Month: September 2010

the hunger games

Katniss Everdeen lives in poverty in District 12 in the country of Panem, which was once North America. During a dark era in Panem’s history, all thirteen districts rebelled against the Capitol, Panem’s seat of power. District 13 was obliterated, and the 12 other districts were subdued. To remind the districts of the Capitol’s might, the Hunger Games is conducted every year. Every year, two tributes from each district -a boy and a girl – is sent to an undisclosed area to fight to the death.

That year, Katniss’s young sister’s name is called, and she steps forward to take her place. Thrown into the arena with her is Peeta, a baker’s boy, who has once done her a kindness. Will she be able to kill him? Will she be able to kill?

We’ve seen this televised, fight-to-the-death plot before. As I was reading the book, I was reminded of The Lottery, The Long Walk, The Running Man, Battle Royale. But I enjoyed the story, nonetheless. It is a fast read, at times as quick and as no-nonsense as a Hunger Games contestant. But it has insight, and heart. Plenty of action, but does not compromise character development. There was even a point in the book when I thought, If this character dies, I will be truly, truly upset.

Good read.

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The Mighty Reading List!

Hunger Games

Next: The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

We Are All Welcome Here

The Year of Fog

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Notes on Extinction

Wild Mind

The Spooky Art

on the side: Twisted 8 1/2, Storm of Swords, Scott Pilgrim, PSF V (last few stories!)

the third book swap night!

Four girls. Starbucks 6750. More books than usual.

Look at all the titles we brought! Huuuge pile of books.

Notice the many Elizabeth Berg titles.

I brought In the Woods for Kat, and I got –

– mostly everything, haha! After this picture was taken, Andrea added Kat’s The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint to the pile. Or was the book Andrea’s? I forget.

Don’t you just love it when other people fall in love with the books you treasure? I was so happy when Kat said she loved The Blind Assassin, and said it was the book she looked forward to reading every time she got off work and headed home.

Pictures!

I ate a slice of chocolate cake and all four of us talked our heads off. I remember talking about Joshua Ferris, V.C. Andrews, vampires, Mills and Boon, the lack of local titles that really blow you away, self-publishing, Modern Family, Kate’s weird dreams, incest and rape in literature, and our jobs. Ours was probably the noisiest table in the coffee shop. For the love of books!

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I should make a reading list. I’m currently reading Hunger Games, so that’s on top:

Hunger Games

(which will probably be followed by Catching Fire and Mockingjay – I’ve been told the books are easy to read, meaning, I can finish them quickly)

The Unnamed

We Are All Welcome Here

The Year of Fog

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Notes on Extinction

Wild Mind

The Spooky Art

on the side: Twisted 8 1/2, Storm of Swords, Scott Pilgrim, PSF V (last few stories!)

I’ll cross out items once finished. I’ll stick to this list, I swear!

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I’m looking forward to 100 Bullets, a comic book series that I’ll get from Jake this weekend. My TBR pile IS ALIIIIIVE! :D

linked!

I’ve been doing this over at my (locked) Twitter account, so I decided to share it here as a big THANK YOU to those who gave kind words about my work and for spreading the word. :)

I’m included in this linkage post by Charles Tan as he guest-blogs on Ecstatic Days.

Dennis Ginoza links a poem of mine here.

Malon Edwards: Also, if you have time, poke around Expanded Horizons a bit. Dash is amassing a diverse collection of stories from a diverse collection of writers within those virtual pages that I truly don’t think you can find anywhere else. One of those stories, Night Out by Eliza Victoria, really stayed with me after reading it. Good stuff there. (Source.)

Neoli Marcos, on “Earthset”: One of the few short stories that made me cry.  Read this last year in an obscure bookstore somewhere in Retiro, standing the whole time, not realizing I was already crying by the time I finished it. (Source.)

As of right now, I’m waiting word on several pending pieces, and one has been accepted for publication (can’t tell where yet, I think, it’s a surprise). That accepted piece will be accompanied by artwork! Excited.

here be some homemade margarita

The weekend, as always, was awesome.

Friday

Mall date! We haven’t done this in a while, finding greater pleasure in staying indoors, watching one sitcom episode after another, and ordering takeout. But Despicable Me was already in the theaters, so we decided to go to the mall.

Requisite camwhorage before we headed out.

I went book shopping! Oh, it was heaven looking through the books even though I only ended up buying two: Jessica Zafra’s Twisted 8 1/2 and Joshua Ferris’s second book, The Unnamed. I wanted Pacific Rims, but there’s still no paperback available, and the Hunger Games books I decided to just borrow from friends to save money and space. I saw Tana French’s third book, Faithful Place, but gah STILL NO PAPERBACK, and Veronique Olmi’s Beside the Sea was nowhere to be found. Poe’s Children was out of stock, and so was The Monster of Florence. Hay.

Lunch at Five Cows, which I thought was just an ice cream bar. They serve real food (I had their chicken and fish combo), but I only took pictures of our desserts.

Jaykie’s order, Ferrero Crunch.

My After Eight (choco mint chip ice cream cake):

It took us several minutes to choose our desserts because there were just so many excellent choices.

Then, Despicable Me. As promised, it was full of fluffy goodness. Cute film. I want: 1) a copy of Sleepy Kittens, 2) Minions, and 3) Minions that glow in the dark. “SO FLUFFEH!”

Saturday

Having seen the lovely Nigella make margarita ice cream on TV, Jake bought tequila and decided to do his own mix right at home. (Thanks Wiki!) So after seeing the sweet and dorky Eagle vs. Shark:

Those were mint candies from Candy Corner, btw. The margarita’s excellent! Wasak!

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For your Moment of Zen (or, Why You Shouldn’t Trust the Audience, or, Look At These Assholes Who Answered “Corn Cob”) –

Haha! Till next week! :D