monthly review

In the adventurous book, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, it continues with the plot from the prequel The Hunger Games. Katniss, the main character, is forced again to go into an arena to fight for their lives. This time was a collection of past survivors, one male one female from each district, from all past 75 hunger games. Before Katniss went into the games, some districts were rebelling or on the brink of rebelling. Fortunately before the end of the games, an explosion was set up so that the tributes were rescued out of the donut shaped arena.

A character that interested me, was the female tribute from district 4. Her name was Mags, a close friend with Finnick. During the training sessions, it was clearly seen that she was a expert with tying knots and making baits for fish. She taught some of her skills that she acquired from her district to one of the star crossed lovers, Katniss Evergreen. After the training sessions Katniss already thought that this character and this other pair called nuts and volts were useful. Mags' plan for the interview was to take a nap, i guess she cant really show the judges how to make bait.

The one thing that stood out about this character is that she is the oldest of them all. Her age, around 80 years old, is a factor that slows the four people group of Katniss, Peeta, Finnick, and Mag at first. She cannot move very fast herself, in the jungle so she had to have Finnick get her a long piggy back ride. Mags helped the team experiment whether or not these gigantic nuts were safe to eat. Thrown across the force field and burned, it was safe, and a meal was prepared from that. Mags used her skills from her district again, when she and Finnick made grass woven baskets for food and water.

Mags quickly dies in the beginning of the games when there is a dangerous fog that drives the team away from their rest place. From the burns that Katniss got, they learned that the fog has the effect of burning the skin and can even kill when taken a full blast of it. Running as fast as they could, with Mags on finnicks back and Peeta on Katniss' back, Katniss tripped. Unfortunately Finnick had to take both Peeta and Mags, while Katniss barely escapes from the fast fog. A few moments later, Finnick announces that he cant carry both Peeta and Mags because the fog is hurting his body. Mags just voluntarily walks into the fog to die a painful death. This part of the book really confuses me on why she did that, she could have still tried. The only reason that i can think of is because Mags volunteered herself for this special games in place of a person that Finnick likes (Annie), with Mags knowing she wont win.

In my opinion, the purpose of this book was to continue with the storyline from The Hunger Games and add on to it. The last book ended with a section about the love between Peeta and Katniss, is it fake or real? I look at this part of the story as the author wanting to tell the audience how underground love can be. It is like a decision of , do you want to save the country for a guy you barely know or do you want to run away with your long time hunting buddy. The stranger, Peeta, saved your lives many times, like from the loaf of bread and once or twice in the games. Gale, also somewhat saved her life, by helping Katniss and her family have more meat. I could tell that this could be one of the purpose of writing this book because Katniss is indecisive about who to pick in the beginning. When president snow, came and threatened her that she needed to be loving with Peeta, she had even more pressure.

Another possible purpose for this book, is to expect the unexpected. When the rules for the 75th Hunger Games, the quarter quells, there was special rules. "On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol..." (forgot the page that i got it from) This showed that even though Katniss, Peeta, and all the other victors won the games and was promised to not be in the drawing again, the impossible happened. Rules that are from ancient scripts can over run other rules that are less powerful. The ending of the book was also pretty unexpected because i did not expect everyone to be on Katniss and Peeta's side. The message came across to me that people can give their lives away for a cause worth fighting for.

In my opinion, the best tributes and the worst tributes all sided with katniss and peeta. It should have been a thing where not everyone agreed on supporting the starcrossed lovers. Another thing about this book that really gets on my serves is about peeta. For this sequel, i really hoped that peeta would die from an accident but noooo. When Peeta is shocked death, Finnick should not had came to the rescue with cpr, this should have been the sad moment where died. I know it is mean to wish someone dead but he did even less in this book than the first book. All he did was make a map of the arena with the clock hands.
if i were the author, i would try to make the ending even more epic and grabbing the audience even more. Even though the current one is good enough, i would add someone that is close to Katniss dying. This would make her go into panic because her hometown and home people / person is gone. Fighting for the revolution from there on will be that much more meaning full because it is to help revenge a dead person and to show that Capitol can not do everything they want. The idea of Peeta and Katniss revoluting against the government is old because it is from the first book, but they need to do it at full power for it to be useful. The people of Panem are all ready for a revolution, they just need a leader to help guide them and not be killed. If i were to write this book , i would make katniss less lucky, so that she doesnt get stuff she needs last minute. It can add an element of surprise into the book if something bad happens to her.