Catching fire – Suzanne Collins (The hunger games series)

A new book review today! I loved writing the last one and I hope you did too. Today I am continuing with The Hunger Games series. I’m telling you my thoughts about the second book in The Hunger Games series.

The book about the story
Katniss Everdeen survived The Hunger Games, Now the capitol wants revenge.
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are still alive. Katniss should be relieved, but now there are whispers of a rebellion against the capitol –a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.
As the nation watches Katniss and Peeta, the stakes are higher than ever. One false move and the consequences will be unimaginable.

My opinions

“The games have spoiled even that. I keep hoping that as time passed we’ll regain the ease between us, but part of me knows it’s futile. There is no going back”.
-Page 6

“Just the sounds of is voice twists my stomach into a knot of unpleasant emotions like guilt, sadness and fear. And longing. I might as well admit there’s some of that, too. Only it has too much competition to ever win out”.
-page 17

“Gale had shattered some invisible barrier between us and, with it, and hope I had of resuming our old, uncomplicated friendship”.
-Page 33.

If she loved Gale if she wanted to be with Gale, even though she doesn’t want to feel feelings, she would have. She did with Peete in the first Arena. At this point in the story I am really over the three-way relationship idea. Because it just isn’t happening. I can’t see it anywhere

“returning her hugs instead of tolerating them”
-Page 38

Reading about Katniss and her mother. And Katniss trying to be nicer to her mum made me smile. I think it shows how much Katniss grew as a person due to the games.

“I never took Gale to the lake. I could have…. It’s a place I’ve never wanted to share with anyone”.
-Page41

I think this is just very sad and upsetting. You notice in the book that Katniss things more about the things that she cannot share with Gale where in the last one she focused on what she wanted to share with him. It’s also a critical part in the book because Snow visited her and she knows she need to convince him she loves Peeta.

“It’s full of fur and snowflakes and lipstick, but underneath all that, I can feel the steadiness that Peeta brings to everything. And I know I’m not alone”
-Page 51

Peeta is Katniss’ safe haven. Her feeling and acknowledging that is good for her character.

“He means there’s only one future, if I want to keep those I love alive and stay alive myself. I’ll have to marry Peeta”.
-Page 52

I just put “as if that is so bad” in my notes. It also made me think how the whole love things protected her from being out sold in the capitol. But she doesn’t know that, obviously.

“So I thought if I stopped being so, you know wounded, we could take a shot at just being friends”
-Page 63

Then we have my favourite part in the film. Them being friends. Peeta is just too good for Katniss, let’s be honest. He is such a strong and kind character.

“I hear Haymitch’s voice “you could do a lot worse.” at this moment it’s impostible to imaginehow I could do any better”.
-Page 73

After Peeta giving their shares of the winning to the families of Tresh and Rue. She gives him Hope, he always had. Therefore, he is so important for the rebellion.

“But I feel as if I did know rue, and she’ll always be with me. Everything beautiful bring her to mind. I see her in the yellow flowers that grown in the meadow by my house. I see he in the mockingjays that sing in the trees. But most of all, I see her I my sister, prim”.
-Page 75

This whole thing is just sad. Then she finally tells Peeta what president Snow told her I think this is important because she doesn’t want to/cannot keep secrets from him. They talk about how Haymitch protected Katniss and tried to bring her back instead of Peeta. He knew this and up until know never held it against the. He is too good, too smart and too sweet. He is a very lovable character. No one every tells Effie anything because everyone wants to protect Effie because she is sort of a child that doesn’t see harm in the world. After this Peeta and Katniss promise each other to be truthful towards one another.

“but every night I met him into my bed. We manage the darkness as e did in the arena, wrapped in each other’s arm, guarding against dangers that can descend at any moment.”
-Page 89

I truly missed this in the film, it was in there but not as much and at this point you know, why they work and why no one else could compare.

“’I have to be going soon.’ He turns the watch so I can see the face. “it starts at midnight”.
-Page 101

Clues. Also I love how protective Effie is in trying to get them in places on time and how she always makes sure they know what is expected from them, she doesn’t know. However I think Effie is quite clever and knows more than the book says.

“It’s not necessary. My nightmare are usually about losing you.” He says “I’m OK once I realize you’re here”.
-Page 105

That’s just cute, especially because Katniss doesn’t really like it.

“But it’s not true. A mockingbird is just a songbird. A mockingjay is a creature the Capitol never intended to exist.”

“they hadn’t anticipated its will to live”.
-Page 113

The mockingjay fits Katniss. The odds where all against her (and Peeta) winning the games. But they did anyway, it’s an amazing fit for the rebellion, for Katniss. For her story.

“and there doesn’t seem to be room for anything else. If we could get somewhere safe, maybe I could be different. I don’t know.”
-Page 118

Gale to me was really annoying in this film, he keeps pushing Katniss to fall in love with him, to choose him. She might have chosen him, later on but because he was busier with trying to get her to like him than with understanding her, he didn’t give them a chance. Katniss and Gale talk about getting away and about the fact that there could be an uprising. Gale is angry, Gale wants war. Whereas Katniss is trying to protect the people around her. She killed because she had too. He doesn’t understand that part of her. She then askes Peeta who does understand her.

“you will?” “Yeah. But I don’t think for a minute you will,” he says.
-Page 125

She thinks she can run, a whole page later she finds out she can’t. Like I said, Peeta knows her better than anyone else. She does however gets jealous when her friend Madge gives her medicine because gale is hurt she doesn’t like the idea that they might like each other. She feels complicated about her whole life and she keeps thinking about what she really feels and why she did what she did back in the arena. It’s the struggle of a young girl, trying to find herself out.

“If I held them out to save Peeta because I knew I would be shuned if I came back without him, then I am despicable. If I held them out because I loved him, I am still self-centred, although forgivable. But if I held them out to defy the Capitol, I am someone of worth. The trouble is, I don’t know exactly what was going on inside me at that moment”.
-Page 143

Gale is a born rebel; Katniss however doesn’t need a rebel. She wished for Peeta to be there, she however links him to the capital. That her future with him is the capitol’s design, not her own. She is so uncertain about her feeling, about what she wants and what makes her happy. Mostly because she doesn’t give herself time to sort it all out.

“I’ll go with you,” he says. “No I dragged you into enough trouble,” I tell him.
-Page 158

She is always trying to protect everyone where Peeta is just looking out for her. I think she as a person needs that. She meets people out in the woods when they talk about her being the Mockingjay. She doesn’t understand the effect she has on people. She sees herself as the girl that volunteered for her sister.

“We always seem to have a supply of these since Peeta found out they were my favourite”
– Page 172

She meets people from district 8 and hears them out, she also hears that disctrict 13 might survived. She doesn’t think this is real but it also gives her.

“this is why they’ve made it this far, Haymitch and Peeta. Nothing throws them.”
-Page 188

Katniss sees the strength in others.

“I’m pushing things, I know it, but the comment gives me a sense of satisfaction”
– Page 190

She is a very sassy girl as well, when she is in her element she is not afraid of whatever she says.

“stay with me” as the tendrils of sleep syrup pull me down, I hear him whisper a word back, but I don’t quite catch it.”
-Page 192

In time of need she always chooses Peeta, to keep her save.

“I also become a little fixated on his eyelashes”
-Page 195

She notices him, his body, his face and she doesn’t really do that with gale even though they spent way more time together.

“Two male. One female…
I am going back into the arena”
-Page 209

This is where the book changes where you truly feel sorry for Katniss, that you feel the panic while reading. Then she decides to keep Peeta alive, he obviously does the same thing. Just like he did the last game.

“you could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know.” Haymitch says. “yeah, yeah, “I say brusquely”.
-Page 215

In a way I felt while reading that this is also a reason she didn’t really want to fall for Peeta. Because Peeta was ‘to perfect for her’ in her eyes. As well as the fact I stayed before that she just rebels against everything. When they find out two of them need to get back to the arena they start to work out and train like careers would, I missed this in the film because this was one of my favourite parts. She then goes on about the fact that she might be with Gale when life was different but she still can’t see it. Before you know it, they are on the train. And Katniss knows everything she does will be the last time.

“Instead he pulls me in close and buries his face in my hair. Warmth radiated from the sport where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me. It feels so good, so impossibly good, that I know I will not be the first to let go.”
-Page 233

If this is not a girl with a big crush on that boy. I don’t know what having a crush is. She then finds out Haymitch story and how alike they are. Which gives the message to never underestimate anyone! Katniss shows how afraid she is of loss to open up.

“our hands find each other without further discussion. Of course we will go into this as one”
-Page 255

That is so sweet and cute. They find the peace in each other. Katniss is such a pure kind person. When they talk about her not wanting to see Peeta naked in the first arena and how her heart stops when she knows the new avox. At the induvial time to show their strength they both fight back. Peeta giving Katniss the spark and strength to do it. She obviously doesn’t know what he did but she does know it was something big. Which makes it very dangerous. At dinner they find out what they both did. Peeta panting rue and her hanging the old game maker. Great minds think alike. They both get a twelve which I also missed in the film. They then have a date on the roof which I also missed. The funny thing is everyone knew she loved him before she did. The whole things seem unfair and when Peeta also tells him, he and Katniss are pregnant. Which is a bomb dropper all together. Then all the victors join hands, to show they are stronger together. Katniss underestimates her ability to love but when she thinks she lost Peeta. She finally lets it happen. Finnick saves Peeta which Katniss likes and doesn’t like.

“But I am also furious because it means that I will never stop owning Finnick Odair. Ever. So throw can I kill him in his sleep?
-Page 339

Which makes her a very good and kind person. In the book he has a fake leg so the fact that he stumbles and stuff which is a bit more understandable than him being really clumsy. Which he is in the films. He is also much stronger and fiercer in the books than in the films.

Everyone in the games is keeping them alive and they sacrifice themselves for them. Which they notice but don’t understand. Because Katniss spends a whole lot of time with Finnick which makes them friends. Katniss got the hint from the game maker earlier in the book that’s how they know it’s a clock. Which is very cool to discover!

“So before he can talk, I stop his lips with a kiss. I feel that thing again. The thing I only felt once before. In the cave last year, when I was trying to get Haymitch to send us food.
-Page 425

Love.

“where peeta’s child could be safe”
-Page 427

thinks the women that doesn’t want children?

Peeta gives Katniss the pearl which makes her very happy, then he tells her about the locket. Peeta is trying to keep have Katniss fight for her own life instead of his. But his plan to make her remember who needs her falls apart and he knows it, he knows how she thinks which is a good attribute of his.

“it worked” I say. “But not the way I wanted to” he says, averting his glance.
-Page 442

There was an alliance behind Katniss’ back which was everyone saving her, because she is the mocking jay which going behind someone like Katniss might not be a good idea.

“but I’m fair game, and so is Peeta. Peeta! My eyes fly open in panic”
-Page 449

“’Peeta,’ I whisper, my heart sinking. “the others kept Peeta alive because if he died, we knew there’d be no keeping you in an alliance,” says Haymitch. “and we couldn’t risk leaving you unprotected”.
-Page 467

“what I want… what I want is to have him back. But I’ll never get him back now”
-page 469

She lost him, she wants him. She needs him, she knows she does.

Conclusion
Catching fire is quit lovely. It has a lot of elements. From the aftermath of killing people in the arena as well as the new games and the new character that are introduced. You get to know these people at the same rate as Katniss and Peeta do. Besides I also think the bond between them and Haymitch and Effie becomes a lot stronger. Which makes the whole going back to the arena even more devastating.
I liked the fact that Katniss fell in love with Peeta with her knowing it this time. It was also interesting to read how her relationship with Gale changed. The games changed Katniss and Gale never fully understands that.