September 14, 2010

Catching Fire, Book Two of The Hunger Games

I wrote about starting "The Hunger Games Trilogy" here. I read the first book and was impressed with the world-building and the heroine.

I finished the second (Catching Fire) overnight and am now even more impressed, although the world author Suzanne Collins has built is unreservedly appalling. I've read an awful lot of dystopian novels from Orwell and Huxley to Atwood and King, but I've never found one that gave me the shudders before. The sheer nastiness of the ruling center goes well beyond 1984's uncaring state and The Handmaid's Tale's theocracy. In this society there's an added spitefulness and vengefulness toward its citizens those other books didn't have.

There are 38 35 people ahead of me on the library's waiting list for Mockingjay, the third book (and 216 waiting over all). I hope they hurry.

Posted by Linkmeister at September 14, 2010 02:15 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Wait 'til you see Katniss adapting to life in District 13!
I'd send you ours, but A) Michele's boyfriend has it now, and B) it seems impractical.
Oryx and Crake didn't give you nightmares? It did me. Reading it when we were in the Gulf Coast doing Katrina clean-up probably didn't help.

Posted by: Aunt Sam at September 14, 2010 04:03 PM

Haven't read Oryx and Crake. I'll put it on the list.

Posted by: Linkmeister at September 14, 2010 04:16 PM