Rarely does a sequel capture the energy and excitement of the first novel. Everything in a first novel is new and fresh and sometimes authors seem to struggle to maintain the same intensity and freshness to the reader.
Collins did not seem to have any of those problems here. Like her last novel, just when you think you know what's going to happen, she throws you a curve ball, but a curve ball that makes sense. For me, that's the gem of this series. I've read novels where the author will say something and I'll be left wondering where did that come from, or how did we get to this point and never figure it out.
Whereas the first novel, The Hunger Games, took three pages for me to get into it (and then I couldn't set it down after that), Catching Fire, had me from the get go. Although, unlike the first novel, somewhere in the middle of Catching Fire, it did slow down and I was able to set the book down and go to bed at a decent hour two nights in a row. Then the book took off again, and I was up into the wee hours of the third night finishing it off.
An excellent sequel to The Hunger Games.
