(Resensi Novel) Trilogi The Hunger Games : Catching Fire

Katniss Everdeen berhasil menjadi pemenang dalam The Hunger Games bersama Peeta Mellark. Mereka kembali ke Distrik 12 dan tinggal di Desa Pemenang sebagai hadiah kemenangan mereka. Tetapi tanpa Katniss sadari, kemenangan itu telah menyulut api pemberontakan kepada Capitol di distrik distrik. Katniss tidak menyadari bahwa dia telah membuat marah para petinggi Capitol karena dianggap telah melanggar aturan dalam permainan. Hingga Presiden Snow mendatangi Katniss dan memberikan ancaman kepada Katniss. Jika Katniss tidak ingin memicu pemberontakan di distrik distrik dia harus melanjutkan sandiwaranya saling mencintai dengan Peeta untuk meyakinkan dan meredam kegelisahan penduduk distrik saat tur kemenangan nanti. Atau nyawa orang orang yang disayanginya jadi taruhannya. Saat Tur Kemenangan berlangsung, penduduk distrik bersorak sorai gembira menyambut mereka. Tetapi dibalik teriakan mereka, mereka juga menyimpan kemarahan kepada Capitol yang membuat The Hunger Games. Terjadi berbagai peristiwa di distrik distrik yang memakan korban ketika Tur Kemenangan, dan semua itu adalah ulah Capitol. Presiden Snow tidak tinggal diam memercayakan segalanya kepada Katniss. Dia terus menekan dan membuat rencana rencana yang membuat Katniss tak punya pilihan. Membuat rencana pernikahan antara Katniss dan Peeta, memperketat penjagaan di Distrik 12, dan berusaha menangkap Katniss dengan caranya untuk balas dendam akan ulah Katniss. Katniss mulai lelah dan ingin melarikan diri dari keadaan tersebut. Dia juga semakin bingung untukmenghadapi sahabatnya, Gale, yang ternyata juga ia cintai. Persahabatannya menjadi tak pernah sama seperti sebelum The Hunger Games berlangsung. Hingga akhirnya dia merencanakan untuk melarikan diri dengan keluarganya, Gale, Peeta, dan orang orang terdekatnya. Tetapi sebelum semuanya terjadi, Presiden Snow telah mengumumkan sebuah berita yang mengejutkan dan akan membuat Katniss menderita lagi. Presiden Snow mengumumkan peraturan untuk Quarter Quell, yaitu The Hunger Games yang dibuat berbeda dan dirayakan setiap 25 tahun sekali. Dan saat itu adalah tahun ke 75. Setiap Quarter Quell akan memiliki peraturan yang berbeda beda. Dan tahun itu, Quarter Quell yang ketiga dengan peraturan, peserta The Hunger Games akan diambil dari pemenang yang masih hidup dari setiap Distrik. Itu artinya Katniss dan Peeta akan kembali ke arena tahun ini.

Katniss tahu Peeta pasti akan turun ke arena, walaupun ada Haymitch, mentor serta pemenang The Hunger Games juga dari distriknya.Peeta pasti akan berusaha melindungi Katniss dan menjadikannya pemenang. Tetapi kali ini Katniss juga bertekat kuat untuk melindungi Peeta dan membuatnya tetap hidup, walaupun harus mengorbankan nyawanya sendiri. Tibalah saatnya mereka kembali ke arena. Mereka bertemu para pemenang terdahulu yang tak bisa mereka anggap remeh. Mereka telah berpengalaman di dalam arena dan juga telah lihai membunuh. Menjelang The Hunger Games berlangsung, beberapa pemberontakan telah tersulut. Dan para pemenang yang juga membenci Capitol punya cara sendiri dalam menunjukkan kebenciannya. Haymitch memberi tahu kepada Katniss agar dia tahu siapa sebenarnya musuhnya nanti di arena. Dan disaat menjelang berakhirnya The Hunger Games, Katniss sadar siapakah musuh sebenarnya dalam The Hunger Games kali ini.
http://www.biography.com/people/suzanne-collins-20903551

Synopsis
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1962, Suzanne Collins was the daughter of an Air Force pilot, and her family moved several times when she was young. After proving herself as a talented children's television writer, Collins published her debut book, Gregor the Overlander, the first book of The Underland Chronicles. In 2008, the first book of The Hunger Games series was published.

Early Years
The youngest of four children, Suzanne Collins was born on August 10, 1962, in Hartford, Connecticut. The daughter of an Air Force officer, Collins moved a considerable amount during her childhood, living in places like New York City and Brussels. For the Collins family, history was an immensely important topic. Much of that was driven by Collins' father, who taught history at the college level and was open with his kids about his military experience, including his deployment to Vietnam. "I believe he felt a great responsibility and urgency about educating his children about war," Collins says. "He would take us frequently to places like battlefields and war monuments. It would start back with whatever had precipitated the war and moved up through the battlefield you were standing in and through that and after that. It was a very comprehensive tour guide experience. So throughout our lives we basically heard about war." Eventually, the Collins clan ended up in the South, where Suzanne graduated high school from the Alabama School of Fine Arts in 1980. Collins then enrolled at Indiana University, where she graduated in 1985 as a double major in theater and telecommunications. She then went on to earn a master's degree in dramatic writing from New York University. Following graduate school, Collins moved into television, writing for several children's television programs, including Clarissa Explains It All and Little Bear. Her work for those shows soon caught the notice of James Proimos, creator of the WB children's program Generation O!, who hired Collins as his head writer. A big fan of her writing, it was Proimos who urged Collins to try writing books.

'The Underland Chronicles'

In 2003, Collins published Gregor the Overlander, the first book of The Underland Chronicles. The book tells the tale of a boy and his discovery of a vast new world he discovers when he accidentally falls through the grate of the laundry room in his New York City apartment building. Gregor went to receive critical success and become a New York Times bestseller. The Underland Chronicles series was composed of this and four additional books: Gregor and the Prophecy Bane, Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, Gregor and the Marks of Secret and Gregor and the Code of Claw.
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/c/catching-fire-book-2-of-the-hunger-gamestrilogy/book-summary 25 juni 9.36

It has been six months since Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark won the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games, an annual event in which each district in Panem sends one female and one male tribute to fight to the death in a televised competition for food and money. Though only one tribute can win, a change in the rules allowed Peeta and Katniss to both win. Their victory was partly secured because of Peeta's declaration of love for Katniss before the Games. In the Hunger Games, after Peeta and Katniss were the only ones alive, it was announced that the change in rules had been revoked, and there could only be one victor. Instead of killing Peeta, Katniss proposed they eat poisonous berries to kill themselves so that the Capitol would not have any victors. But at the last second, they were both declared winners of the Hunger Games. Throughout the competition, Katniss played along with the love story so she could increase her chances of winning, though secretly she was confused about her true feelings for Peeta and Gale, her best friend who was back home in District 12. Peeta, whose love for Katniss was never an act, was broken-hearted at the realization that Katniss was merely pretending to love him for the sake of the competition. Since the Games, he has been acting very distant and cold toward her, and she feels guilty for the way she treated him. Gale has also been treating her differently since she returned home. Nothing is the same for Katniss since winning the Games. When the novel opens, Katniss is hunting in the woods, thinking about how much she doesn't want to go on the annual Victory Tour. Every victor of the Games must visit each district to celebrate their win at the Games. After hunting, she returns home so she can ensure she is ready in time for the Tour, only to find that President Snow, the leader of Panem, is waiting to speak with her. Snow tells Katniss that she needs to convince both him and Panem while on the Tour that she is in love with Peeta or the Capitol will go after her and Gale's families. According to Snow, Katniss' stunt with the berries was too rebellious. Though some people believe she was proposing suicide because she was so insane with love for Peeta, others think it was an act of defiance. Some of Panem's districts are now on the brink of rebellion. If Katniss can convince everyone she is without a doubt in love with Peeta, Snow will spare her family's lives