The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. 374 p. Published September 2008.

I’ve known about The Hunger Games since it climbed the bestseller lists a few years ago but haven’t had the chance to actually read it myself until now.

With her mother not up to the task, Katniss Everdeen has had to fend for her family since her father passed in a tragic mining accident. despite being only 16, She’s perfected the hunting and foraging skills he taught her and, together with her friend Gale, managed to eek out a living with daily forays into the forbidden forests beyond the distrtict’s border.

Katniss lives in The Seam, the poorest part of Panem’s Twelfth District. The 12th, known mainly for it’s coal production, lies farthest from the capitol of what remains in a post-apocalyptic North America. The Capitol, in an effort to remind the districts where the power lies, hold a yearly competition dubbed The Hunger Games. 2 contestants, heralded as idols, are drafted from each district outside the Capitol to participate in this twisted reality series where fame and riches await the victor. The catch: they must outlive the other 23 contestants, all of whom are out to murder them.

Katniss is horrified when her younger sister is picked in the lottery and is quick to volunteer in her place. She knows that it’s a death sentence – no one from her district has survived a Hunger Games in decades. This is driven home when her compatriot, a childhood friend, is drafted and the pair meet their notoriously inebriated trainer.

What follows is a mesmerizing tale of wit, love, despair, and heartbreak. Collins immerses the reader into the paranoid mindset of a girl hellbent on survival with almost dizzying rapidity. Mixing in elements of science fiction, this young adult title does a fantastic job of drawing the reader into it’s world and characters. The complaint I hear most often from dissenters is how infuriated they get with the protagonist’s paranoid perspective as she reacts to imagined or misinterpreted slights. I, however, find this to be a true mark of Collins’ skill developing a character – after all, have you ever been around a teenage girl without becoming irritated at the irrationality of the experience?

While I’m not sure I’ll enjoy the movie when it comes out in 2012, I’ll probably see it. However, I’ll definitely be reading Catching Fire, the 2nd book in the series, as soon as I get through the current stack of novels on my shelf.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Other Reviews of The Hunger Games: FyreFly’s Book Blog, Caribou’s Mom

State of the ‘Chain’

Now that we’re half way through December, I think it’s safe to say that NaNoWriMo was a bust. Got to about 20k then gave in to the chittering monkeys clambering for a break. Which is too bad because it looks like every one of the dozen other participants I know finished this year. I think a big part of my failure was tied to a growing lack of motivation. Well, maybe next time I’ll get more involved with communal write-ins. That said, I hope to practice by continuing to write over the mean time. Maybe post some of it here.

Harking back to the roots of this blog, the next few posts are going to be book reviews. Hopefully this will once again become a somewhat regular occurrence (seeing as I’ve got about a dozen more books waiting to be read). As for Blogenning… well, everyone seems to still be recovering from NaNo, so who knows.

NaNoWriMo 2011: Part 5

Holy crap, I’ve actually started writing again.

Long, long way yet to go.

Playing in the Background: Apocalyptica, Flogging Molly, Alestorm, Dropkick Murphys

Current Word Count: 15,462/23,338.

Edit: Okay, it’s about an hour later. New word count: 16,071/23,338.

Quote:

GET. UP. His elbow bent as he propped his palm against the ground for leverage.
The mantra resounded through his head.
GET UP!
James pushed, forcing himself to knees. His vision swam and mind reeled with the surge. He tried to steady himself with an arm against the car door, but the chicken pot pie that had been dinner surged forward with a violent heave, painting the black asphalt.

NaNoWriMo 2001: Part 4

Day 13 has just begun. I haven’t written anything in 4 days. Roughly 6,000 words behind.

 

Gonna try to get back into it.

And just to share: 

Background Noise

NaNoWrimo is progressing. Straggling behind by about a day, but sticking with it. I could really use a 4-5k word day.

One part of my writing process is that I need noise. It’s kind of funny but silence drives me to distraction. You’ll notice that I’ve been listing a few things in my NaNoWriMo posts (livejournal made it a lot easier, but whatever). Maybe turn on the TV or put in a movie – something that can be in the background. But if I really need to get some progress, it’s music.

Here’s a small selection of the last 24 hours:

NaNoWriMo 2011: Part 3

Okay, I’m going to stop posting these every day, I swear.

Today was shaky. Slept in which left me 1000 words behind. Managed to catch up and actually bounce a bit ahead once I finished chapter 2 and FINALLY introduced my main character.

Playing in the background: Thrice, Mastodon, and Avenged Sevenfold

Quote of the day:

It was this final image, the pair of them gazing out of the rear of an old wood-panelled station wagon, the Carlsbad Special Needs Home fading into the distance, that Hector now scribbled onto the clean white paper. The sound of the charcoal wasn’t quite as calming as the pencils his sister had used, but he found himself relaxing bit by tiny bit. The bare bulb hanging from a cord above his desk wasn’t very bright, widely casting shadows as it swung back and forth. He had jerked it pretty hard in the mad rush from his bed, the nightmares still fresh in his mind.

Current Word Count: 5,342/4,998.

WTFood: International Stout Day

As I mentioned before, yesterday was International Stout Day, the day we celebrated my favorite style of beer! For those unfamiliar with the different styles of beer, a stout is a dark beer where the malt and hops have been roasted, giving it a strong flavor. That is, in fact, why it’s called a stout (meaning “strong”).  In addition, the alcohol content is usually around 7-8%, pretty strong for a beer. The Stout Day website has a pretty good synopsis of the history.

The most commonly known stout is Guinness, but I wanted to stick to some American Microbrews. I chose two actually. First was Pretty Things Babayaga, their “sylvan stout”. A brewery from my own great state of MA, Pretty Things like to put their own twist on type names. “Babayaga” is actually an export stout, or a stout brewed in bigger batches so that it travels better. I first came across Pretty Things last year, trying their Saint Botolph’s Town brown ale and really enjoyed their table at the BeerAdvocate Beerfest this past spring (though sadly was not fast enough to get tickets to this February’s Extreme Beer Fest, which sold out in 2 hours).

“Babayaga” had good mouthfeel, great herby smokiness, a touch of hops, and a surprisingly bright note to the finish I don’t associate with stouts but really enjoyed. I think it’s the first time I’ve been able to refer to a stout as “refreshing”.

My next beer was one I saw trending on Untappd so I thought I’d try it out. Breakfast Stout by Founders Brewing Company out of Michigan. A “Double Chocolate Coffee Oatmeal Stout” – honestly, I think I would have gotten this out of sheer intrigue even without seeing it trending. I’ve had chocolate and double chocolate stouts, coffee stouts, and oatmeal stouts, but all together?!

Honestly, my mouth didn’t even know what was going on for the first half of the glass. Dark and rich, surprises of spice and roasted sweetness – holy wow. Honestly, I think this beer was just too complex for my palate! Thankfully I bought a 4-pack, so I’ll have a few more chances to really get a grip on this meal of a brew.

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NaNoWriMo 2011: Part 2

It’s 3AM, so I have to consider this as the end of Day 2.

Got a little further along, but it’s literally all been character development – haven’t even touched the main plot or characters yet. HA! This is going to be boring as hell for anyone who I let read it!

Despite participating since 2008, I attended my first ever NaNoWriMo regional event today with some others from The Blogenning. I figure the social involvement is the one thing that really might help push me all the way to 50k. Then again, it’s only been 2 days and I’m just passed the minimum pace mark.

Hopefully get a few hundred more words in before bed and then maybe a thousand or so before work tomorrow.

Playing in the background: Prime Suspect (U.S. version)

Quote of the day:

Hector, in contrast, seemed to struggle, his behavioral issues only growing more pronounced with age. His doctors and teachers often grew despondent with how little progress they were able to affect. Despite this, Matron Mullery was suspicious that a burning intellect lay behind the pained fury of Hector’s storm-grey eyes.

Current Word Count: 3,407/3,332 (where I am/minimum pace count)

NaNoWriMo 2011: Part 1

So day 1 is behind us. *whew*

1,765 words and already got about another 600 towards Day 2. That’s not a bad start considering that so far I’ve written the first half of a prologue and the first part of chapter 1, but the tail of neither. And still haven’t introduced my main character. Hopefully that’ll happen with chapter 2.

Yes, I write short chapters. Thankfully that’s acceptable in the genre I’ve chosen to write – thriller/action/mystery. I was tempted to switch to horror and match Brandon and Ian in a competition for fucked-up-ness, but that isn’t something I think I could write for more than a few days without getting really bored. Instead I’ll just do my normal job – inflict copious amounts of damage on their psyche, this time in an effort to inspire.

Obviously this blog is going to slow a bit now that NaNoWriMo has begun. I’ll try to post every couple of days. I actually took a bit of time and surfed through my old LiveJournal account, where I recorded my last NaNo efforts. I know most people always think they’re passed writings are crap, but I always think that mine were wittier and funnier, like I’m losing my touch. Then again, those posts were pretty frustrated.

Tonight is going to be the first time I attend a NaNo write-in. Wonder how many looks I get writing on my cell phone. With the battery shot, my laptop just isn’t worth lugging around. Okay, back to the grind.

 

Playing in the Background: Blue Planet marathon on Animal Planet

Current Word Count: 2,353

 

Reading – A Glimpse into My Past

Richard Sugden Library

I love to read. Growing up in a small town, much of my youth was spent in the library, devouring first the children and young adult sections. By the time I was 8 I was a veteran user of the card catalog, spending hours in the adult half of the building. The library was my baby sitter – I loved the solitude, the silence, and, most of all, the access to so much information. When I wasn’t in the library or at school, I was at home, either in front of a computer or buried nose-first in a book. This carried into High School, when I spent long hours in the library at Copley Square, one of the oldest public libraries in the country, while waiting for my train home. While in High School, where community service was promoted to such a degree that we spent every Friday for half our senior year volunteering, I worked at my city’s library. My love for books – particularly good fiction – was the reason I always romanticized being a writer.

The new home of the Worcester Public Library, finished only a few months before I began working there. I actually really liked the old factory that was it's temporary home during construction.

That was one of the reasons I started this blog – to push my reading into writing. It was 2008, and my efforts with creative writing had waned as I progressed through college. I still read quite voraciously, it just wasn’t triggering the urge to create like it had in my youth. So I challenged myself to read and review 100 books in a year. Unless you include graphic novels, which I didn’t, I didn’t even get close. I could make excuses –  I had started late in the year (Around April) and it was also the first time I attempted NaNoWriMo – but the truth was that it’s actually a pretty tough goal.

And there was one massive side effect – I burned out. I’m a bit ashamed of the fact that I didn’t really touch another book till mid-2010. Sure, I kept reading, but 2008-9 marked my return to comics and graphic novels, left untouched since I was a child. I read 3 books in 2010 – 2 of them in airports waiting for connecting flights. It wasn’t until recently, as my interest in graphic novels began to wane and I sought inspiration for the upcoming fustuarium that is NaNoWriMo, that I was really able to pick up a book and lose myself in the pages (in large part thanks to a book gifted by a friend).

BPL Central Branch, where I spent many evenings during High School

 

Honestly, it was a bit like coming home.

So even though NaNoWriMo starts next week, I hope to once again post reviews here. I’ve got A LOT of catching up to do, so there are going to be quite a  few titles you’ve already come across elsewhere. The first two will hopefully go up this weekend. And as NaNoWriMo progresses, in an effort to refrain from distractions like music and television, I’ll probably once again return to my old refuge and friend, the Library, hoping that the embrace of it’s musty scent and yellowed light catches a spark of creativity where only vexing emptiness sat before.