So,
I just finished Catching Fire and do
you know what I did when I finished it? I threw the book away. Not in a bin,
but I literally threw the book away. I tossed it aside because that book was
not at all to my liking. Seriously, I was bored throughout the majority of the
book, but forced myself through it because I have already got the third book
and I have got this far, so I may as well continue.
So,
what were my issues with the book? Well, there’s a few things. Content-wise I
found the book bland and dull. I spent the first two thirds of the book
guessing most of the twists the books tried to set up, but they were all so
obvious, and when the twist at the end of the second third came along I had
already guessed it nearly 100 pages ago.
Things
did pick up by the last third, but that didn’t help too much. The dynamic of
having all of the characters did make things a lot more interesting, but it
didn’t help too well as I definitely think Collins has a big issue with the
book’s pacing. I noticed the book was rapidly coming to a close and nothing had
exactly happened.
The
semi-love triangle business near the start irritated me to no end and made me
think Katniss was now more concerned with what the boys will be thinking. The
boys are both so bland that it’s hard to care about any of them.
Oh,
and I have absolutely no idea why the Capitol would put someone who causes the
rumblings of revolution is the public eye so consistently. I could understand
if they did it with strict regulations and complete and utter control, but they
don't. How the Capitol became this powerful I will never know as they make some
of the worst decisions to control their populous.
But
what irked me the most about this book has to be what happened to Katniss. Oh,
Katniss, you were, for the most part, a strong female lead. What happened to
you?
Throughout
the entire book Katniss doesn’t do anything for herself. As I said, she
constantly seemed to be concerned with what the guy’s thought of her. On top of
that, she doesn’t actually make any decisions, just has everyone do everything
for her. I feel this may have been thematic, that she is a pawn in everyone
else’s fight, but it came across as a sight-seeing tour. We weren’t following
what the character is doing, just being shown what they see.
I
really feel that Collins messed up big time with this book. It was dull and
made me lament for the death of characterisation. Things happened, but there
was no emotional weight to it. In my previous post you will notice I asked a
lot of questions. Well this time I haven’t asked any non-rhetorical questions
because there’s nothing to ask. It all felt like it was going through motions
rather than telling the deep, insightful story it thinks it is telling.
I
really hope Mockingjay does
something different, because the familiarity of the last third of the book left
me irritated. Give me something to
care about and I might enjoy the last book, because, as you can probably tell,
I didn’t enjoy Catching Fire at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment