I am restarting this series on my Blog. It’s about the various books throughout my life that have started or reinforced my love of reading. I wanted to revisit the various books on my ‘reading journey’, discuss my memories of them, why I think they spoke to me at that specific time of my life and then re-read them and give you my thoughts. Its basically an excuse to get a bit nostalgic and read some old favourites.
My Reading Journey
Like most reading started with my parents reading me bedtime stories. I was very lucky to have parents that valued stories and would set aside time to read to us. My mum would read my sister and I books from all different authors such as Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Dick King Smith’s Sheep Pig. My Dad prefers the classics and would tell his own versions of 1001 Arabian nights and Homer’s Odyssey acting scenes out with our playmobile figures. So a love of reading was inevitable.
Like most, however, school put me off of reading, I was chastised for reading ahead or not reading the “right books” so my reading slowed. I found that my love of reading would reappear periodically and I would dive into books and series with great fervour only for it to be quashed later on usually due to school enforced reading. This occurs time and time again. I have these groups of memories of particular books and then a dry spell. Between school and undergrad, my undergrad and my Masters, my Masters and my PhD, I had periods where I stopped reading for fun and focused on school. Therefore, I have a whole collection of books that rekindled my love of reading at each of those stages. It is this that has lead to this series where I am going back to the various memories and picking those books back up to show them some appreciation for keeping me reading. I don’t plan on reading them in any particular order just picking up a book where I feel drawn towards reading and then writing about it.
The First book I covered was Sandi Toksvig’s (Yes, host of QI and ex-host of the Bake off ) Tales from the Norse’s Mouth.
This time I am re-reding the hunger games series. It has had a rescent resugernce in populatry and I thought this is the perfect time to pick them back up again. You can read what I thought about re-reading The Hunger games HERE
The Book
Title:Catching Fire
Author: Suzanne Collins
Series: The Hunger Games #2
From Goodreads:
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol—a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.
Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest that she’s afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she’s not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol’s cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can’t prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.
In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.
My Memories
My memories of Catching Fire are few and far between. I know that I most likely read it straight after finishing The Hunger Games and all I can really remember is a few sparse plot points. I remember still really loving the series and really loving the direction it was going with book two and I was still a fan of Peeta too. But overall I was going back into this book almost blind.
My Thoughts now … (This will contain spoilers)
Book two is so much different than I remember. There was so much more about the aftermath of the games that I intially remembered. I completely forgot about the whole victors tour, the set up of the wedding, the talk or rebelion of District 13 and how that affected Katness. I really loved it this time around. I remember it seemed alot slower due to all this build up, when I first read the books. I had remembered a lot about the games itself, about Peeta and Katness almost competeing to try and save each other but also them both having a hand in spuring unrest, wither they ment to or not. Getting all the build up and remembering how all that build up would piece together in the games elevated this book even more in my opinion.
The actual games was so much shorter than I remembered. I remembered a lot of details about them and how facinating it was. This set of games seemed a lot more vicious and personal than the previous set. It seemed very geared towards comepletely torturing the past victors and I think thats why they stuck with me so much. The intro of Finnick and then how his character develops in this book is just glorious. I love the cocky confident persona he projects outside of the games melts into him being vunerable as Katness learns he isnt too different from her.
I also forgot just how much we got to know about the other victors going into the quarter quell. Each death in this one had a lot of impact. I completely forgot about what happened to Cinna and Mags both of which took me by suprise.The ending did seem more rushed than I had previously remembered. I know it is reflective of Katness’ confusion about what was actually happening but it did feel like even us as readers didn’t really get a grip on what was happening. The cliff hanger also hit me really hard. I think because the overall story of the three books has linked together for me I forgot that this book just ends. Again, I am left feeling heart broken for Peeta. He really gets the band end of the stick in all three of these books.
Overall this was a very differet book than I originally remembered but just as entertaining. I loved going back and reading this one especially as I know how the story unfolds as I could pick out the foreshadowing and the hints so much better. This series is just a page turner.
Fi's Bibliofiles 
As a teacher, I hate it when I hear that school has put people off reading. If any of my ex pupils said this, I would be so upset. Hopefully they wouldn’t. I was lucky to be taught in a school that valued the love of reading and was encouraged to read as widely as possible right from a young age. I tried very hard to do the same with my pupils.
You are here blogging about books though so I guess the books won in the end!
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