The Hunger Games and Catching Fire- Suzanne Collins

As August ticks by, every book nerd I know is buzzing with excitement, bursting at the seams and holding their breath in anticipation of....

Mockingjay of course.  The third and final installment in the incredible Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins.   Everyone is dying to know what happened, who will live/who will die and how it will all end.

In preperation for the release of Mockingjay, I decided a re-read of Hunger Games and Cathing Fire was in order so that the story and details were fresh in my mind.

When I read HG the first time around.... I was absolutely shocked at how much I loved it.  The description of the book was something that, had I picked it up on my own, would have turned me off the book immediately. But.... the buzz from my Nesties and around the blogosphere convinced me to give it a shot.

I LOVE THIS BOOK.  I flew through it in record time and enjoyed every second of the story.  My original review was pre-book blogging days but can be found here.  My re-read was just as enjoyable as my first time through.  The story was just as exciting, the characters were just as awesome and Katniss was even more kickass than I remembered. 

Collins = Queen of the cliffhangers.  Seriously people... the end of almost every chapter is a cliffhanger of some kind.  If your the type of person that reads chapter by chapter, good luck.  Setting it down between is almost impossible. 

Catching Fire ending up being even more enjoyable than the first time around.  In my original review (here) I said that I probably would have loved it just as much, if not more than HG if I had had the same amount of time to devote to it. Unfortunately I had to read it over a longer period of time and of course, that took something away from it.  Well, this time I got to dive into it and I was right initially.  I LOVED it this time around because I could really appreciate it. I still don't think it loved it more than HG, but they are now pretty much equal in my books. 

There is a shocking moment in this installment that, even the second time around, knowing it was coming, had my jaw on the floor.

Re-reading this books did nothing but increase my excitement for Mockingjays release.  I will be in line first thing in the morning and plan to do nothing (short of, well, working) until it's done.

If you haven't picked these books up yet, do yourself the favor.  But I warn you, you'll want to buy both because the waiting between books is killer.

Go.  Read.   Enjoy. And hop on the Mockingjay bandwagon. 

And may the odds be ever in your favor.