Catching Fire starts a little while after the end of The Hunger Games, with Katniss now living in the Victors Village with her family; near to Haymitch and Peeta. Her mind is mainly on the upcoming Victory Tour, which she is not looking forward to due to her frosty relationship with Peeta after he discovered that she was just pretending to be in love with him. However, a surprise visit from President Snow brings news of rebellion placing Katniss and those close to her in serious danger.A lot of people say that this is their favourite novel from the Hunger Games trilogy, but I found it a little more confusing than it's predecessor. Again, Katniss remains a good heroine and being inside her head for the novel was certainly not painful; even when she is placed under even more pressure than she was in the first installment. Collins also introduces us to some great new characters, most interesting to me was Johanna Mason, a former Hunger Games champion. The reader also gets more of a look at life in some of the other Districts, something that I was really keen to hear about; and the brutality in some of the districts certainly explains why people have never thought to rebel against the Games before. However, I did have problems with Catching Fire. To begin with, it seems as though there is supposed to be a love triangle established featuring Katniss, Games partner Peeta and old friend Gale. Yet I was not invested in this, simply because I didn't warm to Gale at all in this novel. Yes, he faces some bad situations but in terms of his relationship with Katniss he came across as kind of an idiot. Maybe this is an issue that is fleshed out in Mockingjay, the final novel, but I do hope that it doesn't become overly central to the plot because at this moment I just have very little care towards it.Then there seems to be a pacing issue in the novel. Although the whole thing is pretty fast paced (I read it in a day), it seemed that the last third was incredibly rushed, with the ending coming from seemingly nowhere. Due to this rush, I also didn't really find the cliffhanger particularly effective, I was just annoyed that so much stuff had happened with little resolution in the final pages.That being said, I certainly wasn't bored when I was reading Catching Fire, and will be giving Mockingjay a read soon just to see how (or if) Collins ties up all the loose ends.
