The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

I must admit, when I first heard about the premise of The Hunger Games, I was not all that interested in picking it up. It's a story about the North America of the future - when the United States have disbanded and the new government ("The Capitol") has divided North America into 13 districts. There's an uprising in District 13 that leads The Capitol to create an annual tournament called the Hunger Games, to which each district must send one male and one female "tribute." The tributes are locked in an arena specially designed for the games and must remain there, fighting each other and the elements until only one remains, essentially just to show that the government has ultimate control over the lives of all its citizens. Sounded a little bit sick and twisted to me, but so many people recommended it to me that I figured I had to give it a shot.

And I was so happy I did. I devoured The Hunger Games, and then went out and bought the sequel (Catching Fire) within an hour of finishing the first book. Yes, the subject matter is sick, but the story is great. It's YA fiction (like the Twilight Saga) so there's plenty of drama. Lots of twists and turns - and it isn't as gruesome as you might expect. Collins tells the story she wants to tell without relying on blood and guts as much as she could have. I literally found my heart racing during tense moments in the plot, which I think is evidence of great writing. I also always think it's fun to read books set in the future - you've gotta wonder, what's going to happen? Look at how much the country and society have changed in the past 50 years, 100 years - which is such a relatively short amount of time - what's going to happen in the next? Your guess (or Collins') is as good as mine - but let's hope Collins isn't spot on.

I can't tell you much about Catching Fire without giving up information about The Hunger Games, but one criticism I will throw out there is this - I think Collins should have only written two books instead of three. Mockingjay - the final book of the series - is due out in late August. Granted I haven't read Mockingjay, so I can't say whether she could have fit all of the material into two books, but Catching Fire was definitely a transitional text. The first half of Catching Fire was spent wrapping up The Hunger Games, and the second half was spent setting up Mockingjay. Maybe Mockingjay will be able to stand on its own, and the set up needed to be left to another book to cut down on the length - but I felt like Catching Fire should have been divided into an Epilogue and a Prologue for the two other texts. Letting it be a book on its own, giving it that weight of expectation (especially after all the action of The Hunger Games), sort of set it up to fail. I felt like it couldn't carry the amount of story that it needed to. Was it released in that way to build anticipation and set the stage for sales of Mockingjay? Maybe, but I think The Hunger Games really ensured the success of its sequel through its own success.

All that said - don't miss out on Catching Fire. Just because it was used to bridge what I assume are going to be two great books doesn't mean it doesn't tell an important part of the story. Don't miss out on either of them...go get them now (I'll wait for you to come back). Perfect poolside reading for the summer!