The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Genre: Young Adult Science Fiction

(from inside flap)

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to death before - and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Okay, to me the difference between a good book and a great book is this; I don't want to put down but I will, a great book I absolutely cannot put down. Going to sleep is torture, because I spend a lot of time (sometimes hours) laying awake wanting to know what happens next. This is one of those great books. I literally finished it a little more than an hour ago and couldn't wait to blog and get the word out. The Hunger Games is a suspenseful book that kept me going from cover-to-cover. I enjoyed the characters, although I will comment - if people were upset about the name "Renesme" in Breaking Dawn, they will not like the names in this book either. But I really could careless about that - the characters were great. In reality I'm glad this is a book, science fiction - and not reality. How heart wrentching when you really think about it - being forced to fight to the death with people your own age. I would be just like Katniss, having a hard time not forming attachments and honestly, I would never be able to follow through with any of the killing - even if I was forced to, I'd probably die first.

The book had many surprises, but the biggest one was the end - when...well I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. You'll see....

December

December by Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop

(From book flap)

A spellbinding novel about a troubled young girl and a family in crisis, and a gripping, astonishing portrait of recovery and self-determination.

When December opens, eleven-year-old Isabelle hasn't spoken a word in nearly a year. Four psychiatrists have abandoned her, declaring her silence to be impenetrable. Her parents are at once mystified and terrified by their daughter's withdrawal, and by their own gradually loosening hold on the world tas they've always known it. Isabelle's private school, which until now has taken the extraordinary step of allowing her to complete her assignments from home, is on the verge of expelling her, forcing her parents to confront the possibility that what once seemed a quirk of adolescence, a phase, is perhaps a lifelong transformation, a swift and total retreat from which their daughter may never emerge. December paints an unforgettable picture of a family reckoning with a bewildering crisis, and of a critical month in the life of a bright, fascinating girl, locked into an isolation of her own making and from which only she can decide to break free.

Compulsively readable and deeply affecting, December is a work of marvelous originality and emotional power from a prodigiously gifted young writer.

This was a great book. It literally held me captive from the moment I started reading until the very end, leaving me to think about it at night until I could continue to read it again the next day. It is not a fast paced novel. But it definately dives into the innards of the thought process of all main characters, which I think is the part I enjoyed the most. I was struggling with Isabelle as she mourned the fact that she simply could not speak; her anger at herself, her disappointing her parents, friends, and teachers, her fear causes her to draw into herself more and more. I struggled with each parent trying to think of what to do next. Each parent having their own methods, strategies, and sometimes butting heads with each other, causing more frustration. I think one of my favorite parts is even though this family is going through such a hard time, Isabelle's parents; Ruth and Wilson are constantly doing things for each other. They rarely forget the simple things, like Wilson leaving the paper and a canister of coffee for Ruth on the nightstand on Sunday mornings, I think is great. And when it fails to happen, you know things are spirling more out of control.

I think this is an excellent book! Definately worth the time. I look forward to reading more of Mrs. Winthrop!

The Jane Austen Book Club

The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

(From inside the book flap)

In California's Central Valley, five women and one man join together to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the sex months they meet, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens.

With her finely sighted eye for the frailties of human behavio and her finely tuned ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier, or her characters more appealing, while the complex dance of modern love has never been so devious - or so much fun.

I agree that this is a fun book! It was suggested by a friend and a fellow book-lover, and I thought it was a perfect fit for reading right after finishing Pride and Prejudice. Karen Joy Fowler made me fall in love with her characters, I loved how with each passing month and Austen book you got to dive into the mind of another one of the main characters. And of course, it's inevitable, if you're reading Austen books, there must be a happy ending, and this has a happy ending x5, and they give credit to non-other than Jane Austen herself, as if reading her books somehow helped them to love, forgive and fall in love all over again.

I guess next on my agenda is to check out the movie...which if it was done correctly this book should actually adapt well to film!

Mademoiselle Boleyn

*Originally posted 3/19/08 on my other blog

Mademoiselle Bolyen by Robin Maxwell
Taken from the back of the book:
When young Anne Boleyn is send to the French court with her father and sister, Mary, she thinks she’s in for an innocent adventure. But when the ambitious ambassador Thomas Boleyn leads them into the highly sophisticated and sexually permissive court of Francois I, Anne quickly learns that she and her sister are merely pawns for their father’s own political purpose. Mary becomes mistress to the outrageous French king and is ultimately seduced into his dangerous world by the luxuries of the court. But Anne will have a different fate…
Anne is younger, more clever, and stronger-willed than her sister, nd with the guidance of powerful allies and such unlikely friends such as Leonardo da Vinci, she learns how to navigate the challenges, passions, and betrayals of the court. And as she grows into a beautiful women, Anne undergoes her own awakening, each daring exploit taking her one step closer to the life that is her destiny.
I found this novel quite intriguing. So much so that I’ve sought out (and put on hold) other books on the Boleyn Sisters. My favorite part probably was Anne’s games of cards with the King - a seductive game of strip poker, but her intention wasn’t quite what the King had in mind. Anne is such a strong character from beginning to end, just making the book easier to read. With the scandal, sex, betrayal, religion as well as the compelling characters that were Mary and Anne, it’s no wonder they created a movie surrounding the family. I’m still waiting to read at least one more book before Netflixing the movie to watch. I’m sure I’ll be disappointed, because I can’t remember ever seeing a movie that was near as good as a book.

Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

(from Amazon.com)

Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy's hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth's low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen's best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." She may be joking, but there's more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Who doesn't love some Jane Austen? Okay, I must be honest, this is the first of her books that I have read. And of course I love it. I already loved all the movie adaptations, which is what made me pick up one of her books. I did have to concentrate a bit more reading this book than others, because I found the language would loose me if I wasn't paying attention. Not that I have a hard time understanding, but just that in the time that this book was written they spoke so differently than we do now that if I found my mind wandering, I also would find that I didn't really know what was going on in the book. I must say I was disappointed in the lack of dialogue - in parts where the books seemed to just summarized the events that took place, I wanted to hear the conversation itself. Either way, of course this is an excellent book!