Wild, wonderful
Before I get to actual content: 10 Ways to Display Air Plants. My office needs some of these. (Well, it needs lots in the way of decorations, but I think I've only just started convincing myself that holy cow, I won't be dropped at a moment's notice, I can actually settle in if I want.)
Okay, so thing I really like? Staying up far, far too late reading a good book, in this case, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Many people have recommended this to me, particularly vidavluz, who enabled me by sending me her copy (along with World War Z, which comes up as soon as I've finished the other books I'm halfway through! I had my revenge by sending The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends). All of which is to say that all the praise is entirely deserved. Dystopian future starring Appalachian girl and boy? Oh hell yes am I in!
The premise is basically that every year the nation that sits where the Eastern Seaboard of the United States was organizes a gladiator/survivalist-style reality show in which twenty-four children between the ages of 12 and 18 are selected to kill each other until one champion is left. Collins does an excellent job of constantly underscoring the barbarism of the event before it begins, when all the tributes (as they're called) are being cleaned up and paraded around on TV. Our POV character, Katniss Everdeen, volunteered to be a tribute from her district when her younger sister was drawn from the lottery. She's a fantastic voice, far older than her years and one of the few characters I've read that feels realistically shaped by her experiences growing up in utter poverty, both psychologically and by how she's learned to survive through hunting. I was interested by the author's choice to tell the story in first person present, with extreme narrow focus on Katniss. It's not my first choice of tense, but I think it makes sense for the character. I'd be interested to see how others would approach this universe, and what a third person past tense story sounds like.
The Hunger Games, as this event is called, are not just physical but psychological. Katniss is excellent at the running, jumping, climbing in trees, blam, arrow (to borrow Eddie Izzard for a moment) part, but the boy tribute from her district, Peeta Mellark, is a master at playing the crowd and manipulating group dynamics. He's not a schemer either: he's honest to a fault, and very sweet, and he means it. But he's the one who recognizes that storytelling is as much a part of their survival as prowess, and that is how he and Katniss manage to turn the whole Hunger Games spectacle to their advantage. By playing up a love story, they get viewers on their side, and the rules are changed to allow two tributes to survive, rather than just one. It's both cynical and ingenious, and on Peeta's part, not entirely a ruse.
I understand why Collins told the story from as narrow a focus as she did, but I do wish we could have seen some other things. I wish we had gotten to know the other tributes more, though I was grateful for what glimpses we got of Rue and Thresh -- they were enough to completely break your heart when they died. I was glad for the total isolation of the narrator, which made for good tension, but I'd be so interested to see the reactions among the audience and in the Capitol. I wish we could have gotten more about the Avox girl who waits on Katniss, but since this is the first in -- a trilogy? a series? I can hold out hope.
The only thing that really bothered me, even though it was a neat plot point, was turning the dead tributes into the muttations to attack the final three tributes. It's the kind of twist I'd have come up with as a very little kid, and I'm not saying that as a criticism. But it made me desperately wonder how it happened. Was the soul of the person present, or was the body just reused? Katniss recognized the other tributes, even when they were wolf-people. For such realistic futurism, this seemed decidedly magical. I have to wonder if future books will address this too.
All of which is to say that I really, really need to get my hands on the next book.
Okay, so thing I really like? Staying up far, far too late reading a good book, in this case, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Many people have recommended this to me, particularly vidavluz, who enabled me by sending me her copy (along with World War Z, which comes up as soon as I've finished the other books I'm halfway through! I had my revenge by sending The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends). All of which is to say that all the praise is entirely deserved. Dystopian future starring Appalachian girl and boy? Oh hell yes am I in!
The premise is basically that every year the nation that sits where the Eastern Seaboard of the United States was organizes a gladiator/survivalist-style reality show in which twenty-four children between the ages of 12 and 18 are selected to kill each other until one champion is left. Collins does an excellent job of constantly underscoring the barbarism of the event before it begins, when all the tributes (as they're called) are being cleaned up and paraded around on TV. Our POV character, Katniss Everdeen, volunteered to be a tribute from her district when her younger sister was drawn from the lottery. She's a fantastic voice, far older than her years and one of the few characters I've read that feels realistically shaped by her experiences growing up in utter poverty, both psychologically and by how she's learned to survive through hunting. I was interested by the author's choice to tell the story in first person present, with extreme narrow focus on Katniss. It's not my first choice of tense, but I think it makes sense for the character. I'd be interested to see how others would approach this universe, and what a third person past tense story sounds like.
The Hunger Games, as this event is called, are not just physical but psychological. Katniss is excellent at the running, jumping, climbing in trees, blam, arrow (to borrow Eddie Izzard for a moment) part, but the boy tribute from her district, Peeta Mellark, is a master at playing the crowd and manipulating group dynamics. He's not a schemer either: he's honest to a fault, and very sweet, and he means it. But he's the one who recognizes that storytelling is as much a part of their survival as prowess, and that is how he and Katniss manage to turn the whole Hunger Games spectacle to their advantage. By playing up a love story, they get viewers on their side, and the rules are changed to allow two tributes to survive, rather than just one. It's both cynical and ingenious, and on Peeta's part, not entirely a ruse.
I understand why Collins told the story from as narrow a focus as she did, but I do wish we could have seen some other things. I wish we had gotten to know the other tributes more, though I was grateful for what glimpses we got of Rue and Thresh -- they were enough to completely break your heart when they died. I was glad for the total isolation of the narrator, which made for good tension, but I'd be so interested to see the reactions among the audience and in the Capitol. I wish we could have gotten more about the Avox girl who waits on Katniss, but since this is the first in -- a trilogy? a series? I can hold out hope.
The only thing that really bothered me, even though it was a neat plot point, was turning the dead tributes into the muttations to attack the final three tributes. It's the kind of twist I'd have come up with as a very little kid, and I'm not saying that as a criticism. But it made me desperately wonder how it happened. Was the soul of the person present, or was the body just reused? Katniss recognized the other tributes, even when they were wolf-people. For such realistic futurism, this seemed decidedly magical. I have to wonder if future books will address this too.
All of which is to say that I really, really need to get my hands on the next book.