Catching Fire by Suzanne CollinsReading The Hunger Games was such an intense experience that I was looking forward to a little break when I got to the end of it. The end did not allow for any breaks, however. The action did not stop. There was no resolution. Like a tribute in the Hunger Games, I had to keep on.
So I downloaded Catching Fire, the second volume in the trilogy, and made my way through it in little more than a day.
Hunger Games victors Katness Everdeen and Peeta Mellark showed just a little too much spirited independence to please The Capitol of Panem. The despotic government will not leave them to live in peace but devises a strategy to keep in them in check. It must if it would maintain control over the 12 Districts of its country, which occupies a place once called the United States of America.
Catching Fire probes the questions raised in the first volume: How much abuse will people take? How long will people allow themselves to be denied their freedom and their right to pursue happiness?
And what happens when the people who have been under very tight control for way too long discover just how fragile is the hold of the people in charge, that the real power-brokers are their people who surrender the rights to the bullies at the top?
Suzanne Collins's characters live these questions in a futuristic world as they face concerns that we all face at one point or another--coping with the past, falling in love, living with integrity, forgiving our mistakes as well as others'.
I'm a big fan of S. E. Hinton, and I see both women's books dealing with the same themes though in very different settings. The teens in both writers' books must learn to trust themselves and make judgments in a world in which reasonble, reliable adult leadership is wanting. They are books in which the main charactes come out scarred and weary, but the reader is better for it.
If you pick up on The Hunger Games trilogy, don't make plans to do anything else. You won't want to.
3 Comments
Sandy, I am reading this book now and it is a fast paced read. While it is said the times are those in the future...I can see quite a few examples of people fighting and dying for freedom just to live in peace with a way to earn their own bread...The youth in Egypt have responded with cries for their just rights. I wrote an acrostic at my (Acrostics Are Artistic) Blog. It is titled Liberation.
ReplyDeletesounds like the read drama in Egypt right now.
ReplyDeleteI hate to admit this, but it has been ages since I read a book. Terrible I know, particularly as used to devour books, one a week at least before. These days I find myself so out of time.
ReplyDeleteHappy Valentines Day and a happy Monday to you.;))
xoxo
Thanks for being here.