YA Highway and friends are at it again for Road Trip Wednesday.

Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This week's topic:What's the best book you read this month (August)?

I had to laugh this morning when I logged onto Blogger and saw all the posts for Road Trip Wednesday that featured a graphic of Mockingjay, the final installment in the Hunger Games trilogy. Most people that got it on the release date read it in a few days, so I knew it would figure prominently in this topic!

I want to cast my vote for Catching Fire, the second book in the series. I did read it for the first time in August; I read Hunger Games last year and I wanted to wait to read Catching Fire until all 3 were out. So about a week before the Mockingjay release, I re-read HG and then read CF.

I loved the twist in the games that features so prominently in Catching Fire. As a reader, it made me so fired up (had to say it) on behalf of Katniss and the other surviving tributes. As a writer, my mind was spinning at a million miles an hour with all the things you could do with that situation, all the different directions you could take the characters and the districts.

And I was perfectly satisfied with the choices Suzanne Collins made for CF, but I think the biggest reason why I have more affection for CF than I do for Mockingjay is the feeling of hope that it ends with. I've already posted on the violence in the last book so I won't repeat all that here, other than to say I thought the ending was true to the book and the world Collins created. I thought CF ended on a "We can do it!" note, and Mockingjay ended on a "We survived it!" note.

Both valid and true experiences, but it will be a while before I can go back and re-read Mockingjay again.

3 comments:

Nomes said...

i love catching fire too - and i re-read it this month as mockingjay prep as well!

i also felt fired up and emotionally involved in it and i loved where the story went and the return of the the games with the quarter quell.

Unknown said...

Catching Fire FTW!! The idea of the District Tour and the Quarter Quell and Gale and *drool* Finnick ... man, it was intensely awesome. "Tick tock, the island's a clock" - that still resounds in my head, same as the last line in Mockingjay.

Great review! :D

Kaitlin Ward said...

I think Catching Fire was my favorite of the three, too, but it's hard to decide at this point because Mockingjay is still fresh so I'm still working through my feelings about it.

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