See the new trailer for ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’
“Catching Fire,” the second book in Suzanne Collins’ young adult series “The Hunger Games,” was published by Scholastic in 2009. Back then, it landed on every bestseller list you might imagine, and it’s poised to return when the film version arrives in November.
Just like its predecessor, it stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, the tough heroine, and Josh Hutcherson as Peeta. You can see them both -- along with Donald Sutherland, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Stanley Tucci and more -- in the trailer for “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” above.
One of the things the movie can’t do is get inside Katniss’ head -- but the book can. Here’s how it begins:
“I clasp the flask between my hands even though the warmth from the tea has long since leached into the frozen air. My muscles are clenched tight against the cold. If a pack of wild dogs were to appear at this moment, the odds of scaling a tree before they attacked are not in my favor. I should get up, move around, and work the stiffness from my limbs. But instead I sit, as motionless as the rock beneath me, while the dawn begins to lighten the woods. I can’t fight the sun. I can only watch helplessly as it drags me into a day that I’ve been dreading for months.
“By noon they will all be at my new house in the Victor’s Village. The reporters, the camera crews, even Effie Trinket, my old escort, will have made their way to District 12 from the Capitol. I wonder if Effie will still be wearing that silly pink wig, or if she’ll be sporting some other unnatural color especially for the Victory Tour. There will be others waiting, too. A staff to cater to my every need on the long train trip. A prep team to beautify me for public appearances. My stylist and friend, Cinna, who designed the gorgeous outfits that first made the audience take notice of me in the Hunger Games.
“If it were up to me, I would try to forget the Hunger Games entirely....”
The trailer hews closely to the setup from the book’s first chapter, showing Katniss arriving at the ominous Victor’s Village. It looks cold. And we also see that she gets some pretty spectacular outfits.
The film won’t be here for a few months, but the book is available in hardcover and paperback and as an e-book.
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