Entry tags:
more reading, mostly
The Hunger Games
- Kind of an anticlimactic ending, but forgiven since it's a planned trilogy. Still, it wasn't exactly open ended and it didn't exactly give a sense of closure to the book (like each HP book), so I thought there was a lot of room for improvement.
- The "take back" on letting two winners happen was kind of lame. I know it was necessary so Kat could outwit the Gamemakers and start the ball rolling on the uprisings, but that doesn't make it any less lame.
- The death of Cato was horrible and also pretty anticlimactic. The rest of the book is almost written like a movie -- you could easily see everything happening on the big screen -- and then this scene happens and it's the total opposite of everything else. We know from the start that Kat and/or Peeta are going to have to end up killing Cato, so why wait until morning? It doesn't actually make it that much more horrible. She could have written it in a way that made it difficult for them to get in position to kill Cato, thus drawing out the terrible tension of him begging for his life to end, rather than just wait out the night and then in the morning they kill him. The pacing just wasn't very good.
- Overall a very enjoyable read. Sometimes with plot contrivances I can be pretty unforgiving, but the story is executed well enough and Kat is likable enough that I can overlook them.
Catching Fire
- Wow, I'm going to get whiplash from all the starts and stops of various plotlines. It's like 5 different plot ideas that get thrown into one book. It's about being convincing that Kat/Peeta are in love! No, it's about running away! No, it's about standing up to the Capitol! No, it's about getting thrown back in the arena!
- While I'm still having a good time w/ the universe and the characters, I'm much less riveted by the 'plot' of this book, possibly because I'm not even sure what the 'plot' is supposed to be, really. It does seem that it's going the way I figured it would, with the eventual toppling of the establishment, but the way it began is a bit far fetched.
- BTW how did they even get the reaping ceremonies to happen in those districts where supposedly uprisings were going on?
- It seems really odd to me that the OTP is still clearly Gale/Kat and yet they have FAR less screen time than Kat/Peeta. It doesn't make sense to me, because as much as I like Gale, how can I really root for him when I see Peeta WAY more, and Peeta is such a decent guy? I do have to say, though, that this triangle works way better for me than the Twilight triangle of Bella/Edward/Jacob. I don't know why. Well, partly it's because I like all the Hunger Games characters far more; they have real personalities with depth unlike the cardboard cutouts that B/E/J are. Kat's spunk and skills are actually SHOWN, and her forced maturity SHOWN, whereas Bella is just totally useless and we're just TOLD she's one way or another. In fact, that's true of all the HG main leads; what they contribute to the world as people is very clear, whereas the Twilight characters all seem like a waste of space to me. In any case, this might be the very first triangle in the history of triangles wherein I actually sympathize with the one in the middle about the difficulty in choosing, without her looking bad. Maybe it's because it's that she was clueless about her feelings for Gale for a long time, and what she was thrown into with Peeta, you simply CAN'T help but feel something for the person. Yet her connection with Gale, their past, also makes it quite believable and understandable that she would have feelings for him. Unlike, you know, no real connection whatsoever except an initial spark of attraction and a random occurrence like not being able to read another's mind. Sorry this turned into derisive commentary about Twilight, but the two scenarios beg to be compared, and HG is such a prime example of a GOOD execution, whereas Twilight is on the opposite spectrum like like, THE WORST execution ever.
- Are Peeta and Kat actually going to have to go into the arena again? I'm not sure we really need to see that again, particularly because it's almost certain going to be rigged against them, and it won't be believable frankly if they survive because of that. If the Capitol have contrived this Quarter Quell to get rid of Kat, which they almost certainly have, then there's no reason they wouldn't work events to just kill her expediently. I really like that Kat recognizes this, and plans to work with Haymitch to help keep Peeta alive. I also like that she's told and agrees that she could look a million years and not find someone as good as Peeta/deserve him.
- I hope Peeta doesn't die in the arena THIS time... that would be just too tragic. :(
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corianderstem, what you remembered about certain TV programs being mandatory to watch is stated in book 2. There seem to be a lot of things in book 2 that the author inserts in like that, as if to respond to questions/criticisms from book 1 about the universe. Anyway, I still think it's kind of stupid, because of the electricity thing, and because it's not like there are Peacekeepers who go around checking that you're watching the mandatory shows. So unless the TVs turn on by themselves at the appropriate time, and the people are chained to their seats, there's nothing that actually says they HAVE to do it. In fact, it's a really far fetched thing for us to buy that Kat dutifully watches mandatory TV shows in her home with no authority figure making sure it happens, when she flagrantly disregards the law in almost all other respects.
- I like the idea of District 13 being "the promised land," though there better be really good reasons why they've been left alone by the Capitol (the nuclear weapons thing is stupid, because if that's the case, why not threaten the Capitol with it and free all the other districts). It is kind of reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica and the search for Earth.
My mom is coming home with me tonight and will stay for a couple of days before returning to K.'s. My house is a sty. I dread her reaction.
Senor Moose w/ the two of them tonight. I am hoping to talk K. out of Indian food on Sunday. I just don't want to make Indian food that's dairy-less. It just won't be as good. It's SO dairy dependent, imho. I mean, it uses cream, yogurt, ghee (clarified butter), paneer (fresh cheese) ... if you take all that away, you take away the SOUL of the cuisine. Okay, maybe I am being a bit over dramatic, there are obviously plenty of dairy-less Indian dishes out there. But it is true that some of the best dishes are made with dairy, and if you make ALL the dishes without dairy, it ruins the meal. It'll be boring and uninteresting. That's just how I feel. If the meal were ONLY for K. that might be one thing, but the meal is also supposed to be for my mom. Why should all of us who aren't on a dairy restriction suffer?! Sigh. Maybe I'll just have to make 2 versions of things.
- Kind of an anticlimactic ending, but forgiven since it's a planned trilogy. Still, it wasn't exactly open ended and it didn't exactly give a sense of closure to the book (like each HP book), so I thought there was a lot of room for improvement.
- The "take back" on letting two winners happen was kind of lame. I know it was necessary so Kat could outwit the Gamemakers and start the ball rolling on the uprisings, but that doesn't make it any less lame.
- The death of Cato was horrible and also pretty anticlimactic. The rest of the book is almost written like a movie -- you could easily see everything happening on the big screen -- and then this scene happens and it's the total opposite of everything else. We know from the start that Kat and/or Peeta are going to have to end up killing Cato, so why wait until morning? It doesn't actually make it that much more horrible. She could have written it in a way that made it difficult for them to get in position to kill Cato, thus drawing out the terrible tension of him begging for his life to end, rather than just wait out the night and then in the morning they kill him. The pacing just wasn't very good.
- Overall a very enjoyable read. Sometimes with plot contrivances I can be pretty unforgiving, but the story is executed well enough and Kat is likable enough that I can overlook them.
Catching Fire
- Wow, I'm going to get whiplash from all the starts and stops of various plotlines. It's like 5 different plot ideas that get thrown into one book. It's about being convincing that Kat/Peeta are in love! No, it's about running away! No, it's about standing up to the Capitol! No, it's about getting thrown back in the arena!
- While I'm still having a good time w/ the universe and the characters, I'm much less riveted by the 'plot' of this book, possibly because I'm not even sure what the 'plot' is supposed to be, really. It does seem that it's going the way I figured it would, with the eventual toppling of the establishment, but the way it began is a bit far fetched.
- BTW how did they even get the reaping ceremonies to happen in those districts where supposedly uprisings were going on?
- It seems really odd to me that the OTP is still clearly Gale/Kat and yet they have FAR less screen time than Kat/Peeta. It doesn't make sense to me, because as much as I like Gale, how can I really root for him when I see Peeta WAY more, and Peeta is such a decent guy? I do have to say, though, that this triangle works way better for me than the Twilight triangle of Bella/Edward/Jacob. I don't know why. Well, partly it's because I like all the Hunger Games characters far more; they have real personalities with depth unlike the cardboard cutouts that B/E/J are. Kat's spunk and skills are actually SHOWN, and her forced maturity SHOWN, whereas Bella is just totally useless and we're just TOLD she's one way or another. In fact, that's true of all the HG main leads; what they contribute to the world as people is very clear, whereas the Twilight characters all seem like a waste of space to me. In any case, this might be the very first triangle in the history of triangles wherein I actually sympathize with the one in the middle about the difficulty in choosing, without her looking bad. Maybe it's because it's that she was clueless about her feelings for Gale for a long time, and what she was thrown into with Peeta, you simply CAN'T help but feel something for the person. Yet her connection with Gale, their past, also makes it quite believable and understandable that she would have feelings for him. Unlike, you know, no real connection whatsoever except an initial spark of attraction and a random occurrence like not being able to read another's mind. Sorry this turned into derisive commentary about Twilight, but the two scenarios beg to be compared, and HG is such a prime example of a GOOD execution, whereas Twilight is on the opposite spectrum like like, THE WORST execution ever.
- Are Peeta and Kat actually going to have to go into the arena again? I'm not sure we really need to see that again, particularly because it's almost certain going to be rigged against them, and it won't be believable frankly if they survive because of that. If the Capitol have contrived this Quarter Quell to get rid of Kat, which they almost certainly have, then there's no reason they wouldn't work events to just kill her expediently. I really like that Kat recognizes this, and plans to work with Haymitch to help keep Peeta alive. I also like that she's told and agrees that she could look a million years and not find someone as good as Peeta/deserve him.
- I hope Peeta doesn't die in the arena THIS time... that would be just too tragic. :(
-
corianderstem, what you remembered about certain TV programs being mandatory to watch is stated in book 2. There seem to be a lot of things in book 2 that the author inserts in like that, as if to respond to questions/criticisms from book 1 about the universe. Anyway, I still think it's kind of stupid, because of the electricity thing, and because it's not like there are Peacekeepers who go around checking that you're watching the mandatory shows. So unless the TVs turn on by themselves at the appropriate time, and the people are chained to their seats, there's nothing that actually says they HAVE to do it. In fact, it's a really far fetched thing for us to buy that Kat dutifully watches mandatory TV shows in her home with no authority figure making sure it happens, when she flagrantly disregards the law in almost all other respects.- I like the idea of District 13 being "the promised land," though there better be really good reasons why they've been left alone by the Capitol (the nuclear weapons thing is stupid, because if that's the case, why not threaten the Capitol with it and free all the other districts). It is kind of reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica and the search for Earth.
My mom is coming home with me tonight and will stay for a couple of days before returning to K.'s. My house is a sty. I dread her reaction.
Senor Moose w/ the two of them tonight. I am hoping to talk K. out of Indian food on Sunday. I just don't want to make Indian food that's dairy-less. It just won't be as good. It's SO dairy dependent, imho. I mean, it uses cream, yogurt, ghee (clarified butter), paneer (fresh cheese) ... if you take all that away, you take away the SOUL of the cuisine. Okay, maybe I am being a bit over dramatic, there are obviously plenty of dairy-less Indian dishes out there. But it is true that some of the best dishes are made with dairy, and if you make ALL the dishes without dairy, it ruins the meal. It'll be boring and uninteresting. That's just how I feel. If the meal were ONLY for K. that might be one thing, but the meal is also supposed to be for my mom. Why should all of us who aren't on a dairy restriction suffer?! Sigh. Maybe I'll just have to make 2 versions of things.