May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor

Sad day! I finally finished Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games series. The last book in the series was Mockingjay, and while it was amazing I agree with the majority that it wasn’t the best in the series.

But first, I have to apologize for my last post because I wasn’t my usual chipper, witty self. Or at least my mamma says I’m witty. Heather, my 19 year-old baby sister, is the brilliant one and I’m the witty one. Yeah, we’ve been labeled. Thanks, Mamma.

I have just been plum exhausted with the holidays (apparently getting people their gifts on time is exhausting), work, and preparing for my lover’s surgery. I’m actually at the hospital waiting for him to get out of surgery now. Send your good thoughts our way because he’s going to need them, especially since he has me as his nurse. For those of you who know me I am not the warm, nurturing type, like at all. I mean I’m definitely capable enough, he’ll have food, ice, meds, and anything he else he needs, but I’m not the type to coddle or fluff pillows, it just isn’t in me. He calls me Nurse Ratchet and even though he made me watch that movie, I still don’t get it. Whatev because I’m all he has. Poor Aaron.

Back to the book. I really loved the whole series. A friend of mine read it a couple of summers ago and highly recommended it. So glad she did because it really was that good! Now we’ve already established that I am a crazy nut of a Harry Potter fan. Like we’ll have words if you have a problem with HP. I once got into a heated debate (yes, a heated debate) with someone, who had only ever watched the movies, and was complaining that there were holes in the story. Um hold the phone mother fucker! There are no holes in HP; Rowling is a genius. Point is I’m attached to the Harry Potter series (obsessively attached) and while I don’t have that type of attachment to the Hunger Games it is still way up on my list of favorites. And far surpasses the Twilight series.

Confession time. A lot of my friends love the Twilight series but the thing is, they are written horribly. I mean yeah it’s a nice love story and yes, I couldn’t put the books down once I started, but that doesn’t change the fact that the words on the page are written at a fifth grade level. So if we’re comparing the series against one another, we have HP vastly above the others, then Hunger Games, and then Twilight. Hear that Twihards? If you have yet to read Hunger Games, or HP for that matter, pick up a book and get going. Today.

Also, I realize that I go off on tangents but that’s how I roll. So once again back to the book. The series starts off with the first book the Hunger Games. The story is set in a post apocalyptic world, you know how I love end of the world scenarios, years past the end of our current civilization. North America has been divided into districts that are controlled by the Capitol, which is located near the Rocky Mountains. The districts are all required to provide a certain service for the Capitol depending upon the resources their districts contain. In the past, the districts had tried to rebel but it ended horribly for district 13, which was demolished during the rebellion.

To remind the districts of their folly during the rebellion the Capitol created the Hunger Games, a type of cage match tournament where two tributes, children only, are randomly picked from every district to compete against tributes from the other districts. The tributes then fight to the death, as there can only be one victor.

Okay, well that’s the general overview of the series and I don’t want to go too much into the last book in case you haven’t started the series yet. I will say that throughout the series we meet some pretty amazing characters. Our leading lady, Katniss is incredible. She’s independent and strong (no depressed teenager crying in the woods in this series!) even though her life is really, really hard. I also appreciated that Collins took care to show the emotional struggle Katniss experiences throughout the whole series. And the men in her life! Oh the men! You’ll fall in love with both of them or at least I did. What I found particularly unique about this series is that I didn’t choose a team, I mean with Twilight I was definitely Team Edward, without a doubt, but for this series I loved both the men and as a result I was torn for three books, which is probably what Collins wanted. Way to go with that Collins.

More exciting news, the first movie will be coming out in March and I can’t wait! I love going to see the movies of books I’ve already read. There’s an air of excitement about it. I just went and saw The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo with a bunch of my friends last week and really enjoyed it. I felt like it took all the good parts of the book (and got rid of all the financial crap) and created an astonishingly gritty portrayal of the book. My friend, Jen (oh my gosh you’re becoming famous!), recommended that I start this series so I don’t really count this book as one of my great picks that become movies, same with Hunger Games. But I did just find out today that the book from my last post, Every Secret Thing, has been picked up as a movie project. So yeah, I’m still on a roll.