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

[sarea]

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.

I had always thought that Katniss was going to end up with Gale rather than Peeta. I don't know if that influenced my like or otherwise of the characters, but I fully expected her to end up with Gale, and when she ended up with Peeta instead, I felt as though I had been lied to. There are certain expectations authors invite when they set things up in a certain way, and especially when it comes to love triangles, I like to know where the author is going early on so that I know who I'm supposed to root for, don't get too attached to the loser, and therefore don't feel disappointed in the end. (OR, if it's obvious who the heroine is supposed to end up with and I like the other guy way more, I'd probably stop reading, because then it's not satisfying.) For whatever reason, I had thought Gale to be the intended HEA for Katniss. He was the best friend; was the one who took care of her family; was introduced first; was someone she constantly thought of... all these things led me to believe he was The One. He was Edward Cullen; Peeta was Jacob Black. (Never mind that I liked Jacob more than Edward... you know what I mean! Let's just say it is one of the many, many, MANY reasons I hate Twilight.) Peeta just seemed so whiny and useless.

ANYWAY, so a girl, Teresa, is the "heroine" of the first Maze Runner book. I wasn't crazy about her, but we learn more about her and the close (though not explicitly romantic) relationship she and Thomas shared before they went into the maze, and she grew on me. Or at least, the idea of her grew on me, especially when, at the start of the second novel, they're separated. Thomas is desperate to find her, and I didn't mind that the heroine in this case was put in the fridge, because it's really about Thomas's journey; it's his story.

But then... something happens. I can't remember the exact details, but she has to betray him in order to save him, which is a fairly common thing that heroes/heroines have to do for one another. The other feels betrayed for awhile, but because the intentions are good, they always find a way back to one another in a satisfying way. That doesn't happen in this case. Thomas feels betrayed, and just continues feeling betrayed and doesn't ever forgive her. It was a wholly dissatisfying turn in the relationship as it had been portrayed up to that point. I'm really not sure why James Dashner went there with it, why he suddenly decided that Teresa wasn't the right girl for Thomas. It's written very clearly that her betrayal isn't a "true" betrayal, because she was doing it for him (and honestly, it wasn't even that bad!!!)... but suddenly, because Thomas refuses to forgive her, she's made into a character who had bad intentions all along. It makes NO narrative or emotional sense!! I don't know if it's because I'm a girl that it bothers me so much -- maybe boys, who the books are likely aimed at, are totally fine with it? And maybe other girls aren't bothered by it, so it has nothing to do with my gender at all?

I don't know, but another girl is introduced at some point, and it was impossible for me to like her. She comes out of nowhere, doesn't have any history with Thomas, and yet he trusts her because...???? Given the world they live in, it seems far more suspect to trust someone you've only just met, over someone who did something you didn't like, but did it because they cared about you. The problem is that all of it only made me start disliking Thomas! And when you start disliking the hero of the book, there's no way you can enjoy it. I hoped, right up to the very end of the third novel, that it'd fixed somehow, and it never is. :(

The one big issue that I had with the movie and the books is this: Despite the fact that the Gladers are all a bunch of teenage boys, and a lone teenage girl appears in their midst, she is never subject to any sexual threat, or more significantly, never seems to feel sexually threatened.

Don't get me wrong; it's not like I wanted to see that happen, and I can understand why Dashner would have wanted to avoid such an uncomfortable business. But come on. As a girl, I can tell you that if I'd been plopped into that situation, I would have felt very uncomfortable. And these are boys who haven't had any female companionship in... a really long time. It would have been completely realistic for a few of them to be inappropriate, or harbor sexual thoughts, or make suggestive comments. None of this happens, as though instead of teenagers, they're all prepubescents with no sexual drive. Again, I didn't need the book to dwell on the subject, but some acknowledgement of it would have been nice.

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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.