Catching Fire - Just as Good?

I just finished reading Suzanne Collins' brilliant sequel to The Hunger Games. Catching Fire is a book I've wanted to read since the final pages of The Hunger Games, and it did not disappoint. Katniss and Peeta's victory in the games spurred a sort of revolution in the various districts, and Catching Fire is about facing the consequences of their actions - namely Katniss' decision to pull out those berries and defy the Capital during the games.

If you haven't read the Hunger Games series, you should definitely pick it up. It's one of those Young Adult series that easily crosses over to being interesting to adults as well as teens. What I love most about the series is the intense visual images that are conjured up. The dresses, the arena, the insane manipulations Capital people perform on themselves like pink tinted skin or golden jewels implanted in their cheeks. I love the pictures that go through my head, and Suzanne Collins seems to have a natural talent for making her readers see what she sees.

Everytime I read a great and truly talented author like Collins or Rowling, I wonder how they did it. How did they manage to create characters that speak to us so strongly? How did they make us care for them so completely? Where did they learn to write like that? Is it merely a natural-born talent? Or did they suck at first like the rest of us? I wonder if I'll ever be able to tell a story that reaches so many people and has such an impact.

The Hunger Games series is definitely one of those series that once I got into it, I could barely put it down. I will say that while Hunger Games pulled me into the story on the very first page, it took a little bit longer for the Catching Fire to really hook me. Sure, I already loved Katniss Everdeen and her story, but it just seemed to explain the past book a bit too much and the action wasn't quite as addictive. It was good, don't get me wrong. It just wasn't terribly hard at first to put the book down and turn out the light to go to sleep at night. However, about three or four chapters in, I was totally hooked. I couldn't put it down. I would tell myself "when I finish this chapter, I have to go to sleep!" But when the chapter was over, she would end with another hook that had me turning to the next chapter and reading on. I love that feeling. That can't-get-enough reading experience.

I will also say this, the ending to Catching Fire is much more of a lead-in to the third book than the first one was. It definitely leaves you with a sense that the story is incomplete, and it makes me want to run out and buy the third book. I'm not sure when that is supposed to come out, but you can be sure that the day it does, I will be in line to buy it. (And it will probably be read in a matter of days). Yes, it's just that good.