The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Good evening fellow book nerds! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

For tonight's blog posting, I bring you The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. My friend Jessica lent me this book pleading with me to read it so she would have someone to discuss it with. Well, I was happy to oblige, as always. I had heard about the book here and there and was interested in reading it anyway. Jessica assured me I would love it and she definitely didn't lie.

The Hunger Games is book one in a trilogy. (What is it with me and trilogies lately? I believe I am at various stages of at least three different trilogies at the moment.) The books take place in a future dystopian society called Panem which is located in what used to be North America. Panem's capitol city - aptly named The Capitol - is located somewhere in the Rockies. The Capitol is surrounded by twelve districts which seem to get poorer and bleaker the farther away from the Capitol the district is positioned.

Our heroine, Katniss Everdeen, lives in District 12. District 12 is located in what used to be Appalachia and nothing has changed much in Appalachia. Everyone is still dirt poor and the main industry is coal mining. Katniss lives with her mother and little sister, Primrose. Her father died in a mine explosion when she was quite young leaving Katniss as the family's sole provider. She hunts everyday in the forest surrounding District 12 in order to feed her family, even though it is punishable by death. In other words, Katniss can take care of herself.

When we meet Katniss, she is preparing for the annual reaping. We come to find out that each year the Capitol stages a kind of lottery in each district called the reaping. Every child between the ages of 12 and 18 are required to enter his or her name in the reaping. At age 12, your name is entered once. At age 13, twice and so on. Any child may also chose to add his or her name to the reaping additional times in exchange for tesserae (a year's supply of grain and oil for one person). And these additional entries are also cumulative. Because of this, poor children's names are entered into the reaping many more times than wealthy kids and therefore have a much better chance of being chosen in the reaping.

This brings us to the purpose of the reaping. Two children's names are drawn each year from each district - one boy and one girl. These children, called tributes, are then sent on to the Capitol to compete in The Hunger Games. The Capitol created the games as a reminder to the districts to toe the line or else. You see, the games consist of the tributes being thrown together into an enormous terror dome and fighting each other to the death live on TV. Last one standing wins and brings wealth and honor to his or her family and additional food and resources to his or her district.

Against all odds, Primrose, with one entry, is drawn as District 12's female tribute. Katniss volunteers to take her young and delicate sister's place. Volunteering is not unheard of in other wealthier districts where children are breed to compete in the games, but in District 12, it's considered a death sentence. However, volunteering has also captivated District 12 and all of Panem therefore giving Katniss a leg up in a competition that is as much a reality show popularity contest as it is brutal blood bath.

Here I must stop myself before I give away every detail of this book. I loved this book so much and was so engrossed by every word that I want to tell you everything. But I'm no spoiler. I will restrain myself.

Games is classified as Young Adult literature. I believe I have to respectfully disagree. The themes and violence are much more adult than young adult. And the writing is far superior to any young adult novel I've ever read, past or present. But maybe my memory is clouded by what I was reading when I was in the young adult demographic - Judy Blume being in the forefront of my mind. But the main characters are teens and maybe that's all a book needs anymore to be classified as young adult.

One guideline I go by when judging how much I like a book is how quickly I read it. And I burned through this book. I keep a bit of a writers journal in which I take notes and jot down thoughts and opinions on the books I read. (Sorry, the English major in me is hard to squash.) I didn't take one note on this book. I couldn't tear myself away! To take notes would mean I would have to stop reading and that was just not an option.

And even without taking notes, I remember every detail, I believe because the details are what makes this book so enthralling. Every detail is logically laid out, a tough task in the fantasy genre where an author could very easily tend toward the absurd. Just when I found myself questioning something, a logical explanation was given. And the world Collins created is so rich and fleshed out that I almost never questioned anything, even when gifts dropped from the sky to help out a tribute during the games. Everything is plausible yet exotic and captivating.

I really can't praise this book enough. I've enjoyed it more than any other book in quite awhile. I took a brief break to read another book (I will blog on it later this week) and have now begun on book two of the trilogy, Catching Fire. I just couldn't wait. It's like the book crawled into my brain and laid eggs. I NEED to know what happens next. And for this I am giving The Hunger Games five bows. It was fabulous and I urge you all to read it at your next available opportunity. If you've already read it, stop on by the comments section and we'll discuss more. Until then, happy reading everyone!

Meeting David Sedaris for the Fourth Time

Last evening, David Sedaris was at the Barnes & Noble on University Avenue in West Des Moines, Iowa for a book signing and short reading. We all know my obsession with and borderline stalking of my favorite author from previous posts here and here. This meeting went 100 times better than the last time in Ames and you will all be pleased to know I was on my very best behavior.

The reading was scheduled to begin at 7:00 PM but I knew from past experience that Mr. Serdaris often signs books prior to as well as following readings. So I rushed home after work, fed the dogs quick and ran on up to B&N, arriving a little before 6:00. Sure enough, there he was seated at a small table just to the right of the front doors.

The line was a mere ten people long when I arrived. He tends to spend a good five minutes with each fan at book signings but the wait was short nonetheless. When I reached the front of the line, he quipped, "And who are you?" We got to chitchatting while he signed my book, having a lovely discussion about our previous meetings. Much to my delight, he remembered me asking a question from the audience at his reading in Ames last month. I nearly fainted! I told him about my bad Black Market Pizza experience that kept me from getting my book signed in Ames. He told me about his dismay with people asking inappropriate questions (oops, I may have been one of those people at one time). We were like long lost friends - in my own deluded mind, at least. I tried not to linger too long and let on my stalker tendencies. Here is a snapshot of my first edition Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk he signed last night:



It says, "To Shannon. We meet again, enchantress. David Sedaris." You hear that people! I'm an enchantress! Squee! I giddily ran off and called everyone on my speed dial who would take my call.

I had some free time then to browse a little and regain my composure before his reading began at 7:00. The reading was to happen at the book signing table and there were no chairs for listeners. People were just expected to mill around while he spoke. After making some purchases (natch, I am at B&N after all), I wandered back to the front of the store around 6:45 and grabbed a prime spot next to the customer service desk. This turned out to be a smart move on my part as the B&N staff turned into nazis about keeping the aisles clear. Anyone who tried to stand in front of me and therefore in the aisle, they would order to the rear or to the railings on the second level. I essentially had commandeered the most prime spot in the house. Yay me!

He spoke for about 45 minutes, reading from Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk as well as his journal. He took a few short questions following his reading and from my prime spot I was able to step right up and ask a question - a literary one that I am not at all embarrassed of this time, too. As always, Mr. Sedaris was utterly charming and delightful to listen to and speak with. Until we meet again, Mr. Sedaris! I will be anxiously awaiting your next book.

John Dies at the End by David Wong

Good evening fellow book nerds! Tonight I am going to tell you all about one of the funniest books I have read in a long time. A least the funniest fiction novel I've read in a long time. Most definitely the funniest sci fi/fantasy book I've ever read.

John Dies at the End is the story of John (the same as in the title) and Dave (the author and narrator). John and Dave are two twenty-something slackers that live in a small Midwestern town Dave calls "Undisclosed for reasons that will become obvious later".

Strange happenings begin to occur in Undisclosed one evening when a levitating Jamaican introduces John to a new drug called "Soy Sauce". The soy sauce provides the user with a heightened sense of awareness. It also opens up a new realm of reality allowing the user to see things normal people can never see with the naked eye - monsters wearing wigs, Ronald McDonald eating his own intestines, demons composed entirely of cockroaches, etc.

Also thanks to the soy sauce, John and Dave become a sort of target for all kinds of super natural beings. They find themselves in a number of different skirmishes with all nature of creatures always accompanied by their super natural creature spotter of sorts, Molly the dog, who at one point in the story explodes but later reappears unharmed. The story culminates in a meeting of the minds between John and Dave and an all-powerful demigod named Korrok who ends up insulting the size of Dave's manhood and calling him gay.

I know I'm not being very thorough with my plot description and I'm sorry for that. It's a hard book to recap. John Dies at the End is really a collection of a number of different smaller stories. It began as an online serial blog posting by David Wong, the pseudonym for Jason Pargin. (Pargin is the editor in chief of Cracked.com, one of my favorite websites. Check it out if you get a chance.) Unfortunately, you can tell the book was a serial. The stories aren't tied together all that well. The main characters are the same but that's about it. It shifts from ghost story to monster story to alien story to alternate universe story and back again leaving major plot holes in its wake.

But, all that being said, this book was freakin' funny. There were just too many one-liners to even mention. At one point John and Dave are battling a demon made of meat (hams, summer sausages, turkeys, etc.) and Dave is worried about being "sodomized by a bratwurst poltergeist". The humor distinctly reminded me of a cross between Zombieland and Army of Darkness. It's crass and juvenile and there is an over abundance of penis and fart jokes but they're funny penis and fart jokes. But I also had to wonder if someone who wasn't so up on pop culture would get a lot of the jokes.

I do know that I could not have found two more different books to read back to back, if you remember my previous blog posting. No one can accuse me of not having eclectic taste in my literature of choice.

All in all, I'm going to give John Dies at the end four bows. It was laugh out loud funny but had some gaping plot holes that I just couldn't overlook. They're filming the movie version now so I am excited to see what they do with it. Until next time, happy reading everyone!