to rise above the thronging masses is Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy.

The first book, The Hunger Games, garnered praise from practically everyone who cast an eye at its pages, from the New York Times Book Review to Booklist. Stephen King called it:

a violent, jarring, speed-rap of a novel that generates nearly constant suspense....I couldn't stop reading....

Stephenie Meyer confessed,

I was so obsessed with this book I had to take it with me out to dinner and hide it under the edge of the table so I wouldn't have to stop reading. The story kept me up for several nights in  row, because even after I was finished, I just lay in bed wide awake thinking about it....The Hunger Games is amazing.

Wow. Is The Hunger Games really all that good? Absolutely. And what about the new sequel, Catching Fire? Does it manage to live up to the first book? Again, absolutely.

The Hunger Games focused on 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, a resident of the dreary, coal-mining, and constantly hunger -stricken District 12 of Panem. Panem is the nation that is left after the disintegration of North America; its rich and decadent Capitol is surrounded by twelve harshly governed districts that it likes to bully into submission with heavy-handed brutality and, of course, the Hunger Games.

The Games occur every year. In order to show the people who's boss, a "reaping" is held in each district to choose one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18. The 24 representatives, or tributes, are then put into a prepared arena and required to fight each other to the death until only one survives. And all residents of Panem are required to watch. On live TV.

Sound intense? You have no idea.

The conclusion of The Hunger Games left Katniss, amazingly, alive, alongside her only slightly impaired (though heartbroken) fellow tribute, Peeta Mellark. (Wait, I thought you said only one tribute out of the 24 could survive?! I did -- read the book and find out how they both squeak out with their heads still attached to their bodies. It's brilliant.)

 

Catching Fire picks the tale up with nary a misstep. Katniss' life has been changed by winning the Hunger Games, for better and for worse. Her mother and beloved sister Prim have a better house and plenty of food, but her most trusted friend Gale, seems lost to her forever. She and Peeta can scarcely manage to speak to one another which is going to pose a real problem since they're just about to launch off on the hated Capitol required Victory Tour in which, as Katniss reflects,

I will have to travel from district to district, to stand before cheering crowds who secretly loathe me, to look down into the faces of the families whose children I have killed.

Katniss knows that she and Peeta will need to be lovebirds, everybody's favorite sweethearts, yet again for the Tour. She doesn't realize how important that will be -- and how explosive her actions at the conclusion of the Hunger Games were -- until President Snow shows up in District 12 to politely remind Katniss that everyone she loves will be in mortal danger if her actions during the Tour don't quiet the increasing unrest among the Districts, an unrest that he places squarely at her feet.

Katniss resolves to be the picture-perfect lover and faithful Capitol sycophant in order to save her family, Gale, Peeta, and her mentor, Haymitch. Even if she had pulled it off (this is Katniss, remember? Did you honestly think she'd be able to look Rue's or Thresh's family in the face and not falter in her resolve just a little?) the Capitol already had a tricky little ace up their sleeves: the Quarter Quell. The Quarter Quell is a devious bit of devilry:

On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors.

One male and one female victor from each district. And District 12 has only had three victors ever, and only one of them female. That's right, folks: Katniss is headed back to the good old arena, with either Peeta or Haymitch as her this-time-the-lovey-dovey-act-won't-fly companion.

Don't think Catching Fire is simply The Hunger Games, part 2 -- it isn't. Katniss may be back in the arena, but the dynamics are completely different. I've heard a number of reviewers saying Catching Fire wasn't as compelling or as suspenseful as The Hunger Games, but I completely disagree. Catching Fire moves the story from the oppressed, under-duress phase to the full-blown rebellion phase: it's the final transitional stop for Katniss as she morphs from trapped bird to lovebird to mockingjay. Ms. Collins needed to make that transition to prevent the story from simply marking time, and she does it deftly and convincingly.

                  Ms. Suzanne Collins

Both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire take up and embrace an issue that most young adult tomes shy away from: violence. Consider the Potter series as an example. The Harry Potter books featured evil, Cruciatus-curse throwing Death Eaters and dangerous rebellions, but when it came down to actual confrontations, the Good Guys pretty much confined themselves to expelliarmus and petrificus totalus and levicorpus. No nasty Unforgivable Curses for them, despite the fact that innocents like Colin Creevy were being carried out on a board. So what if the bad guys want to kill us? We're above that -- and effective self-defense -- apparently.

And the suffering! Measure any -- all -- of the suffering endured in the Harry Potter books against just a few episodes in The Hunger Games books -- Rue taking a spear to the gut, Cato "playing" with the muttations all night long, Katniss nearly dying from dehydration. There isn't any comparison.

The Hunger Games and Catching Fire ground the young adult fantasy genre firmly to the real world, where oppressive governments and life-endangering rebellions and mental and emotional torment are an everyday reality. Where people driven into a corner are willing to do whatever, whenever, to anyone in order to protect the people and beliefs they love. I've always felt the tendency to avoid these unpleasant little truths in modern fantasy tomes to be a real weakness. The Hunger Games series finally leaps into that breach. Huzzah to Ms. Collins and to The Hunger Games trilogy! I'm already counting down the days to the release of book 3.

If I had read The Hunger Games when I compiled my list of 10 best books for treating Harry Potter withdrawal, it would have definitely held a place of honor. Thanks to all of the Book Examiner readers who convinced me that this series was worth a gander. You were right. Keep those recommendations coming.