Still Hungry (spoiler warning)

I will put up with a bland background for a while to restore order, and reconsider my options, hopefully the comments facility will go back to working properly now.

Here we have the second book in the 'Hunger Games' Trilogy by Suzanne Collins, called 'Catching Fire'.

It is going to be really difficult to write anything about this book without spoiling but I will try not to give too much away.

I kind of spoiled the first one a little for myself because I looked up the second book on Amazon and saw that Peeta was in it along with Katniss, so that I knew he didn't die in the first book. This took the anxiety out of the climax of the story, M said she kept thinking they were going to kill him at the last minute. This second book starts in the aftermath of their victory. It turns out that the watching audience has been stirred up by Katniss' subversion of the rules of the game and her apparent rebellion against the power of the Capitol. And the image of the Mockingjay that she wore as her token has become a symbol of the resistance. In the months that follow political unrest sweeps some districts and a clampdown in District 12 swiftly follows. Katniss is rather too taken up with her own confused feelings for Gale and Peeta to realise quite how important she has become, until on one of her hunting trips she journeys to a lake she had visited with her father and discovers two escaped rebels from District 8 who open her eyes somewhat to the wider situation. But the year turns and by a cruel twist of the rules Katniss and Peeta find themselves returned to the arena for a second year. In this book you get to know more of the competitors as a group of them form an alliance for strength and protection. In spite of the scenario there is much more humour in this book, though frequently rather ironic, but it made us laugh (M read much of the book with me, having read it twice already, because she wanted to be able to discuss the plot as we went along). I was concerned that it was going to be a bit repetitive but actually it is a very clever mechanism to develop the story line, using the second games, and the new characters she introduces to drop hints about the political situation and the potential rebellion. There are lots of twists and turns and you don't know who to trust and what is really going on until the very end. We were left with a terrible cliff-hanger and have to wait till AUGUST (156 days!) for 'Mockingjay', the final instalment.