I don't know which I enjoy more, the decor, or the ambience.

adelagia and I saw The Maze Runner today. Actually, it was my second time, and she really, really had to twist my arm to make me see Dylan O'Brien again (NOT). It's really nice to be able to see Dylan in a lead role. Up until now, he's mostly been a secondary character in the things I've seen him in, and he's so talented (and hot) that he really deserves to play a character who carries the plot. It's the one big failing of Teen Wolf (though there are many). They're not stupid and are trying to get him more involved in the plotlines, but the fact is still that the show is called Teen Wolf, not Friend of Teen Wolf (though really that's what it should be).

I digress. I thought it was a really good adaptation of the book. The book always seemed to plod along a bit, and while reading I felt that it would make a better movie than book -- and I was right! They were able to get to the meat while cutting the stuff that dragged, and any changes they made (minor from what I remember) weren't egregious. It isn't like the Harry Potter adaptations, in which huge chunks of awesome things are cut in the name of expediency. I'm actually looking forward to the second movie quite a bit. I'd like to see if they're able to improve upon the story, because the second and third novels were huge disappointments to me. In fact, my enjoyment trajectory was not unlike what I felt about The Hunger Games trilogy, and for a similar reason. ( Spoilers. )

The one big issue that I had with the movie and the books is this: ( Spoilers. )

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I have found a new fictional hero that I adore from the young adult genre: Jay Heaton from Kimberly Derting's "The Body Finder" series. He's mega lovable in the mold of good boys such as Michael Moscovitz, Harry Potter, Pacey Witter, Stiles Stilinski, etc.

There are four books in the series, and I've read the first two. I can already tell that I won't like the next two as much, but I'm still planning to read them.

Here's the summary of the first book:

Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies — or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes that the dead leave behind in the world... and the imprints that attach to their killers.

Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find the dead birds her cat had tired of playing with. But now that a serial killer has begun terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite the focus of the summary being on the supernatural element, I'd say the book is a very satisfying 50/50 on the romance and plot, one complementing the other really well. Most supernatural YAs don't balance it very well, mainly because most supernatural YAs are based on plots that aren't incredibly complex nor interesting, but the author forces the issue. With The Body Finder, both the plot and the romance are given Goldilocks amounts of focus. I really loved it.

I can already tell, however, that the further the series goes, the more she's going to be focusing on plot, and having to throw wrenches (such as triangles) into the mix, in order to "keep things interesting," and I just have no interest in such things after I've gotten my HEA. So, who knows how long it'll take me to get around to finishing the series? IMHO you can read the first one or two and stop there, since they stand alone.

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I've also read The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, JKR's pseudonym. I really enjoyed it! She really has a talent for world building, and writing in a way that sucks you in immediately. In very few words, she can get you interested/invested in a character and the story she's telling. That's her magic.

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Have you ever heard of Sakura shrimp? I had it recently at Looking for Chai (stir fried with cabbage), and it was delicious. Most of the stuff on the internet is about it being a pet/part of an aquarium. In Chinese I guess it's called "shrimp skin," which is why it took forever for me to even get what the waitress was talking about when I asked what exactly Sakura shrimp was. At 99 Ranch I found little shrimp in packages that my mom said read "shrimp skin" in Chinese, and they went for $3-4. I found REAL Sakura shrimp from Japan today at Uwajimaya, and 0.40 ounces cost $10.99. O.o Now I'm not convinced that the restaurant actually served real Sakura shrimp; they were fairly generous with it, and the dish itself cost $10.95 (at the time, I thought this was kind of pricey for cabbage + little shrimp). I'll have to get it again to do a comparison.