The middle book of a trilogy is always dicey territory. Since it is a bridge between the first book and the third book, the potential for suspense can be limited. In most trilogies, the reader expects the protagonist to survive at least until the third book, and that expectation can put pressure on the author and a strain on the plot.
Happily, this is not the case for Suzanne Collins. Catching Fire is every bit as suspenseful as The Hunger Games. The numerous plot twists leave the reader breathless and giddy, and the characterizations are razor sharp.
Only the rosiest-bespectacled optimist would think that Katniss can just pick up her life again in District 12 with only her feelings for co-victor Peeta and her long-time friend Gale to disturb her. Realistically, Katniss may have bought herself even more trouble as a victor than she experienced in the arena. Although she may have captured the country's heart with her suicide threat at the end of the Games, the implications of her gesture are not lost on the powers that be, or on the restless and rebellious members of the populace.
Catching Fire: The Second Book of the Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, Scholastic Press, 400 pages, $21.99
Just before she and Peeta must leave for their Victory Tour to the other districts, Katniss receives an unwelcome visitor: President Snow. Snow is possibly the most successfully depicted villain in the history of young adult literature. He appears to be unassuming but off-kilter, and he is neither unctuous nor smarmy in his dealings with Katniss. Rather, he is businesslike and calculated, and he delivers his news dispassionately, making him all the more horrific.
In bringing out the poisonous berries in the arena, Katniss defied the system and the Capitol, and her action gave others around the country the courage to rebel. Uprisings have begun in some of the districts, and Katniss is becoming the “face” of those rebellions. Her task, President Snow informs her, is to convince the populace that she was under the influence of her emotions for Peeta, that she is head-over-heels in love with him, and that her trick with the berries was born of desperation and passion. Katniss is daunted by the task, especially when she realizes that it means that she will be bound to Peeta for the rest of her life. But the alternative is worse; the lives of everyone she loves may hang on her success.
There is brutality and violence in this novel, but Collins balances it with beauty, grace, light humour and acts of sacrifice
On the tour, Katniss and Peeta manage, with the best of intentions, to make things worse all around. Their first visit, to the district from which the contestant Rue came, ends in a bloody melee when Katniss and Peeta address the families of the dead and the people as a whole salute Katniss with a gesture from her own district.
After they return, the final blow falls. It is the 75th anniversary of the Games and the year of the Quell, celebrated every 25 years and designed to emphasize the power of the Capitol. The Hunger Games in the Quell years feature special conditions, and this year, the contestants are taken from the victors who still survive. Clearly, this is especially bad news for Katniss, since she is determined to ensure that Peeta stays alive, even though it means her death.
Once she is in the arena, however, she learns gradually that people have other plans for her and for Peeta, even at the risk of their own lives, and by the end of the novel, Katniss is irrevocably the face of the Panem rebellion: She is the mockingjay, the bird that has become a symbol of freedom.
Collins keeps the pace going in the first-person, present-tense narrative, telling the story from Katniss's point of view. Moreover, she brings the settings to life, from the coal-dust grime and weariness of the Seam to the lavish luxuries of the Capitol. Even characters only briefly in the story are fully realized, and are often people about whom one thinks and cares.
The biggest development is within Katniss. Over the course of the book, she turns her attention from herself to outside, with the understanding that she can't simply protect the people she knows and loves. Whatever action she takes has repercussions beyond her personal circle, and she begins to understand that she must take responsibility for the impact her choices have on people beyond her scope. As a result, Katniss becomes tougher and more resolved to do whatever is necessary for the greater good. The fire imagery that runs through the book seems to temper her spirit. She demonstrates true courage by acting not because she isn't afraid, but in spite of being afraid.
There is brutality and violence in this novel, but Collins balances it with beauty, grace, light humour and acts of sacrifice and loyalty. Most of all, she suffuses her novel with a powerful vision of hope, even when it seems that the world is crumbling, and that is something that speaks to anyone in any time.
Donna Scanlon is a student English teacher working with Grades 7 and 8. She lives in Marietta, Pa.
