Catching Fire

Finished "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins this afternoon (forgoing my Sunday nap...you know it must be good for me to skip that) after flying through it the last two days. This is the much-anticipated sequel to "The Hunger Games," one of the best books I've ever read. I thought it was fabulous. I was a little nervous to begin...I was afraid it wouldn't live up to the first book, that we who waited a year for this would be disappointed.

It was phenomenal. The amazing thing about these books is you never know where it is heading. As with "The Hunger Games," it is a serious, weighty book for a YA novel. Death, fear, hunger are not easy subjects. Yet she manages to write about these things without ever becoming gimmicky or over the top.

The core of the book is about young adults having to stand up for what's right in the face of unimaginable consequences, of death and fear. Really, why can't I write like that?

Now I just have to wait another year for the last book.