Book Review: Catching Fire

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.

I finished the Hunger Games trilogy. I read the first book a while ago, than read most of the third book and skipped the second entirely. Last week, I finished reading the second book.

In the aftermath of the first hunger games, Katniss and Peeta are both suffering from post-traumatic stress. Which only makes sense. Katniss is slowly realizing she’ll have to wed Peeta to stay alive and she doesn’t like the idea. Actually, I think she doesn’t like the idea of being forced to do something she hadn’t decided on doing.

There are lots of memorable parts in Catching Fire. The part where she learns she has to fight in the Hunger Games again. The part where she hangs a likeness of the evil president of the Capitol. (That was really good. LOL) The part where her wedding gown turns into a mockingjay bird’s plumage. See, that is something I would love see on the screen. The movie better not skip that scene. Watching Katniss and Peeta really fall in love. The speech she gives on tour to Rue’s people.

But the part that shocked was when Cinna was murdered. I don’t know why that hit me so hard. I wasn’t expecting him to die. Her family, yes, her friends, yes, I figured them to be fair game.

One of most often quoted rules of writing is to murder your darlings and nothing could hurt Katniss worse than to watch her family die. Her sister, Prim, in particular. Rue’s death in the first book was like a foreshadowing of Prim’s death, IMO. I mean, the number of times Katniss compared Rue and Prim, the number of times Rue reminded Katniss of Prim. I half-expected Prim to die in this book or at least come close to death.

Cinna, on the other hand, is a minor character. His death makes sense in the books. But it shocked me. Shocked me more on anything else in the books. But he turned her into the Girl On Fire. He turned her into the symbol of the rebellion. His death devastated me.

But Catching Fire was good. Really good. Catching Fire was better than both the first and second books. I read it faster than the Hunger Games, faster than Mockingjay. It is the best book in the whole series. That’s odd, because it is also a middle book and middle books are usually the weakest in a series.

It has a cliff hanger ending, but I didn’t mind since I had the next one at hand. Otherwise, I think I might have been a little upset. LOL

The Hunger Games Movie

I liked the movie version of The Hunger Games. They do a pretty good job of following the book.

They toned down the violence, but if the movie had same level of violence as in the books, the movie would have ended up with an R rating. It’s a little strange. The book is for young adults, but if they hadn’t toned down the violence, the young adults wouldn’t have been able to see the movie. In the theaters anyway. They can read it, they just can’t watch it. It strikes me as bizarre.

The movie left out stuff, of course. But movies can’t ever be as detailed as the book. I am not upset about that.

But I do wonder if people who haven’t read the book will get the movie. I mean, there are so many things it doesn’t explain. It implies, yeah, and the characters say things in passing. But if you miss a line or two, there are lots of minor details you won’t get.

Like when Katniss tells her sister not to put in extra slips with her name because the extra food isn’t worth it. Would you get the characters can put in extra slips with their names, as many extra slips as they have family? And that the slips are cumulative? I am not sure I would.

It’s little stuff like that. Most people probably still understood the story, but still.

It was fun watching though. I liked the parade scene when both their costumes are on fire. And the interview one where her dress ignites. She isn’t in public when Peeta announces he has a crush on her, but still. Not bad.

I liked the scene where the tributes first break out. Everything is chaos and violent and bloody. There isn’t a lot of blood afterward, but that was a good scene.

And the scene where Rue dies? Fantastic. I had tears in my eyes.

One the last scenes, when the other tribute has Peeta in a headlock, Cato does this short monologue about how he’s already dead. I don’t remember that from the book, but it was pretty touching. In that moment he was a lot more sympathetic than I remember from the book.

On the train ride home, Katniss says she wants to forget what happened. It implies she faked/exaggerated her feelings for Peeta. Which she did, but the movie doesn’t state that explicitly. That kind of disappointed me.

Also, I wish Haymitch had looked like a drunk in the movie. He sobered up fast. LOL

Related articles

• The #1 Reason the Hunger Games is a Hit at the Box Office (abelovedone.wordpress.com)
• “The Hunger Games” Lives Up To The Hype – And Then Some (asterisky.com)
• Review: The Hunger Games (lynnebubbles.wordpress.com)
• Confused with ‘The Hunger Games’ (dashamones.wordpress.com)
• From Book to Film: The Hunger Games (theliteraryphoenix.wordpress.com)
• Everything The Hunger Games Movie Left Out [Hunger Games] (io9.com)
• The Hunger Games — A Movie Review (news.moviefone.com)

Teaser Tuesday: Witch Eyes

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers:

This is some sort of joke. A test. My father was in the room with me. “What are you doing here?” I whispered, as if someone was listening.

- Witch Eyes by Scott Tracey

Teaser Tuesday: Unnatural

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser:

What he saw made him disgusted, scared, but yes, just a little excited even though he knew what he was seeing wasn’t right. Tomorrow at church he would pray that it would all go away, that he would be able to change who he was, but tonight … tonight he would lock his bedroom door, block out the sounds coming from downstairs, and think about R.J. And he would convince himself that it was the most natural thing in the world.

- Unnatural by Michael Griffo

Teaser Tuesday: The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser:

He’d spent most of the night lying awake, thinking of One-Thumb lying dead in the dirt. Thinking of the horror on Lilissa’s face when she’d seen the blood on his hands. He’d gone to Trickle Street to save her, to win her, and somehow, in the saving, he’d lost her.

- The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice by Stephen Deas

Teaser Tuesday: Midnight’s Daughter

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

It’s five lines instead of the usual two, but I couldn’t pick which two, so I posted all of them.

My teaser:

Louis-Cesare and his opponent both looked at the clock; then the mage decided on the better part of valor and bolted for the door. I didn’t try to stop him; I was too busy following hard on his heels. Louis-Cesare trailed after me, dragging the limp body of the cabin attendant with him, and the three of us ran full out for the chain-link fence near the runway. The mage, unencumbered by bodies, reached it first and vaulted over. Louis-Cesare dropped the steward and sailed after him, jumping across the eight-foot fence like it wasn’t even there.

-  Midnight’s Daughter by Karen Chance

Teaser Tuesday: City of Bones, Take Two

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I teased this book last time, but I am still reading it, so here we go again. I didn’t finish because, well, because various other books got in the way.

My teaser:

She watched him walk away, and felt the mingled urge to burst into tears and to run after him for the express purpose of kicking him in the ankle. Knowing either action would fill him with satisfaction, she did neither, but went warily into the bedroom.

- City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Teaser Tuesday: City of Bones

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser:

The door blew outward, knocking her off her feet. She skidded across the hallway floor and slammed into the wall, rolling onto her stomach. There was a dull roaring in her ears as she pulled herself up to her knees.

- City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Book Review: Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

Hex Hall is amazing! I don’t say that about a lot of books, but Hex Hall really is amazing. I can see myself rereading this once or twice.

Amazon’s Book Summery: Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It’s gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie’s estranged father—an elusive European warlock—only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it’s her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

By the end of her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect.

As a series of blood-curdling mysteries starts to converge, Sophie prepares for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.

Hex Hall is one of the best books I’ve read in a long, long time. It is a quick, easy read. But it is also very cute, with a really likable, but snarky main character. It has a few, extremely unexpected twists and turns. The ending is perfect.

Right in the beginning there was a funny moment where she goes, bad dog, to an attacking werewolf.

IMHO, the best scene is when they are in the cellar and she discovers something shocking, totally unexpected about the guy. It was the best twist in the whole book. But I didn’t question it, you know? As shocking and expected as it was, it didn’t pull me out of the story and made me go, WTH? Me reaction was: OMG! He isn’t! He is! He really is!

If there is one or two things that could be better, it’s that two of the mean girl trio isn’t well-developed.  Their drama would’ve had more impact if they were better developed. They are minor villains, so I guess it’s okay.

The other thing is that except for the last quarter of the story, Hex Hall is a pretty story and Sophie is remarkably free of life-threatening situations. The ending saves it from being overly cute. As I said before, the ending is perfect. It also adds the final, unexpected twist.

Teaser Tuesday: Hex Hall

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is two really long sentences. I think this is one of the few times I actually have two sentences instead of 3 or 4.

The purpose of Hecate Hall is to protect and instruct shapeshifter, witch, and fae children who have risked exposure of their abilities, and  therefore imperiled society as a whole.

“I still don’t see how helping one girl find a date imperiled other witches,” I said, squinting at my mom as we reached into the trunk for my stuff.

- Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

Related Articles

• Demonglass: A Hex Hall Novel (yabookscentral.blogspot.com)