My Catching Fire (The Hunger Games #2) by Suzanne Collins Book Review on Goodreads

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I know I'm going to forget something but here goes:

WARNING: DO NOT READ WHEN BUSY!

This book was hands-down way better than The Hunger Games (at least for me). If you read my review of it, you will know that too much early exposure ruined the book for me. Luckily, I had no real knowledge of this book before starting and was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out. I must admit, I love it with all my heart.

Last book, I thought that it was odd that the Games were over. I mean, that was all any reader really read for (among other things)! What I did not see coming was that my strange feeling was not in vain, for there was a SECOND Games! And she staged it perfectly. She knew she had to keep the Games in to keep the readers enthralled, but how to do that without it being obvious? Collins used just the right amount of exposition at the end of the first, and then rising action in the second that it made perfect sense. The Quarter Quell idea didn't seem thrown in there just so there could be a second Games, it seemed necessary and well-thought out. If you read my review of the previous book, you will see that I was annoyed that the book didn't just end with the end of the Games. But now I understand why she went on. And it is BRILLIANT!

The whole District 13 thing was absolutely awesome! The idea that they were using old footage? Great. I think the whole rebellion thing made this book that much more exciting and I loved the ending. The Capitol is losing control. And fast.

Katniss is pretty lucky. Surviving TWO Games? That's fierce.

The mockingjay idea of Cinna's and everything else that happened as far as that goes was so exciting and made me love the book even more. And I'm just guessing here, but I think more of that will come in the next book. Oh poor Cinna! I'm going to have a hard time watching that in the movie.

Every act of rebellion that the Capitol had to black out made me so happy. It sent excitement and elation through my veins, plunging me into a reading frenzy. Because when all you read about is the terrible control the Capitol has, it's so incredible when someone finally does SOMETHING to rebel in just the teeniest, tiniest of ways.

At the end, I felt like so much time had passed since President Snow showed up on her doorstep. I strongly dislike that little guy (well maybe not so little). Stupid rigged Quarter Quell. Ahh.

Towards the end, this book just got crazier and crazier. I had a hard time doing much else so just decided to read it out.

Oh, and I am officially Team Peeta. And I think that's mostly because there's not enough of Gale in the book to convince me otherwise.

Overall, completely masterful in every possible way. Highly recommend and think that you should definitely read even if you didn't like the first. After all, there may be some ulterior reason that you didn't like it that won't apply for the second. You'll never know until you try. P.S. These Games were a lot more fun and exciting (the whole clock thing was crazy!) than the previous.

I know there's something I'm forgetting (I'm a very forgetful person) but oh well. Alas, there is not time in the world to fret over buzzing bees (my own little saying).

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My The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Book Review on Goodreads

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Similar to my friend Arushi on here, I had no desire to read this book whatsoever when I first saw it. And then, just like Arushi, it was everywhere. I put off reading it until almost the entire known world had read every book, because I was so afraid of ruining the experience by not reading it to my fullest. I was curious, like Arushi, about why this book was so amazing. And I gotta say that I was pretty dissapointed. At FIRST. At FIRST. Don't get your knickers in a twist. I shall explain everything .



Well, let's see. I was not impressed by nearly three quarters of the book. I just didn't think it was great . And I think my problems were all a result of one mistake on my part:

That I waited too long to read.



As part of my Kids/Teens Book Club on this site, I read Divergent for the monthly read. And THAT was amazing. I reviewed it on Goodreads, so feel free to check it out. But, alas, it was too similar to Hunger Games for me to enjoy this book when I read it. It was either one or the other to think was great for me, and I read Divergent first because I waited so long to read HG. I had HG on my shelf for forever, I was just waiting to the PERFECT time to read it.



Also, I think I waited so long that I heard a crazy amount of hype. And the reviews and ravings I heard and read, it was just not possible for one book to live up to all of it when you compiled them alltogether. Yes, that was just too much hype for one book, and my expectations were raised too high.



So finally I found the perfect time to read it. In my real life book club, the Smarticle Particles (headed by my friend daredevil69), we decided to read this book as our March read (Feb. 25-Mar. 23) and then see the movie at 7:00 pm on March 23. This is HG AWESOMENESS!



But then all the hype and Divergent got to me and I didn't enjoy it. Until I got to the endish. When I got to the part where she found Peeta I was hooked from then on. It really got crazy for me when Katniss realized that the wolves were all the fallen tributes. And don't even get me started on Rue's death. I think that was probably my FAVORITE part. Not that I liked her dying, it was just so sweet Katiss's defiance of the Capitol and respect for poor Rue (I don't like the actor who they chose for the movie). OH WAIT I FORGOT! Which brings me to the part that I really liked and almost forgot about: the double suicide. Seriously if the Capitol's going to have these games, the possibilities of suicides are very high. There are a LOT of quick and easy ways to kill oneself in that arena, so they really should have taken that into consideration before. In fact, i think it was pretty silly of Collins to do that because the chance that no one had attempted that before? Unlikely. I know I would have the very second the Games started (though that's different). I really liked that whole defiance thing and think that from the beginning of the battle with the wolf-humans to the double suicide attempt, was the BEST part of the book.



But then I expected it to end there. I thought that this book ended with the end of the Games and then we were left wondering how awesome their lives became at the end, waiting anxiously to read the second. Boy, was I wrong. No, there was the whole "must make Capitol think I wasn't rebelling but just madly in love" thing that I didn't expect to happen in this book. More like the second book. (Though I know it does continue into the next book and much of it is about that.) I'm not sure if I liked this flow of events. It was weird and interesting the way it was set up, I guess its just going to make the next book start at an odd time. And am I ever excited to read the next. Because the last part of the book was the part I liked. Katniss is in trouble, and from what I read of the back cover of Catching Fire, this is going to be a book about her and Peeta "tricking" the Capitol, or maybe not tricking but telling the-*gasp*-TRUTH?! And REBELLION! Yay!!! I was just waiting for this to happen.



And the entire time, I was wondering: now I have to figure out why people loved this book so much. And while reading it, I think I found my answer. And I think part of the reason for this is that people covet and desire simplicity and work. People, deep down inside, miss being what we used to be: people who hunted, made, and gathered our food ourselves, or at least had trouble getting it. And the hope that maybe someday we will have to work for it again like our ancestors is so fascinating to people. I don't know if I'm the first to bring this up, but I definitely think it is a valid idea. In today's preserved food and supermarkets, we kind of want, deep down inside, to have to work for our food again, or at least know that it will not always be there. That ancestral desire and instict hasn't gone away just yet. And I succumbed to that ploy too just like everyone else. I think that's why everyone loves that Katniss is a hunter. I know I really enjoyed her desccriptions of the bare meals she enjoyed and the stew in the Seam. It's all part of that inner instict that we may soon lose.



Overall, this book was pretty good. I really liked it (again, overall). I just didn't love it (the description for 5 stars) throughout most of the book. I have a feeling that the next book will be five stars for me though, which is strange because most people say that this book was their favorite. But I hear the end ofMockingjay was TERRIBLE. Can't wait to read more.



P.S. One thing I didn't get: may the oods be ever in your favor. Not that funny or cool. At all.



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My (Super Belated) Anthem by Ayn Rand Book Review on Goodreads

Anthem by Ayn Rand

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


CREAMPUFF, SOLARIUS, DAZPUP, EMILY, JULIANA, AND LUNARIETTE: YOU MUST READ THIS REVIEW! IT SLAMS ANTHEM A LOT! Unless you like Anthem in which you can still read it but you just might want to comment in it's defense...I have a feeling JuJu might have liked it...





Okay, so if you look for my reviews about my books on my read-for-school shelf, you'll see that reading books for school generally ruins them for me. It drags the book out, you analyze it, read it forcedly in between other bits of homework, write an essay on it, do vocab on it, have class non-stimulating discussions, and other stuff that somehow really annoys me. So forgive me if I'm a bit unfairly harsh. I'm sure it's better than I give it.



Okay, the only reason I rated this 2 stars for "it was ok" is because I have a thing for dystopian so the futuristic bits (a society that lost most technology)was interesting for me. Really, though, I did not like Equality (or Prometheus, whatever). He just didn't hit it for me. I mean, he was just a bit too conceited and I don't know what. Did anyone else find this book hard to explain? Because I did. Somehting about him was just...unrealistic.



Most of my problems with this book probably stem from the fact that it was written in the thirties. The dystopian writing style back then was different. Maybe if I'd read this back then I'd have loved it. I don't know. This book just kind of hit the tree 100 yards away from the target for me. In a lot of ways. I know my school friends will love this review.



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My Divergent by Veronica Roth Book Review on Goodreads

Divergent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is one of the better books I've read! A bit too serious at the end for my taste, but I still loved this book! I absolutely COULD NOT put this book down! The great thing about this book is that you can totally see this as happening in real life. This was good in a different way than most of the books I've read. It's a different kind of book, but it was still amazing. I predicted correctly from nearly the beginning that Al would kill himself and that Four's name stood for his four fears. Usually I'm not good at that kind of thing, but maybe I'm good at predicting dystopian thrillers. I can't wait to read Insurgent!



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