Catching Fire is the second in the Hunger Games trilogy. Second novels are the tough ones in trilogies, since they do not have the natural advantage of either introducing or finishing a story. They pretty much just need to move things along, and that's happening just fine here. Panem goes from decadent to desperate in this one as the districts start uprisings. Katniss is the unwitting and unwilling spark. The Arena becomes even more high-stakes in the Quarter Quell, when all the past champions are pitted against each other. Something has to break here, and it does--at the end we have yet another uprising and the surviving tributes taking part in a revolution. But Katniss is not in on the secrets and is unhappy at being used as we close.
We see potential for a shift here. Will Katniss come around and be the symbol? Will she cave and sell them out? Or something else? Something Else is always the most interesting choice, but we won't see that until volume 3. No new message here yet, so I'll give this one four stars and let's move on.
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