I guess it was okay.

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What?

Okay, fine. I’ll write more.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CATCHING FIRE (excluding actual plot points, because even if Scholastic hadn’t asked very, very nicely for us not to spoil the plot, I wouldn’t anyway, because the surprises in this book are so awesome that I can’t imagine ruining them for anyone):

1. It’s fantastic.

2. It’s better than THE HUNGER GAMES.

3. No, really, it is.

4. Suzanne Collins is going to blow your mind. Seriously. You’re going to reach a point in the story where you are going to yell “SHUT UP! SHUT! UP!” or something similar. You are not going to believe where she takes us.

5. You are going to try to read this book slowly. You are going to fail. Give in. Plow through. You can always read it again.

6. The end will crush you like a tiny, tiny bug, because you will realize how long you have to wait for book 3.

7. It is the prettiest galley I have ever seen. It has raised letters. It has a shiny crimson cover. COME ON, Scholastic. We would have read this thing if you’d printed it out on used paper grocery bags.  It didn’t need to be this pretty! And there certainly didn’t need to be so many of it at BEA (says the person who got one in the mail almost two weeks before). In fact, as happy as I am to have read it early, did galleys of this need to be printed at all? CATCHING FIRE was already a guaranteed New York Times bestseller. It was already going to appear on the fall sales order of every bookstore in creation. Couldn’t the promo money have been better spent elsewhere, on books that actually needed it? (More on this in the BEA followup entry I have yet to write, because I saw it all over the conference.)

8. If you have read this far, and you haven’t read THE HUNGER GAMES, then I do not know what to do with you. I do not understand how you have not yet read THE HUNGER GAMES, and I especially don’t understand why you are still reading this. You don’t even know Katniss and Peeta yet. You have no idea what a mockingjay is. Go take care of that, would you?

And while you’re at it, preorder CATCHING FIRE from an independent bookstore.