Matched

Well, I was looking forward to this book because of its plot - sci fi / different view of reality. Well, I also chose to 'read' it in audiobook. So 2 strikes- the book is a copy of 1984 without the political aspects and the teenage drama exceeding the cuteness of it all. Plus, the audiobook read by .. well I don't know but she is a slow one!!!9 hours!!!for 380 pages!geezz - and so it took me a week to 'read' it. So as for the blue pill, the green and the red - seriously try to work it better:

the blue is a nutrition pill, the green a relaxation pill and the red a forget the last 12 hours pill. Every citizen has to carry all three in a box in case they are ordered to take any. But seriously every time they are ordered can't they just give them then???the green is taken by choice and limited to 1 per week...

I only liked Kay- he was smart but played the games and lost, was mediocre at work and knew alot but never talked, he was wise. I also liked the name Cassia -cashews anyone?:P

Graceling

A fantasy novel of another world all together!No scifi, no distant future, just imagination!But Katsa has so many common features with Katniss. She is a survivor as well!

I adore the theme of the Graced - one eye different color of the other shown up a while after birth, when graced owned by the king till the grace shows and see if the king can use it. Amazing concept with alot of conformity to logic.

Also, it is kind of relaxing not having to worry about cams, police and the over-civilized world where everyone knows everything. This book's setting is 7 kingdoms, where forests, mountains and valleys supplying Katsa with alot of time with Po in their travels.

I believe I was getting anxious just to forsee any problems the main character may have in case the author let it show as a mistake and then make them pay for it. Like when you see the holes and hints the director gives you in a movie and you kinda figure out the ending from the first 30 minutes....

Ba-bye Tally Youngblood

The protagonist is not Tally in this book, it is Aya, she is japanese from what I gather - bows when greeting, a thousand oregamy hand-made when a girl turns thirteen and eventually when she meets Tally on the second half of the book she switches to english. Scott did an amazing job - keeping the nice qualities that Tally's character had and giving them to Aya's way of story-telling and protraying everything. But at some point after they meet and collaborate Aya goes off on her own and after some revelations on the plot she seeks Tally out from some bombing-making activities and I saw that I missed knowing what Tally was up to!!!!
It seems I liked Tally alot but thanks to the Aya character it won't be so dificult to let her go!:)

Pretties, Scott Westerfeld

She is pretty, finally. But no of the reasons of anticipations of being pretty give rise in this book. They don't matter any more as more problems are to be dealt with. She has a boy friend, she has a clique to get voted into and then all goes wooshy as she is coming to her senses as 'bubbly'. Her best friend Shay is angry because she didn't get the cure, shan's her and becomes leader of her own colt the 'Cutters' who cut themselves to get a fraction of 'bubbly'. Then she goes 'Special' and eventually when captured she's the one to tell Tally she's going 'Special' as well.
Tally when escaping she ended up into a village of 'hommo sapiens' who live like savages, sleep all together in one hut and have no sense of privacy, literacy, or higene. Also, they have a rival tribe with whom they have a vendeta and kill one person from the rival in response to the previous kill the other tribe did. A vicious cirle that is produced and watched by anthopologists and neurologists to help develop the lenients on the brain that contain anger and vegence and from being 'bubbly'. This part did nothing for me and greatly hope that it will mean a great lot for the next book because its whole meaning ends up only to Tally's delay to the New Smoke by 2 weeks.
BO.

The Uglies

At first I thought it was gonna be a story about teenage drama and insecurities and it turned out a rebel against the Capitol kind of thing!I found it in the 'others buy' options at amazon when searching for the Hunger Games. The fact is that after the Hunger Games I was hungry for more Kantiss but no fourth book or anything and the closure had had to be satisfying-nothing was missing... Eventhough it sais in wikipedia that the love triangle between Katniss , Gale and Peeta remains unsolved but it does, quite quietly:P
So this book is exactly in the spirit of rebellion-with serious problems not just insecurities or puberty!But the only setback holding me back from flying through the story and shows some cracks is the abilities of the main character, Tally, to do alot of stuff out of nowhere with no disconfort. First she survives the wilderness, she accepts the limitations of the Smoke with no complaint, she accepts that Pretties also sustain brain damage in their transformation, she kicks ass and fights with almost no fear-the thoughts include only storytelling in the action scenes.
Still I'm up for the second book!cheers

The Hunger Games - Mockingjay

War, shootings, blood, bombings, fear, fire, politics and war.
“Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?” I ask.

“Oh, not now. Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated,” he says. “But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss.”

I the ending chapters I liked that phrase 'a great gift for self-destruction'. No matter the destruction to our planet, of each other, of our health, of our economies, of our intelligence and of course our humanity. People have accepted as normal sitting indoors all day in front of a box supplying a fraction of communication with other people. Knowledge is commonly known as boring. And most of all the gift of wisdom is more and more difficult to acquire.
As for Katniss, the pour girl lost her mind at least 3 times. I wonder how can I go berserk!? But that is the fundamental, I see her out of wits and I wonder how I can get to that so I can feel better about my self, for myself. Human beings need to lose in order to grow, to learn and earn wisdom in order to appreciate and accept their life's challenges. Why is that? Why can't we be a constant flow of positive energy that empowers us to be better?Not to overpower someone else but to succeed for our own fulfilment?
Where is this going?Geez..
I am tired of self-loathing and ready to self-appreciate but eventhough I know all the ground rules, I cannot seem to follow them. Is it because I don't want to deep down?nop I do, then what???

The Hunger Games : Catching Fire

Katniss is in place for enjoying the money and privileges of being a victor in District 12. Her relationship with Peeta is frozen while Gale is acting like a friend while working in the mines. President Snow visits and threatens Katniss to behave while the Quarter Quell Hunger Games are to begin- every 25 years there are special versions of the Hunger Games whose special factor was supposedly predetermined in envelopes locked up , for example one time the number of the tributes (players) was double, while the other time each district had to vote out their tributes. So this time the tributes are selected from the prior victors. Katniss freaks out and eventually ends up in the game, with her bonding with Peeta to grow and a comradeship initiating between the past victors/new tributes. The riots have started and the mockingjay is the symbol, Katniss.

I loved this book. I mean the continuance of the Hunger Games and the build up to the riots and the overthrow of the Capitol is actually looking feasable!I loved the wedding dress trick and the new arena of the games. The distrust between the players could have been a bit more played out since that is part of their survival but the end game justifies any parts that I didn't get. 

I thought another movie that upholds the Hunger Games features : The Gamer  (2009) starring Gerard Butler where players enter an arena to fight each other to death while being handled mentally and thus physically by people through computers.

 

The Hunger Games

Katniss lives in District 12, part of the North America re-divided country Panem. There are 12 districts and its capital, Capitol. The food is scarce and the only means to feed her mom and sister, Prim is to hunt in the restricted woodland outside her district. She knows how to hunt, hide and find herbs to eat and does so with her partner in crime Gale with who they form a pack. The Hunger Games happen once every year, 2 children aged 12 to 18 from each district are randomly selected to enter into the Arena and kill each other till the Capitol has a winner. The world goes wrong when her sister is picked and she volunteers to take her place. Then the journey to survive begins.

I have tried this book before but my mood was not up for it- from the beginning, the first pages, there was too much misery - food shortage, family problems. But I forgot how good it feels once characters from those worlds step up and overcome their circumstances.
Katniss is an amazing powerful character that urges you on the story: she is powerfull, strong-minded and a fighter. She uses her hunting skills all through the Hunger Game and with that she finds ways to beat it.
The author has devised a world where the districts have specific production for the country: District 12 has coal, District 11 agriculture, District 1 luxury goods, District 10 chemicals and bombs - all of which have contributed to the abilities of the respective candidates to the game.
This world reminds me of Dark Angel, tv action drama where Jessica Alba is a mutated female escaped from an experiment facility, where that city was divided by districts and in order to pass from one to another there were checkpoints. Also, the poverty and state of the city gave me a base to place Katniss's world.
In addition, Battle Royale where a class of schoolchildren are driven on an island with packs of food and weapons-each with its own special weapon- gave me the insight to recognize what is important to get on those packs and form a strategy with what you have.
So I am hands on with Hunger Games because it combines the two factors of Dark Angel and Battle Royale: the fight-on girl struggling in an impoverised city and the strategical action within a forced to-death game.

The Viscount Who Loved Me

This book was another Julia Quinn feast for my reading. I keep wondering how I can stand them, I mean I am very realistic and anti-romantic - I once on a date asked the guy :"Are you gonna kiss me now or what?"
well I didn't like him that much so I didn't care.
But it is like I can spend time with her characters, spend my time - does that qualify as a hobby? or is it even considered reading books? I reached 58 books last year and at least half were of historical romance genre. Is that considered a literary accomplishment?
Still, I was never -ever!-bookish, uni was spent in a flash just merely passing my classes to get the diploma with no effort, my read book list included Harry Potter, the memoirs of a Geisha and 2 Philippa Gregory on Henry VIII era. So from there I moved to Jo Beverly's novels- which I adored- till I tried out Julia Quinn where my fascination took its peak!Julia's books were like walk through the park compared to Jo's. Jo Beverly was more detailed and tiring (lets say..) while Julia is so much more fun and mischevious!
So hear hear to Ms Julia Quinn!
I was googling for a pic for this post and I came across this one above - so cliché... Reminds me of a friend who commented that my readings are Harlequin as in Harlequin Enterprises of romance books. Here lies my dillema whether my reading list is actually that - reading...

Links to two Julia Quinn's quizzes:
1
2

The Maze Runner 2: The Scorch Trials

The trials begin when the group thought they reached the line and safety. That was the worse feeling: grasping safety and calamity and losing it all in one glimpse. The plot thickens with another group of girls and one boy, a mirror to their own. The Gladers follow once again the route to the solution, and Thomas's role starts to submerge as the leader and key to their trials and the supposedly cure to the supposed disease of the Flare that has infested the whole human race.
The book finishes in the end of again another end line of safety and I just want to know why this all happens!!!seriously!and I'll have to wait till Oct 2011 for that!thanks alot!

So instead of the summary I wrote a summary turned criticism....
Really I cannot figure out why when they went through all of the desert and found the save heaven they had to be attacked by mean tall light-bulb-covered monsters one for each for them to finish the trial... That's why I need to know the end of No 3- all these trials make NO SENSE and I better find out that it was worth the ride or else I'm flying to the USA (I guess with such imagination thats where he is from) and / or shaming him in every book blog I can reach in my fast-typing fingers,,,,
cherio

The Maze Runner, James Dashner

Thomas, a kid, woke up in a place he didn't know, with people he didn't recognize and a memory that couldn't help him more than his name and his basic instincts. He now has to live in the Glader, the center of the maze that serves as the safe (from the Grinders - killers loose in the maze) living quarters for the kids sent here to survive with tools and supplies provided by the Creators all for one purpose: to find the solution of the maze and go home. Or so they thought....

The books was a mystery, and a tricky one at that! All the questions were frustrating and the characters were giving me a good run for them but in the end patience had to be adopted. I hoped the complexity of the mystery would be worth it and it totally did!!But it only made me more curious for the second book!!!!ai ai ai!!!I guess I have to oblige to my curiosity! I loved the puzzle most of all, it was tricky because at some points I flirted with the idea of skipping some parts but it wouldn't be the same - the lazy parts always give way to the build up of the good parts of a book :) Totally worth being no1 book for 2011!Happy new year!