Am I the only one who made a costume?

Runaways Volume 2: Teenage Wasteland by Brian K. Vaughn and Adrian Alphona.

I'm probably not going to blog a whole lot about the rest of this series, but I will say that it has hooked me enough to have a stack of them waiting to be read. The teens continue to hide away from their parents, determined to do what is right. They pick up another young teen who seems to be in a similar situations, but he has some dark secrets of his own. Also everyone starts kissing everyone.


In other news, I'm taking a gigantic bus trip tomorrow to see the boyfriend and am fully prepared with all of the Harry Potter books on audio. Some of you may know that I am a giant snob about books in other mediums but so far I have enjoyed listening to Jim Dale read me Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. But I do get his voice stuck in my head and end up imagining him narrating my everyday actions. I know that the HP audios are hugely popular - are there any other shining examples of good audio books out there?

Just a few more days left on my classic poll and Bleak House is still winning. No Russian love?

Radiant as the sun

I have loved distopian fiction ever since my dad stuck 1984 in my hands when I was twelve. I've heard things about the Hunger Games for a long time, but for whatever reason did not feel compelled to pick it up. However, after hearing for numerous people how great the sequel, Catching Fire, was, I check this one out from B&N.

The Hunger Games takes place in a futuristic country that was once America, where the land is divided into districts. These districts work for the Capital and are pretty destitute. Katniss is our main character and narrator, a young girl who breaks the law hunting to feed herself and her mother and sister. Every year two children (between the ages of 12-18) are chosen to compete in the Hunger Games, where they fight all of the other kids to the death. The winner is the only one to live and gets extra food for their district. Katniss takes her sister's place in the hunger games along with a boy named Peeta from district 12.

We follow Katniss from her district to the Capital where she is pampered and prepped before the games. The tributes are paraded in front of everyone in order to secure support from people donating. The tributes also have to sit through interviews and events that make the whole situation comparable to our current reality tv show "stars."

This book is amazing. I have been talking it up at work and all but shoved it into my brother's hands. I think that this book and The Book Thief are two of the best young adult fiction books I have read in a very, very long time. The book is smart, funny at times and heartbreaking at others. It seems like I'm one of the last people to jump on this book, but if you haven't read it then I would highly suggest it. This is a chilling look at what we currently think of entertainment and how easily that could progress, or regress, to a entertainment system that resembles Rome's hay-day.

Two quotes:

"I realize, for the first time, how very lonely I've been in the arena. How comforting the presence of another human being can be."


"You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope."

It kills me sometimes, how people die

So I had over a hundred pages left in The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, when I was getting ready for bed and told myself just one more chapter. So of course I was up late finishing it.

The novel is a coming-of-age tale about a young girl, Leisel, in Germany during the start of WWII. Her mother leaves her with a set of foster parents in the poorer part of town. Her brother dies on the way there. The whole book is told from Death's perspective, which I liked a lot. I expected Death to be glad of a war, glad for more to do, but Zusak's Death viewed it as another task, a boss yelling to get more done. Death was tired.

The characters in this book are so vivid. Rudy Steiner and Leisel are so clear in my mind. Their friendship is so realistic and refreshing. Leisel's Papa is a man you cannot help but want to hug. If only everyone had someone sitting next to them when they awoke from a nightmare, maybe the world would be a better place. The way that Zusak writes is very interesting, however, after a while I got a little annoyed with the way he would describe things. Sentences like (and I'm paraphrasing here): Her voice was like suicide. While I really like that particular sentence, I felt the novel was over populated with them. They became less special and unique.

Max (a Jew who is hidden in Leisel's basement) becomes very close to Leisel. His story that he leaves her is shown with pictures and different writing. I like when modern novels do this, using different forms and styles to evoke emotion in the reader. What struck me most about Max is that he was my age. My age, and hiding in a basement, unable to see the sky, unable to do anything except sustain. Leisel finds him in the parade of Jews near the end and the whole scene is just beautiful. She repeats lines to him from his story and he kisses the palm of her hand. And then they are whipped.

Death does give the ending away (for the most part), and I thought that knowing certain characters are going to die would make the actual death less powerful. I was wrong. Knowing made my heart hurt every time the character was around after then, and it did not soften the blow.

As a young adult book I think that this does an admirable job of brining a huge, horrible concept to the level of adolescence.

Some of my favorie quotes ( the title of this entry is one of them)

"Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness."

"The only thing worse than a boy that hates you: a boy that loves you."