Movie Review: The Hunger Games

Movie: The Hunger Games
Genre: Drama
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Stanley Tucci
Rating: PG-13
My Rating: Thumbs Up!

What an exciting night this was! My first time ever going to a midnight movie premier. I think I could do this more often though it does mess you up for a day or so. It was an absolute blast going with bunch of other crazy book bloggers and their various friends and family. It was a blast being in the theater with an audience where everyone was so excited that it was tangible. I loved that. And they were all appropriately excited. Clapping and cheering through the previews, but calming and shushing each other for the movie itself... than gasping and weeping and laughing at all the right moments during the movie. That was great!

Our crowd met up for dinner beforehand, which was really fun. Penelope of The Reading Fever did an AWESOME job coordinating both the dinner AND the movie, and then even had prizes and fun things for us at the dinner. Penelope, I never had a chance to say a huge thank you last night, but you are truly the best. Thank you so much!

Anyway, having reserved seats for these crazy movie nights is the best way to go. We just walked in and sat down in our wonderful spots and all the stress was gone... only excitement left!

So... about the movie itself.

It was wonderfully done. The casting was phenomenal.. even the dude playing Peeta, ( Josh Hutcherson) who I was a little leery about, did amazing. Jennifer Lawrence captured the spirit of Katniss perfectly. And all the Capitol characters were just right. It was so fun to see it all come to life!

My favorite things:

• the way they were able to show the brutality of the games without too much graphic-ness.
• the intensity at the start of the games... how scared Katniss was.
• the contrast between District 12 and the Capitol
• they way they showed how the directors of the games manipulated the players
• Rue
• seeing the movie with both blogger buddies and family!

My least favorite bits:

• when I realized that Prim looked just like my youngest daughter! That freaked me out!
• when the audience laughed at Gale's distress at seeing Katniss and Peeta together.
• that fact that I didn't  notice the music... was there music? 
• and of course, there was that shaky, much movement camera work that made me motion sick! I really didn't like that!

All in all, it was a blast of a night and so very exciting to be part of it all!

Review: Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley

Book: Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
Genre: YA
Rating: ****
For: Fun (keeping up with the awards!)
From: the library

Here's another book that recently won an award (the Printz Award no less!) which prompted me to instantly request it from the library and once again, I'm actually quite surprised it came to me to so fast!

And now if only I can find words to describe what this book was like! The story alternates between two points of view... one is this kid who lives in this small town where there's nothing to do and he just wants out. He loves his brother and family, he loves this girl who seems unattainable, he loves his best buddy and they all have some fun times together.... especially making fun of the strange guy who shows up going on and on about an extinct woodpecker which he claims to have sighted in this town.

The other story line is this strange religious journey that first one boy takes, which he then passes on, in a sense, to another kid. I was baffled by this story and of course, in all my clueless-ness, had no idea what it had to do with anything. But of course, we all know it will make sense in the end.

Anyway, and then something happens, which I'm not going to say here because I think it's better if it hits you out of the blue, but I'm sure other reviews and summaries will tell you what it is, if you are dying to know. And that something throws everything off, especially our teenage kid who was already feeling pretty down and out. Now things are so much worse!

This book had a kind of a Catcher in the Rye feel to me, but at the same time is nothing like that book. I know, I just KNOW there are tons of symbolic messages to be had, but I just can't seem to put my finger on what they are! You know the kind of book though? It feels so DEEP but you just aren't sure why? Yeah?

Or maybe I'm just too tired to really figure it out!

But I liked the style, I like the kid, I liked how he talked to himself (when one does that one starts using the word ONE a lot!) I liked the surprise and twisty moments.

Bottom line: Yeah, I really liked this one!

Other Reviews:

A Book a Day
The Book Nest
My Books. My Life.

Authors Pick Five: Bree Despain

This week I had the pleasure to review Bree Despain's latest book, The Savage Grace (see my review here) and as part of that blog tour, she is guest posting here today by answering the following question (you know the one!):

What five books are most important or influential to you?

Here's what she has to say:

First off, asking me to pick only five important books feels like asking me to decide which of my children is my favorite--you cruel, cruel, woman! :) But I will do my best . . .

I think I'll go with the 5 books that have had the most impact on me as a writer.

1. The first book is one that I am not actually quite sure of the title. I believe it was called DUCK TALES (not the Disney Ducktales). It was a chapter book I found in my Easter Basket when I was about 8 years old. My reaction was probably something like, "A book? That's a dumb thing for the Easter Bunny to bring!" I struggled a lot with reading as a child and even though I enjoyed the bedtime stories my father used to tell me, I thought at the time that reading was boring and hard. However, this was the first time anyone had ever given me a chapter book to read, so decided to give it a try despite thinking it was going to be too difficult. But within a few pages, I was completely enthralled by this story about a little lost duckling trying to find his family. I found myself staying up late, reading under the covers to find out what happened. And then asking for more chapter books when I was done with this one. This was the book that turned me into a real reader.

2. JACKAROO by Cynthia Voigt. Even though I still struggled with reading through most of my childhood, I continued to enjoy it and always sought out new books to read. When I was in middle school, I found this book in my older sister's collection. I read it and fell in love with this story of a girl who must pretend to be the famed hero/bandit "Jackaroo" in order to save her town. I became so enthralled by the story, I started writing my own little stories and poems about the characters. Then I started writing my own stories about my own characters. This is the book that turned me into a writer. It also had a strong girl-power message that gave a me a confidence boost as a 13 year old.

3. HE SHALL THUNDER IN THE SKY by Elizabeth Peters. In high school, I found myself bogged down by all the assigned reading I had to do for my honors English classes. I was a very slow reader and and I had to work very hard to keep up with my homework--which means I hardly ever got to read for fun anymore. It wasn't until I was in college that I got back into reading for pleasure. My sister introduced me to the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters and I pretty much became obsessed with it. It is a long series with several books, and I spent a lot of time combing the dusty stacks of my college's library (that was being renovated at the time) to find the each next book in the series. I remember once wading under what felt like miles of plastic sheeting in a dark library basement--with a flashlight--because I HAD to get the next book! My favorite book in the series was HE SHALL THUNDER IN THE SKY. This was the book I was reading when I came to the realization during my junior year of college that instead of being an attorney, archeologist, or actress, I really wanted to be an author.

4. At the time that I decided that I wanted to be an author, my roommate was student-teaching a third grade class. She told me all of her students were really getting into this book called Harry Potter. I was a volunteer reading tutor at a local elementary at the time, and I was always searching for books my students might enjoy, so I decided to check the book out. I enjoyed the first one, so I read the second one. Both were really good, so when HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN came out a few weeks later, I ran out and bought it--and I LOVED it! It is still my favorite of the series and still one of my all-time favorite books. This is the book that made me decide to enroll in a series of "writing for children" classes at my college.

5. When I first started taking those writing classes in college, I thought I wanted to write middle grade books like my beloved Harry Potter. However, during one of my writing courses, I was required to read a few Young Adult novels and then write the first chapter of a YA novel. One of the books I chose was THE PRINCESS DIARIES by Meg Cabot. I loved this book! And when I took a crack at writing a first chapter of a YA novel, I realized that YA was where my voice really belonged, and that's what kind of books I wanted to write. Princess Diaries was the book that made me want to write YA. And if I can sneak a 6th book into here, I would say that reading SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson solidified me as a YA writer for sure. I find so much inspiration in that book.

Thanks for the interview! It was fun to talk about some of my favorite books. I find myself wanting to re-read them again.

Thanks Bree for a look into your book inspiration to becoming a writer! I want to re-read (or read for the first time) some of these books too!

Bree Despain is the author of the Dark Divine trilogy which includes The Dark Divine, The Lost Saint and the new book The Savage Grace. She became interested in writing during college days where she at first thought she would be a lawyer. But she really started writing after a car accident when she realized life was too short to not do what you love to do. Bree lives in Salt Lake with her husband and little boys. For more info, click here for her website and you can read her blog here, and follow her on Twitter here.

Review: The Savage Grace by Bree Despain

Book: The Savage Grace by Bree Despain
Genre: YA Paranormal
Rating: ***
From: The author
For: ARC for Review

At the LTUE conference a few weeks ago, Bree Despain announced that the first six people in line at her signing in the evening would get an ARC. So, somehow, I ended up first in line! Funny how that happens! So thank you Bree for the book!

Warning! This review contains spoilers for the first two books. Because yes, this particular book is the third in the trilogy about Grace Divine and her werewolves... of which she has quite a few now! She has suddenly found herself the leader of the pack! However, the first problem she must deal with in this story is how to fix Daniel. The last book ended with him stuck in a wolf state and that's just not going to work for the two of them, so that's first on her list.

Second, she would also like to fix Jude, her brother, who is having many issues of his own as this book begins. He is one of those characters that you just never know which side he is on! Speaking of which, there is also Talbot, with whom she had a bit of a fling in book two and now she can't abide him at all. He goes from being sweet to being creepy in the same scene. What is up with him anyway?

But the biggest problem of all is how to regain peace in the werewolf world by confronting the main alpha dude wannabe, Caleb. And let's just say that show down doesn't go quite as planned!

Speaking of showdowns, there were lots in this book....lots and lots of fighting and I could see the special effects in my head just like it was a movie! Pretty cool! Another cool thing is all the werewolf lore and the background of these particular wolves. But the coolest thing is Grace, and the powers within herself that she discovers in this story. Yes, very cool.

Bottom line: I totally enjoyed it!

Movie Review: John Carter

Movie: John Carter
Genre: Science Fiction
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins
Rating: PG-13
MY Rating: Thumbs Up!

So, I saw a gazillion previews for this at the theater when I was seeing other movies. I wanted to WANT to go so bad, I mean Tim Riggins? Hello! But it looked so corny and weird and I just didn't know. But then when it came out, so many of you raved about it, so I decided I would give it a chance.

We went to see it at the IMAX theater in 3D of course. And I thought it was so much fun! I love that place! I love how the sound and music vibrate you to your very bones! All the previews (The Hobbit, the new Batman movie, The Hunger Games... gave me chills. I want to see them ALL there!)

Taylor as Tim

Okay, so speaking of Tim Riggins (of Friday Night Lights fame if you have no idea what I'm talking about, one of my TV obsessions of recent years) I was worried I would think of him only as that character throughout the movie. I hoped he would be good enough to make me forget that dude, know what I mean? And he did, for the most part. It took a little while though! Poor Taylor, he'll always be Tim Riggins!

So, there's this dude named John Carter. He's a captain in the Civil War and he seems to have a chip on his shoulder. He's angry at the world. (We learn why later.) And when they try to arrest him for, I don't know what, he runs away. In the process, he finds this cave, and then this weird thing happens and bam, he finds himself on MARS!

Taylor as John Carter

Once there he makes friends with these strange creatures which to me were a cross between Jar Jar Binks and the Avatar dudes. Then he meets a Martian Princess, and he helps her fight her war and save her from the bad guy. And they take a ride down Lake Powell! On Mars! Who knew Lake Powell was on Mars!? (Oh my, this was SO Lake Powell! Yeah, I've been there, I know!) Only they called it the River Is.

This movie had a lot of Star Wars type characteristics, but it's kind of cool to remember that the book it's based from was written years and years before Star Wars. I bet a lot of current day science fiction is inspired by this guy (Edgar Rice Burroughs) stuff. It's very cool. I should read a book of his some day, yes?

Anyway, I thought the movie was very fun, very Scifi/Fantasy, very predictable, but really, a lot of fun. It's also one of those movies that I think would be even better on a second go around because there was a lot of stuff that was hard to follow, or understand what they were saying. So I think another time through would clear that all up.

Bottom line: I totally enjoyed it!

The trailer:



Some music from the movie (because you know I love soundtracks!)

Review: Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler

Book: Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
Genre: YA 
Rating: ***
For: Fun (to keep up with award winners!)
From: the library

This book recently won the Printz Honor Award. So of course, I put it on hold at the library, and wow, it actually came to me! My first impression of the book, it's HEAVY! My second, it has beautiful slick pages with fun pictures! I could tell right off it's not your normal sort of book.

Written by an author most of us know better as Lemony Snicket of Unfortunate Events fame, this book IS very different. It's not funny, like the Unfortunate Events, though it is very clever. Actually, it's very far from funny, it's really quite sad. It's about a girl who is breaking up with her boyfriend and she's writing him a letter to go with the box of all the mementos she's collected during their brief courtship. She's writing as they (she and her friend) go to the guy's house and her plan is to dump the box and letter on his porch. The letter, of course, contains all the memories of their time together, which we are privy to... from the first moments of love and wonder to the event that breaks them up. For each memento she mentions, there's a picture to go with it. Very fun... and different especially for a teen/YA book.

This makes for a very interesting POV for this book. Much of it is in the YOU form, since she is writing to the kid. You said this, and you did that... and I did this and I did that. So it's both second person and first person. Sometimes that confused me actually, but you kind of get the feel of it after awhile. But it is very different.

It's also written in a very stream of conscious style... lots of run on sentences that go on and on and on. However, I liked this. But.. it's very different.

Another impression I had was all the talk about strange obscure movies. (This girl, Min, is very much into the old movies.) In fact, I'm wondering if the movies referred to in this book are real or made up. Anyone know? It bugged me but I was too lazy to actually look it up.

So, this is a strange book for me to review. I liked it because of it's differences and uniqueness. But at the same time, I was bugged by our characters and their choices. You know, I didn't really like them! Many things rubbed me the wrong way and made me cringe at times. I don't know... it's a strange strange book!

Bottom line: I enjoyed the experience, but I would be wary of who I recommended this one to!

Other Reviews:

That's What She Read
A Novel Source
A Musing Reviews
The Story Siren

The Sunday Salon: Back to Regularly Scheduled Programming!

It's been a fun week celebrating five years. I decided to go all out (well sort of I guess) for this one so hopefully you didn't too sick of the celebrating! Here's what I posted this week if you missed it:


Your Questions: Answered 
My Blogging Timeline
Why I Blog Meme


And congratulations again to my giveaway winners! Your books will be on their way tomorrow!


Here's what else is going on with me:

Outside my window: Snow!

I am listening to: The kids are blasting various songs on YouTube at the moment. 

Song of the week: Another blast from the past... Lucky Man by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. This song tells a story that gives me chills in the end.


 


TV Talk: We are down to the final 10 in American Idol. I enjoy most of them, but haven't really zeroed in on one to totally root for. Survivor was fun with a nice tribe shake up. I've decided I really like the guy named Jay. You know the one? I caught up with Once Upon a Time this week and wow... THAT was a shocking episode, yes? Who's REALLY the big bad wolf and all? I haven't caught up with the latest Vampire Diaries yet, but I did have a discussion in church about it! :) I haven't found time for much Netflix shows lately, just trying to keep up with the live shows is enough for now.

Reading Report: 
Books Finished:  Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley,  Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen
Books Started: The Hollow City by Dan Wells (actually I haven't quite started, but will today!)

Books Up Next: A couple of local author books that I said I'd do a blog tour for... and The Wise Man's Fear just keeps getting pushed and pushed to the bottom still!

I am thinking: that I should NOT have bought those peanut M and M's this week! OR the chocolate peanut butter Tillamook ice cream!

I'm grateful for: certain library perks, like first in line for an ARC! 

Around the house: we bought a supply of TP this week, oh, and meat too.... using our Costco reward check. That was fun. We wonder how long the TP will last! 

Recipe of the Week: The only really interesting/different thing I made this week was Cream of Asparagus Soup. But I feel that cookies might happen today because we've managed to go for several Sunday evenings without cookies, so maybe it will be okay if we make some tonight. Please?

Source: southernfood.about.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Favorite things of the week: going to see Dan Wells at the library, having a book club discussion there, and ending up with an ARC of his next book out in July, going to see Brandon Mull's fun launch party, going to see the movie John Carter at the IMAX theater, going out to eat twice this weekend, cleaning the birdcage outside in 70 degree weather, driving with rolled down windows, seeing what a caucus meeting was like

Family Matters: One college kid was home for spring break this week, so that was fun. Well, he was home some of the time anyway! Another kid is deep into tennis now. We had to get a doctor release form signed, so that was a bit of pain, but I think it happened. The other college kid is stressing about her major, because she needs to decide so she can sign up for next semester's classes! And then there's the baby who ends up having lots of mom and dad time since everyone else is never here! Is that a perk of being the baby, or not? 

The coming week: HUNGER GAMES! Midnight movie this Thursday! With blogging buddies! And sisters! And daughters! So excited. Also, I'll be going to a musical, Beauty and the Beast on Wednesday. Love that one. There's a beast to prince transformation right before your very eyes! So. Much. Fun! Bloggiesta is only two weeks away! Are you ready? Have you made your to do list? You can still sign up here. And this week here on the blog? Back to some reviews and stuff! I have some catching up to do!