The Hunger Games : Catching Fire

Katniss is in place for enjoying the money and privileges of being a victor in District 12. Her relationship with Peeta is frozen while Gale is acting like a friend while working in the mines. President Snow visits and threatens Katniss to behave while the Quarter Quell Hunger Games are to begin- every 25 years there are special versions of the Hunger Games whose special factor was supposedly predetermined in envelopes locked up , for example one time the number of the tributes (players) was double, while the other time each district had to vote out their tributes. So this time the tributes are selected from the prior victors. Katniss freaks out and eventually ends up in the game, with her bonding with Peeta to grow and a comradeship initiating between the past victors/new tributes. The riots have started and the mockingjay is the symbol, Katniss.

I loved this book. I mean the continuance of the Hunger Games and the build up to the riots and the overthrow of the Capitol is actually looking feasable!I loved the wedding dress trick and the new arena of the games. The distrust between the players could have been a bit more played out since that is part of their survival but the end game justifies any parts that I didn't get. 

I thought another movie that upholds the Hunger Games features : The Gamer  (2009) starring Gerard Butler where players enter an arena to fight each other to death while being handled mentally and thus physically by people through computers.

 

The Hunger Games

Katniss lives in District 12, part of the North America re-divided country Panem. There are 12 districts and its capital, Capitol. The food is scarce and the only means to feed her mom and sister, Prim is to hunt in the restricted woodland outside her district. She knows how to hunt, hide and find herbs to eat and does so with her partner in crime Gale with who they form a pack. The Hunger Games happen once every year, 2 children aged 12 to 18 from each district are randomly selected to enter into the Arena and kill each other till the Capitol has a winner. The world goes wrong when her sister is picked and she volunteers to take her place. Then the journey to survive begins.

I have tried this book before but my mood was not up for it- from the beginning, the first pages, there was too much misery - food shortage, family problems. But I forgot how good it feels once characters from those worlds step up and overcome their circumstances.
Katniss is an amazing powerful character that urges you on the story: she is powerfull, strong-minded and a fighter. She uses her hunting skills all through the Hunger Game and with that she finds ways to beat it.
The author has devised a world where the districts have specific production for the country: District 12 has coal, District 11 agriculture, District 1 luxury goods, District 10 chemicals and bombs - all of which have contributed to the abilities of the respective candidates to the game.
This world reminds me of Dark Angel, tv action drama where Jessica Alba is a mutated female escaped from an experiment facility, where that city was divided by districts and in order to pass from one to another there were checkpoints. Also, the poverty and state of the city gave me a base to place Katniss's world.
In addition, Battle Royale where a class of schoolchildren are driven on an island with packs of food and weapons-each with its own special weapon- gave me the insight to recognize what is important to get on those packs and form a strategy with what you have.
So I am hands on with Hunger Games because it combines the two factors of Dark Angel and Battle Royale: the fight-on girl struggling in an impoverised city and the strategical action within a forced to-death game.