Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

 *SPOILERS*
I actually finished this book yesterday, after spending most of the day devouring it. I have to say this at the start- it was not my favorite of the three. Heck, it was probably my ~least~ favorite of the three. Part of the way through it, I looked up to tell my boyfriend that it's going to make one heck of a movie when they get around to it. But then I realized, therein lied the problem--it felt too much like a movie. Constant drama, not enough downtime to allow the characters to reflect. You knew something out of the ordinary crazy drama was about to happen the moment they had a breather, because they weren't allowed to. Now, I understand that books are made to be entertaining, but there's something -better- about a book than a movie because it takes the time to spend on details that might not necessarily matter. Mockingjay read too much like a movie script for me to enjoy it like a book.

I AM happy to say that she ended up with the guy I thought she belonged with. In Hunger Games, I was all for Gale, but once I realized the sheer amount of what Peeta did for her, I couldn't help but care about him most. And he became my favorite character. I read through Catching Fire in nearly one sitting mostly because I was afraid for his life!

Other than the drama being shoved down our throats, I wasn't happy with the blatant drug abuse. It annoys me when I'm reading a book and every time I turn around, the character is passing out and waking up somewhere else. Like that's the only way the author knows how to segue into a new scene. This was kind of like that, except she was CONSTANTLY in the hospital, or being drugged, or waking up after passing out. Does she not know how to go to sleep and wake up normally? But not just her- many of the other characters were very attached to the morphling or alcohol. Understandable in real life. Maybe not acceptable in children's books.

I didn't like the ending. Felt like the author killed her sister just out of spite for the character. As if she hadn't suffered enough. And killing Finnick off enraged me. He was a hero in his own right. You could take his story and turn it around and he could be the main character- but instead he got thrown out like trash. I hate when characters that are likable but not the main one, get killed off just because. Movies do it, too. You can almost 90% of the time tell who is going to survive. The mostly pretty, "smart" girl (not the prettiest one, because that one is generally the "slut" and dies early on), and -maybe- the guy she gets to spend happily ever after with.

I have a whole list of reasons I didn't like this book, so bare with me. This is an overall theme in all three though. Katniss sounds like a heartless bitch. We never get a chance to see how she actually feels about things until her sister dies. Most of it is just an interpretation of what she sees, and that's frustrating. If we're supposed to be in her head, why don't we know what emotions she's having? She doesn't have many unique thoughts about anything. Instead, all we get is her constant confusion. How can she be a hero if she's walking around without an idea in the world about what's actually going on? And when she does things, we don't get to see her reasoning about it. Because of this, I think the book would've, and ought to have been, better written from a third person point of view. I felt cheated being inside the characters head but being kept out of her innermost thoughts.

I do, however, applaud her for killing the new prez. The moment Boggs mentioned Katniss was a threat because she didn't support her, I knew she was just another tyrant and needed to be taken out of the picture. So thankfully she was!

Let's go back to something easy- my favorite part. My favorite part in this book was the end when she finally told Peeta she loved him. It was a relief that he could finally be happy and we finally got to see what she felt.

My least favorite part was the mutts. Very unhappy with Finnick's death, again.

Feel free to add comments on how you interpreted this book!

Insistent Characters

Along with being a reader, I fancy myself a pretty good fantasy fiction writer. In junior high and high school, I got straight As. I was so bored with school that while the teachers lectured and in between homework and having no interest in sports or boys, I wrote a book. I wrote it straight through, with absolutely no outline planned out. I just let it flow, let the characters talk to me and tell me what they wanted to say, what they would do, and they became so ingrained in my mind that they feel like old friends.

Well, my main character, a rogue named Viper, decided that some day, he deserved a quartet. It was going to be just a three-book series, but somewhere after deciding the end to the third book, he wanted a chance to reflect back on everything that happened. So the idea for a fourth book appeared.

That's the back story.

My main point is this: somewhere in the middle of my extremely stressful dead week at college, Viper demanded to be heard. He had a scene he wanted in the fourth book and without permission, he carried on a complete conversation with a minor character.

How very frustrating for me, lacking pen, paper, or time, to acknowledge his request. So, while studying for my worst final this semester, I took out a piece of paper, a pen, and wrote an entire page without stopping once. It could have been more, but I didn't have the patience to expand with details. I merely wrote the grit of it and set it aside.

But I felt better afterward. Maybe, in a different life, I could've been a successful author. However, much as I like Viper, I am not too proud to think he could compete with the likes of Harry Potter or Edward for the affection of the nation. I can humbly acknowledge that they are better authors than me, just for the mere fact that they are published, and I am not. However, my dream of getting my book published, if only for the satisfaction of seeing it bound as a real book before me, is still there. I enjoy my characters very much, and they are alive and very vocal inside of me, no matter what anyone else thinks :)

Sometimes, you just need to listen to them, and write.

Dead (ish)

by Naomi Kramer.

 *Warning: explicit words used in reference to direct quotes in the book*

My first post is, ironically enough, on a book of the type I don't normally read. I was bored at school, waiting for my next class to start, so I was looking through the Amazon Kindle app on my smartphone. I did a search on "free" and came up with a variety of different books, including a few "free" short stories.

The first thing that attracted me to the book was the cover. I know you're not supposed to judge the story based on some different artist's work, but the cute female skull and cross bones made me think of my sister, who tends to like the emo things. After reading the reviews, I decided to check it out.

It's about a girl ghost who is haunting her ex-boyfriend, who killed her, "accidentally". All she wants is to find her body so she can move on to the afterlife. She can appear to people, and so she hires a PI to investigate the case and find her body. He poses as an exorcist to the still-living boyfriend, and finds himself in the middle of a crazy story.

In the beginning I felt bad for the guy, she seems like a real bitch. His side of the story is she cheated on him and during their argument he slapped her and she fell over on her high heels and cracked her head on something, dying in her sleep later that night. As far as I was concerned, she halfway had it coming to her.

But then you find out what he did with her body and....all those pitying feelings went away. No spoilers!

My favorite quote from the book is probably this: Arty-farty doesn't just equal freaky in the sack, it also equals nasty genius revenge.

I would recommend this book for anyone who likes paranormal things, and only for mature readers. They say Fuck alot, although I never did understand why they'd say that, but then only say arsehole. I don't know any real person who uses that world. If you're going to say arsehole, then fuck should turn into frick, or something. They also reference a threesome, which I wasn't exactly expecting. But, you've been warned, lol.

I'll give it a two/five stars for the books I've read, but a three/four stars for a short story.