The Hunger Games trilogy consists of:
Book 1 - The Hunger Games
Book 2 - Catching Fire
Book 3 - Mockingjay
These books are riveting. Brutal at times but absolutely amazing.
In a future where the United States has fallen and a new country, called Panem, has risen, Katness Everdeen steps into the place of her little sister to participate in The Hunger Games, a reality show where the contestants, 1 male and 1 female from each of the 12 districts of Panem, go to compete - to the death.
Chosen to go with her (via lottery) is Peeta, a boy from District 12's town. His family are bakers by trade and Peeta really has no skills to survive in The Arena (where the Hunger Games takes place). Katness, however, has been "training" most of her life by illegally hunting and gathering in the forest to support herself, her mother and younger sister, Prim. (and Prim's cat, Buttercup)
The story, over the three books, tells of the discontent of the districts against the Capital's rule. No Capital children are ever selected for the Hunger Games, which grew up as a way to remind the Districts of the folly in revolt against the Capital.
Very powerful, often tear inducing, these books will continue to give me food for thought for a very long time.
5 out of 5 berries for all three books.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
In the Company of Vampires by Katie MacAlister
I have been waiting for this book for YEARS. Yes, literally, years.
In the Company of Vampires is the third book in Ms. MacAlister's Ben and Fran Dark Ones (slash)Goth Faire books which started with Got Fangs? and Circus of the Darned. Can't find them because they're out of print? Never fear, Katie Mac is here! She recently received the rights to the books back and her new publisher, Signet, has reprinted them in a handy omnibus edition under the title Confessions of a Vampire's Girlfriend. My well worn original copies can now be retired to my "well loved and most favorite" book shelf. Hooray.
Okay, the review...
Ms. MacAlister has delivered another winner with this book. She made me laugh, she made me cry. I gasped, I sighed and when it was all over, I turned it over and restarted it. I'm currently half way through my second reading and it's still wonderful. I can tell that this will become, like the first two, a comfort read for me. Something I can pick up and delve into just to be with beloved friends.
The book opens with Fran, now 22, living with a roommate in Oregon where she is working for a web development company. She and Ben have broken up and she is miserable but adamant that she wants to make her own decisions about who she should be with, not be a "pawn of fate".
There is much hilarity in this book and, because Fran is officially an adult, much more naughtiness as well. Which is good and actually really clean. (One reason I like Ms. MacAlister's books so much is that there is rarely any cursing or taking the Lord's name in vain. It's refreshing!) Fran ends up going back to Europe to the Goth Faire to retrieve the Vikingaharta from Imogene. Eirik, Finnvid and Isleif are also in on the retrieval having been sent by Freya to help Fran send Loki to the Akashic Plane.
The reunion scene with Ben made me weep. My heart broke, was healed and broke again. The misery that both Fran and Ben endured over the 5 years Fran had been gone from Europe, the utter despondency that engulfed them during the year of their complete breakup, made me ache with loneliness. Then the joy began but was shattered only to give birth to hope.
And that hope was not in vain.
Needless to say, I loved this book. I ached for this book for so long, I was afraid I had built it up too much in my mind but I was wrong. This book is, if not quite a perfect conclusion, a very satisfying semi-conclusion to Ben and Fran's love story. There are many threads hanging at the end but, as Ms. MacAlister has promised that this is the begining of a new series, I'm very hopeful that there just MIGHT be another B&F centric book among them.
We do learn what Loki took from Fran ("I will take that which you value most") in Circus of the Darned and it actually was close to my hypothesis that Fran lost her feeling of acceptance, her feeling of belonging, that I was well satisfied with Loki's denouement.
5 of 5 berries for this one. Read it! You'll fall in love with Ben and Fran as well!
In the Company of Vampires is the third book in Ms. MacAlister's Ben and Fran Dark Ones (slash)Goth Faire books which started with Got Fangs? and Circus of the Darned. Can't find them because they're out of print? Never fear, Katie Mac is here! She recently received the rights to the books back and her new publisher, Signet, has reprinted them in a handy omnibus edition under the title Confessions of a Vampire's Girlfriend. My well worn original copies can now be retired to my "well loved and most favorite" book shelf. Hooray.
Okay, the review...
Ms. MacAlister has delivered another winner with this book. She made me laugh, she made me cry. I gasped, I sighed and when it was all over, I turned it over and restarted it. I'm currently half way through my second reading and it's still wonderful. I can tell that this will become, like the first two, a comfort read for me. Something I can pick up and delve into just to be with beloved friends.
The book opens with Fran, now 22, living with a roommate in Oregon where she is working for a web development company. She and Ben have broken up and she is miserable but adamant that she wants to make her own decisions about who she should be with, not be a "pawn of fate".
There is much hilarity in this book and, because Fran is officially an adult, much more naughtiness as well. Which is good and actually really clean. (One reason I like Ms. MacAlister's books so much is that there is rarely any cursing or taking the Lord's name in vain. It's refreshing!) Fran ends up going back to Europe to the Goth Faire to retrieve the Vikingaharta from Imogene. Eirik, Finnvid and Isleif are also in on the retrieval having been sent by Freya to help Fran send Loki to the Akashic Plane.
The reunion scene with Ben made me weep. My heart broke, was healed and broke again. The misery that both Fran and Ben endured over the 5 years Fran had been gone from Europe, the utter despondency that engulfed them during the year of their complete breakup, made me ache with loneliness. Then the joy began but was shattered only to give birth to hope.
And that hope was not in vain.
Needless to say, I loved this book. I ached for this book for so long, I was afraid I had built it up too much in my mind but I was wrong. This book is, if not quite a perfect conclusion, a very satisfying semi-conclusion to Ben and Fran's love story. There are many threads hanging at the end but, as Ms. MacAlister has promised that this is the begining of a new series, I'm very hopeful that there just MIGHT be another B&F centric book among them.
We do learn what Loki took from Fran ("I will take that which you value most") in Circus of the Darned and it actually was close to my hypothesis that Fran lost her feeling of acceptance, her feeling of belonging, that I was well satisfied with Loki's denouement.
5 of 5 berries for this one. Read it! You'll fall in love with Ben and Fran as well!
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