Book Review: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

On to the second book in The Hunger Games series!
To be honest, I read all 3 of the books in 4 days, so my apologies if all of the details run together!

Cover Design: The bad news - the cover is still copying 80's sci fi work. The good news - now that you've read the first book, the cover makes a lot of sense. I'm still not a big fan of the artwork, but at least there's a point to it now.

Writing Style: If anything, Collins has improved her writing style for the second installment. Still simple, but in my opinion she was able to articulate more detail, which I appreciate.

Plot (huge spoiler alert): In my opinion, the second book is the worst of the series. I wasn't at all surprised by Snow's disposition toward's Katniss' actions in the first book - that was to be expected. I also anticipated the beginnings of the uprisings in the districts, and the continuation of the "love story" between Peeta and Katniss. What I was surprised by was the fact that both Peeta and Katniss have to go back to the Hunger Games...in fact, I actually said "WHAT!" super loudly - sorry Scott!

But, in spite of all that, I still didn't like the book very much. White Collins did a great job of adding more details (the clock in the Games, description of costumes, etc...), I didn't think she did a very good job of adding details that were pertinent to the plot - for example, I really wish she would have expounded a lot about what happened to District 12, the women Katniss found in the woods, Gale's emotions throughout the whole thing, etc... All in all, I got a little bored with this one.

Favorite Character (s):  How can you not still adore Katniss (although she was a bit more temperamental in this one). I also became a fan of Finnick - a big fan. I am still unsure of Gale, though I am beginning to like him a lot - he seems like a down to earth "good 'ol boy" as it were, and would do anything for our Heroin (still kind of suspicious of him though, Bryant!)

That's book two. It definitely wasn't my favorite, but is still very much worth the time it takes to read!
Book 3 is on it's way!