Whatcha Thinking Thursday (1)

So I'm starting a new meme. I haven't seen anything like this so I don't think I'm stepping on anyones toes. Of course, I do not read every book blog out there so if someone knows of the meme going on somewhere else, please let me know!

With that out of the way- here's how this will work. Each Thursday I'll simply blog about something book related that's weighing on my mind. Feel free to comment away if you agree or disagree (just keep it clean, okay?), or if you want to post to your site either on the same topic or about whatever it is you're thinking about go right ahead. I just ask that you link back to here. Also- make sure you add your blog to the list so we can find you too!

So without further ado, I'm thinking about epilogues.

Yup. Epilogues. I finished two books on Tuesday. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins and Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce. I was already in love with Collins' Hunger Games books, so it is no surprise that I loved Mockingjay as well (review here). On the flip side, I'd never read anything by Pearce, and going up against Mockingjay is a pretty tough match, but I have to say, I really enjoyed Sisters Red as well. There was really only one thing that seperated the two in my mind. The epilogue.

To be upfront, I hate epilogues. I hated it in Harry Potter, hated it in Perfect Chemistry (Simone Elkeles) and I hated it in Mockingjay. Here's my arguement against the epilogue. It's such a let down. We've just spent an entire book, or in some case 7 entire books, living with these charecters. Laughing with them, crying with them, hurting with them and unltimately loving them. In many cases the book ends with a triumph of some kind, an overcoming of previously insurmountable odds and then suddenly it's 20 years later and everyone is happy and isn't it wonderful. I feel like it cheapens the lives that I know they must have had in the interim. I get that it is a way to give us a peak into the future, to let us know that they are all okay, but it still just doesn't work for me. To condense it to 3-4 happy pages seems inadequate, and I inevitable feel let down, dissapointed. These books are books that I love, and they end in a way that doesn't do the writing and charecters justice. Yet, I continue to see epilogues tacked on there at the end, like an afterthought to the brilliance that came before. It's tantamount to another device I dislike. Why not just end the book with "and they all lived happily ever after" and call it a day?

I was beginning to think that a good epilogue was impossible, and then I finished Sisters Red (review here), and there it was, a good epilogue. Why was it good? In my opinion it was good because it didn't make any giant leaps into the future, I didn't feel I missed anything. The epilogue jumps about 7 months forward to point where our three fenris hunters, Scarlett, Rose and Silas are just beginning to get their lives back on track, to find their own place in the world. We see them heading out into the world and are left to wonder what will happen next without wondering what it is that happened between the end of the story and the point at which the epilogue begins.

So that's what I'm thinking about. How about you? Epilogue love or epilogue hate? Or, do you have something totally different on your mind?

Review: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Summary: Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins’s groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year

Review: I'm going to be purposely spoiler free here. I know that if someone spoiled it for me I would be furious, so I won't do that to anyone else. Although I'm thinking I may wait a week and go for broke with a spoilerish review, there's just to much to try and hold it all in.

I love this series and I love these books and mostly I love Katniss. I wanted badly to give this book 5 stars, but I felt it was missing something, and the thing it missed for me was Katniss and Peeta. Not their relationship, but their individual personalities that I have grown to know and love. I knew they would emerge changed after their last time in the games, that they would be damaged body and soul, but I missed them all the same. I ached for them as they tried to find some way out of the pain that had been inflicted on them, and while I missed those traits that I love, I admire the way that Collins is able to convey the emotions in her writing. You could really see the destruction that was left behind after the games had ended and the war began.

On a personal note, I also really hate epilogues. I didn't like it in Harry Potter and I didn't like it here. I will say, this one wasn't nearly as bad as others, but they are something I generally find unnecessary. I appreciate the fact that it is a great way to give us a peak at the future, but I also think it can cheapen the lives that I imagine these charecters have gone onto. To condense years into a few pages is something I really feel fails to live up to the story that we've just read. I won't go on and on about it, but it is something that dissapointed me.

That being said. I loved everything else. I thought this book was far darker then the other two (if that is possible) and that it all ended the way it should have. I liked how it all played out and how Katniss had to figure out her place in all of it. I like how she found herself in the midst of the chaos and confusion. I loved how it wasn't just the Capitol that they were facing, but the worst in everyone's nature, and they had to conquer those personal demons as well as the Capitol. I especially loved how they struggled with how to defeat the Capitol without becoming just like those they wished to take down. It was all so well done.

I can't say enough about Katniss. I think I've always felt a connection to her because of her choice of weapon, because it's the one that I use too. I've loved her since the first pages of Hunger Games and it certainly didn't diminish here as we see her trying to emerge from the hell she's been put through (and continues to be put through). I loved, and hated, seeing try to figure out not only the physical war that is being waged, but also the political and emotional one, especially with herself.

Gale and Peeta (and everyone else) do not dissapoint either. It's amazing how no one is without scars, and yet they all try to move forward and find their place in the grander scheme of things. I had my own preferences going in, but Collins has the ability to make you love both equally, and you can see how hard it must be for all involved, when friendship and love and war and pain are all tangled up together and there's no easy way out.

Mockingjay was overwhelming and heartbreaking and wonderful. I'm sad that it's over, I'm not really ready for it to be over, but I will definitly re-read, if only to revisit the charecters I've come to really, really love.

About Suzanne Collins:
http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/

Rating:

Waiting on Wednesday (2)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine- head to her site to see what everyone else is eagerly awaiting. As for me, there's really only one choice this week... only 6 more days to wait and it still seems to long.

MOCKINGJAY by Suzanne Collins
Release date: August 24, 2010

Summary: Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins’s groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year. (from goodreads.com)

What are waiting for this Wednesday??

Catching Fire

Catching Fire
By: Suzanne Collins

After reading Hunger Games yesterday I hurried to get into Catching Fire, and I was not dissapointed. This book picks up Katniss' story where Hunger Games left off and again we get to see Katniss' growth. Having survived the hunger games, Katniss now struggles to find her place back home in District 12 and with the realizatons that her action in the arena have unwittingly made her the face for the rebellion to rally behind. When she is thrown back into the arena, with Petta at her side, she has to decide whether she will defy a government and become the leader of an uprising.

One think I especially like about this series is the triangle between Katniss, her district partner in the arena Peeta, who she has to pretend to love for the adoring public (and who she may well love for real) and her best friend Gale who she also has deep feelings for. What I enjoy is that there is no sense yet of who the right choice is, which one is her destiny. Sometimes you can figure out pretty early where the story is leading and it's just a matter of how they get there. Here both choices are valid and you really get the sense that her fate could be tied to either boy.

After devouring both books in less then 48 hours I'm eagerly awaiting book three, which unfortunately won't be out until the fall. I can't wait to find out what adventure Katniss will go on next now that the uprising is in full force and she is in the midst of it.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games
By: Suzanne Collins
http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/

I picked up this book in between book of the month books and I couldn't put it down. I think what I enjoyed most about this book is that it's set in a future that is rooted in the United States and that makes it seem like a much more realistic scenario. You cna imagine how life could devolve to the Gladiator like society in this book. At the heart of the story is our heroine Katniss, who sacrifices herself to the Arena (a futuristic version of the Colliseum)to save her sister from certain death. Through her journey into the barbaric arena, her relationship with Peeta and her eventual triumph over the other competitors and the government which is pulling the strings, we get a sense of what it's like to have to fight to survive and protect what you love. I think Collins did a wonderful job creating this new world in a way that you could imagine it happening, which makes the unfeeling nature of the government in the Capital that much more hard to stomach. Overall I thought this was a fabulous book. I thoroughly enjoyed the charecters and the relationships and I can't wait to pick up Catching Fire to get more of the story.