Book Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

I’m a little ashamed that it’s taken me several weeks to prepare this review because I want everyone to drop what they’re currently reading and read this trilogy straight through. I’m waiting. First of all, I want to thank my friend Leslie for sharing the second and third books in the series with me. She saved me a fortune and made me love my Nook even more because of the LendMe option that it proudly boasts. Take that Kindle. Ok, down to business. The Hunger Games trilogy begins with the first book, aptly titled The Hunger Games. The heroine is Katniss Everdeen, a fiery girl who is chosen to represent her sector of Panem, a post-war United States lead by President Snow in The Capital, which I believe is a representation of Colorado is my memory serves me correctly. The Hunger Games are the way the Capital exerts control and power over all of the members of the sectors and it’s mission is to have young people “randomly” selected from the different sectors fight to the death for all the citizens of Panem to watch on television. Sounds riveting and sadly, I can imagine Americans watching something like this on tv for sport as long as it wasn’t happening in our country as long as it was entertaining.

 So blah blah blah, she goes into the Hunger Games, is conflicted by love (which is a little too reminiscent of the Twilight series for me and I was almost rooting for Team Anyone but Katniss) and eventually pisses the Capital off with her antics during the games. And that’s book one. Books two and three (The Girl on Fire and Mockingjay respectively) continue to follow her struggle against the Capital and how she becomes a figurehead for a rebellion against Snow and his beliefs.

I’m not going to spoil the whole thing, but it really is an enjoyable read and good for these dog days of summer while you get those last few minutes out by the pool. It’s a young adult book, but it’s got much heavier issues than Twilight did and I’ll say it’s as entertaining as a vampire-human-wolf love triangle since all of these people are human. Though I wouldn’t mind if when they release the movie Taylor Lautner makes a cameo without his shirt on.

Book Review: I Know This Much is True

I Know this Much is True: Wally Lamb  4 1/2 stars…maybe 5 but I’m not feeling generous this AM.

I usually avoid Oprah’s Book Club like the plague.  First of all (gasp!) I don’t care for Oprah, and while I appreciate that she gets the masses reading, I just don’t feel confident in her picks.  I’m probably being unfair, again, not feeling generous this morning.

I Know This Much is True is definitely an exception to my rule of thinking Oprah sucks at books.   Although very long, the book was definitely a smooth read and I felt compelled to knock out at least 100 pages a day (oh what will I do once I have the baby?!)  I’ll start with my criticism to get it out of the way so we can focus on the goodness of this book.  My two criticisms are as follows:  Wally Lamb is wordy to a fault, but it doesn’t distract from the story.  Also, the ending was terribly predictable…I didn’t read 900 pages to go “oh yeah, that’s pretty much how I saw that going”.  Having said that, the story along the way was fantastic.

The protagonist is Dominick Birdsey, one half of a set of very different twins.  His brother Thomas is a schizophrenic and the book basically chronicles that dichotomy between the inseparable nature of twins and Dominick’s insatiable desire to separate from his “weaker” brother.  The story flashes back between the twins’ youth, teen years and the present day when they are in their early 40’s.  This book has love, sex, confusion, politics; the whole gamut.  Dominick has continually struggled with who he is: raised by his subservient mother and abusive stepfather, he has always wondered where he came from and who he really is.  He felt so different from his sweeter, gentler, weaker brother that he tried so hard to be the strong one; and that strength often turned into anger that alienated those around him.  In his quest to find himself he discovers a memoir written by his Grandfather and he submerses himself in understanding all that made his Grandfather tick, and how those ticks affected Dominick’s upbringing by his mother.

I definitely suggest this book to people who enjoy reading about the inner frustrations of a man who isn’t sure who he really is because he isn’t sure where he came from, but I wouldn’t recommend this book if you’re more into your standard, easy read novel.

This might be my worst book review ever, but the reality is, I hate telling people too much about a story-I think those who know me know that I have fairly decent taste in books and that if I liked it, there’s a good chance it’s worth reading.  (I’ve gotten worse lately-if I don’t like the book at all after 100 pages, it goes back to the library. There are just too many good books out there to waste on a crappy one)

Book Review: Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go: Kazuo Ishigaro

This book got great reviews on Amazon, Good Reads and was the feature book in Time Magazine. Just like my friend Sarah though, I was highly underwhelmed by this book. The book just sort of…was. I was reading it and for most of the time it seemed like the author was trying to keep this big secret from me and I had to keep reading to understand what the heck was going on in the book. I’ve always found that to be a bit of a dirty trick; cryptic writing just hides that fact that you don’t have a better way to spin the tale you wish to spin.

This book is touted as a coming-of-age-missing-childhood kind of story. However, after slogging through the first 100 pages or so, it turns out this book is sort of a sci-fi, conspiracy story; falling painfully short of 1984, Brave New World, and the movie The Island. It’s sort of a strange conglomerate of all of these stories told from the point of view of the not terribly loveable Kathy H. and her experiences at Hailsham, which is essentially a boarding school for gifted art students (or so you think). The two people closest to her are Ruth and Tommy and the reader basically slowly reads through the intricacies of their late teen years as they leave Hailsham and venture off into the world. Only their world is very different from the world we live in.
Here’s the deal; I’ll tell anyone who wants to know the total plot of this story, but I won’t put a spoiler in this post. The moral of the story is, this book is stupid and I read a review where someone said it seemed like a meeting occured with the author. “Hey Kazuo, we need you to churn out another book, it doesn’t matter if it sucks” And this is that book.

I might be curious enough to watch the movie, mostly since I lay in bed all the time.

Book Review: Room

I just finished the book Room, by Emma Donoghue about an hour ago.  My mind is still reeling over the story told from five year old Jack’s perspective.  Jack’s entire world is an 11×11 room with his Ma.  They sleep there, eat there, run “track” there and live what Jack considers a full existence within the cork covered walls.  He watches TV on an ancient set, where he learns about “The Outside”; a world of make believe where Dora and Barney and Animal Planet live.  The only negative thoughts he has are about Old Nick, the man who comes into Room at night and creaks Bed at night with Ma.  Old Nick abducted Ma when she was a 19 year old student and is held captive like the true stories of Elisabeth Fritzl and Jaycee Dugard.

If you’ve read my reviews before, you know I’ll never tell anyone anything that isn’t on the dust jacket, so I will simply say that the book is incredibly moving and poignant.  It’s written so well and we truly understand Jack and his simplified perspective of the world around him.  His Ma is a complicated character as well, and we understand how fiercely she loves her child and how blessed she feels to have him with her in Room.

Room really was an amazing book and I was so engaged in the story that I read it over the course of just a few evenings.  It’s a fairly quick read, but it will make your head spin a bit, especially at the beginning as you learn to live in a world where there’s just one of a very limited number of things.  Duvet, Melty Spoon, Door, Skylight; these are the world according to Jack, and his is a beautiful, heartbreaking world.  But isn’t ours too?

Book Review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book has been recommended to me several times, from friends to the ever-pushy Amazon Recommends. I finally broke down and bought it when I was at our local used book store (that took me 4 years to discover). I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though the format of letters was a little annoying to me. It broke up the story nicely, which was cool, but I found it slightly annoying as I wondered how long the delay was to get the news to the people on the other side. I guess that’s just the Logistician in me.
I think the main take away from this story is that I really want to see Guernsey as it sounds like the quaintest, most wonderful place in the world. The characters were developed really well and I found myself really relating to them during the time of the Occupation. It made me interested to know that true stories of those during the Occupation, though I’m not sure that they would be nearly as interesting. The only drawback of this book is that you can see the climax of the story coming from a mile away, but sometimes it’s ok. It’s nice to have things turn out the way you want them to.

The Liberation of Kate

I’m freeing myself from the chains that bind me. Despite my competitive desire to always overachieve, I’m going to bow out gracefully with a second place status of Lorelai. No, I’m not talking about the Biggest Loser competition on base, though I won’t likely win that unless I put a donut trail that leads into a deep, dark, inescapable ditch. I’m talking about the Gilmore Girls Reading Challenge. That’s it, I’m done, I can’t take anymore. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the books, it’s that I hate being bogged down by these particular picks. I’m not in the mood to finish Sophie’s Choice right now, and I’m not medicated enough to think that Catch-22 makes any sense whatsoever. So that’s it, I’m done. I found a lot of the books at the used book store and I’ll get around to reading them, but I’ll read them on my own time, thank you very much. So here’s the last count…

• Jane Austen: Pride & Prejudice
• Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights
• Charle Dickens: Great Expectations
• DH Lawrence: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
• F. Scott Fitzgerald: Tender is the Night
• Margaret Mitchell: Gone with the Wind
• George Orwell: 1984
• JD Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye
• Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Five
• F. Scott Fitzgerald:  The Great Gatsby
• Joseph Heller: Catch 22   (I read 50 pages before giving up)
• William Faulkner: The Sound & the Fury
• Anthony Bourdain: Kitchen Confidential
• William Gibson: The Miracle Worker
• Jack Kerouac: On the Road
• Jeffery Eugenides: The Virgin Suicides
• Henry Farrell: What Happened to Baby Jane?
• William Styron: Sophie’s Choice  (I’m over halfway through this, but I’m just not in the mood.  The suspense is killing me.  WTH happens?  What is her choice?  I know it has something to do with her kid (s?) and I keep having flashbacks of Meryl Streep on the tv when I was young.
• Nick Hornby: High Fidelity
• Erich Segal: Love Story  (I can’t get the song out of my head!)

So that’s it, I’m done.  I’ve got a virtual stack of books I want to read at Goodreads, and I’m looking forward to reading what I feel like, when I feel like.  I’ve read so many books this year, but they just weren’t on the list.  So my challenge for 2011 will be simple:  Read and review 25 books.  I’ll read way more than that, but it’s the reviewing that becomes tedious for me.  So I’ll start out small and go on from there. 

Ahh, liberation feels great.  I’ve already read two books this week to celebrate the freedom. 

Book Review: The Boleyn Inheritance

I read The Other Boleyn Girl about a year ago and despite my disinterest in historical fiction totally loved it.  When I was at the library a couple of weeks ago I saw The Boleyn Inheritance audio book and picked it up.  What a fun book to listen to.  The narration was done by three different women and their voices really bought the characters to life.  I definitely recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a little scandal and an overall quick read.  I have never been a fan of period pieces, I don’t give two craps about the Tudors or any of that jazz, but Phillipa Gregory writes very interesting stories about the women in King Henry’s royal court and the tyrannical whims that Henry himself committed against them.  Gregory adds a depth to these historical figures and offers up insight into their behavior in history.  I’m not a “story spoiler” so all I can say is read it yourself, particularly the ladies.  It’s an easy read and if you want a great audio book this is the one for you.  And it’s a little sexy, which caused me to blush on  more than one occasion on my drive into work. 

On a side note, I recently watched the movie The Other Boleyn Girl.   It was a horribly hurried adaptation of the book and I found myself saying “they glossed over all the good stuff” and while it would have been a 6 hour movie, it should have been.  There was so little detail in the movie and very little dialogue that I can’t understand how the screenplay passed muster.  I can’t say it was a bad movie; it just didn’t have an 1/8 of the substance from the book.

Book Review: Brave New World aka Please Pass the Soma

I listened to this book on CD over the course of last week and my two biggest takeaways were 1.) I wouldn’t mind taking Soma tablets once in awhile and 2.) I liked Nineteen Eighty-Four WAAY better, though it’s like comparing apples to pears. As I sometimes do with audiobooks, I spaced out occasionally during the narration, simply because the Narrator’s voice was so soothing and British.

I don’t believe in spoilers as I love picking up a book with little idea of it’s subject (which can also lead to confusion) but the general idea of this book is a utopian society where no one is ever sick, everyone has a very specific role in the world, and no one ever grows old. They also don’t fall in love, they simply fornicate as they wish with no strings attached. (Utopian for whom, I ask) The pivotal point in the story is when members of this society visit a Savage reservation and find one of their own stuck within it’s aged walls. The Savage comes back to their society with them, but he simply cannot understand how they choose to live like this, without real love, commitment, responsibility and pain.

I had to research Aldous Huxley after I finished the book and while I knew he was using the characters satirically I wasn’t sure of all the references. It was definitely controversial and this book has been banned many times, though for my generation the idea of that is fairly insane. (though if Britney Spears ever writes a book I hope that will be banned) I definitely recommend this book, but it’s certainly not a pleasure read. I do hope to read it in print so I can better absorb the story.

Reading Challenge Book Review: On the Road

Jack Kerouac: On the Road

Rating:  2.5/5 stars: Really Not My Cup of “Tea”

I listened to this book in my car over the course of a week and while I enjoyed it, particularly because of Matt Dillon’s narration, the whole story left me sort of saying “So What?”  I appreciate what this book did for the Beat Generation and the experiences that “Sal Paradise” had throughout the book were very interesting, I couldn’t help but think “these people are so selfish and self absorbed”.  I feel bad for all of the people that they left in their wake as they cavorted across country bedding underage girls, stealing cars, and smoking tea.  On a side note, I did think it was funny that until the very end of the book I actually thought they were smoking tea leaves and it wasn’t until Dean said “Mary-Ju-Wana” that I realized that it was weed all along.  Oh I’m so innocent. 

Most people know the story, but the quick synopsis is that Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) travels back and forth across the country with his insane friend Dean Moriarity (Neal Cassady) and basically wastes money, breaks hearts, and leave a ton of people in the wake of their destruction of borrowed property.  The part about it that is charming is that they didn’t really think that they were doing anything wrong.  They thought it was perfectly appropriate to make a few pennies at a job for a couple of weeks and then hit the road again on another adventure, simply to become bored, save up money, and hit the road again.  What a waste of time and resources.  And yet, it’s a terribly popular book, so I guess a lot of people did enjoy it.  I just didn’t love the characters.  I didn’t feel like even though they were doing all these stupid things that they were really good people or searching for their souls or whatnot.  They just seemed like a bunch of irresponsible, drunk, high, selfish “kids” in grown-up bodies.  But this is coming from a girl who thought that people smoked tea, so take it how you wish. 

*as a side note, this is finally being made into a movie and it stars the angst-ridden Kristen Stewart.

Book Club Book Review: Running with Scissors

Our book club selection for August is Augusten Burrough’s Running With Scissors, a memoir described by critics as “screamingly funny” and “Dave Pelzer* with a whoopee cushion attached” but really, I found it to be a disturbing tale of a young boy who grew up in a situation that no child should ever have to experience. When I was 12, I was playing in my friend April’s basement with her Michael Jackson Barbie who had an illicit affair with my Maxi doll, but Augusten was having sex with his 33 year old boyfriend at his apartment with the permission of his legal guardian, who happened to be his mother’s psychiatrist/rapist. “WTF?” you say? Yes, WTF.

I read this book in its entirety yesterday and I find myself utterly wrapped up in its insanity today. I’ve scoured the Internet for data on this book, and I find myself unsure what to believe. Although Burroughs did not release the real name of the family he referred to in his book as the “Finches” it was easy enough for people to put together the facts of a local family with the stories shared in the book. The Turcotte family recently sued Burroughs and his publisher for defamation and it ended with a $2M settlement, but frankly, I don’t know who to believe. Some of the stories in the book seem so far-fetched and Burroughs comes across as someone who definitely could use a little attention in his life, but I don’t know who to believe. Or even who I want to believe, given the disturbing nature of his stories. I will not delve into details because as an avid reader, I love to be surprised and usually won’t read reviews until after I’ve read a book, so I can read the book without any preconceived notions. There were several sections of this book that left me aghast, and I think every reader should have that same pleasure horror. I’ll post an update once we discuss the book at our next book club meeting, but I’m definitely interested to hear what the other gals think of this work. I think I’ll get another one of his memoirs out of the library and see if I also feel that it is over-sensationalized for the sake of “art”. Though, if it is fictional story, I guess I could make a lot of money writing my memoirs to suit my fancy.

If you’d like to read more about the scandal, visit the Vanity Fair article. I also read a couple of interviews with his mother, and I tend to believe that she is just as crazy as he portrayed-or certainly as self-centered.  There is also a movie based on the book if you’re interested in furthering your dive into disturbia. 

I don’t really recommend this book.  If you’re interested in some very dark stories, pick it up at your local library.  If you’re not into that thing, enjoy something wholesome and wonderful and thank me later. 

 *Dave Pelzer is the author who chronicled his tale of child abuse in “A Child Called It”. I read that book in early college and it’s fair to say there wasn’t a damn thing funny about it. I think there is something severely wrong with these critics who find this “funny and irreverent” instead of “deplorable and unfathomable”.