So, first of all, can I thank you all for stopping by so regularly? According to my website stats there are a lot of you. I don't know who most of you are, or why you come, but I'm so grateful you do
Since my foray into traditionally masculine areas like giving recipes went so well, I thought I'd do something else to showcase my alpha-maleness: a book review of The Mockingjay. Yes, I read it. No, it didn't change my life. It was...nice. I didn't hate it. I thought it was the least interesting of all three of them, to be honest, but still interesting. Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you if you haven't read it.
This post, incidentally, is dedicated to Crash Test Dummy's daughter who read the book during her Varsity Tennis match!
Being an alpha-male, I really didn't feel invested in who Katniss chose. I know that people were all worked about whether she'd choose Gale, Edward, or Jacob but I didn't care. I thought they were both nice guys.
One thing made me laugh, though. A few years ago, we took our kids to see the newer Star Wars movies that are really the older ones, at least chronologically. You know, the more expensive, flashier, way lamer ones with better special effects and way worse acting?
Anyway, in one of them, there was a stupid scene where Natalie Portman fought an alien animal that slashed her with it's claws. It didn't injure her with it's 2 foot razor sharp claws. It just slashed her shirt in such a way that the middle fell out and so she did the rest of the scene with a bare midriff. It was so obviously, stupidly, apparent that I remember laughing at how transparent it was before being annoyed that they, the filmmakers, do things like that.
Well, I think Suzanne Collins was reading Twilight and decided she was missing out on a lot of similar moments where she could have Gale take his shirt off, so she added a few. I reacted to those moments the same was when Natalie Portman had her shirt ripped. Clever, clever, clever.
Sadly, I can't do the same thing my my middle grade work in progress because neither boys or girls have abs in 7th grade, plus it would just be creepy. So I'll have to steal other ideas from Collins.
Ok, so, how do I feel about Katniss ending up with Jacob? Well, I don't really care a whole lot. I do have to give Collins props because she made the ending seem like the only possible ending. It felt logical and right even though I felt bad for Jacob. Or was it Edward? I can't remember. Like I said, I didn't really have a dog in that fight, or even a two-dimensional-female-fantasy-generated male character.
There certainly were surprises. Like when Katniss's father turned out not to be dead but was the President of District 13. Holy cow! Didn't see that one coming at all. And the part where Gale rented a hovercraft and had it spell out "Peeta sucks" with smoke puffs. That was way tense. Katniss's mom being turned into a lizard mutt was a bit unnerving and when she kissed Haymitch with her lizard tongue--ooh, yuck. I did laugh when Prim gave Pres. Snow a wedgie, though.
Seriously though, I am tired and slap-happy because I stayed up all night reading it (and because my doctor said no more Dr. Pepper). So I did like it. And, I think Collins was quite good at developing the characters and plot so that Katniss's choice seemed right. I'm curious to hear from some of you who were seriously invested in Peeta or Gale being chosen, though.
Okay, calm down. Have I punctured too many sacred cows for one post? Truly, it was an interesting book and the ending did surprise me. I still don't quite get the parachute thing at the end. I can't see that being an advantage to either side, frankly, and I feel like it was thrown in just to help make Katniss's choice more obvious.
Since my foray into traditionally masculine areas like giving recipes went so well, I thought I'd do something else to showcase my alpha-maleness: a book review of The Mockingjay. Yes, I read it. No, it didn't change my life. It was...nice. I didn't hate it. I thought it was the least interesting of all three of them, to be honest, but still interesting. Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you if you haven't read it.
This post, incidentally, is dedicated to Crash Test Dummy's daughter who read the book during her Varsity Tennis match!
Being an alpha-male, I really didn't feel invested in who Katniss chose. I know that people were all worked about whether she'd choose Gale, Edward, or Jacob but I didn't care. I thought they were both nice guys.
One thing made me laugh, though. A few years ago, we took our kids to see the newer Star Wars movies that are really the older ones, at least chronologically. You know, the more expensive, flashier, way lamer ones with better special effects and way worse acting?
Anyway, in one of them, there was a stupid scene where Natalie Portman fought an alien animal that slashed her with it's claws. It didn't injure her with it's 2 foot razor sharp claws. It just slashed her shirt in such a way that the middle fell out and so she did the rest of the scene with a bare midriff. It was so obviously, stupidly, apparent that I remember laughing at how transparent it was before being annoyed that they, the filmmakers, do things like that.
Well, I think Suzanne Collins was reading Twilight and decided she was missing out on a lot of similar moments where she could have Gale take his shirt off, so she added a few. I reacted to those moments the same was when Natalie Portman had her shirt ripped. Clever, clever, clever.
Sadly, I can't do the same thing my my middle grade work in progress because neither boys or girls have abs in 7th grade, plus it would just be creepy. So I'll have to steal other ideas from Collins.
Ok, so, how do I feel about Katniss ending up with Jacob? Well, I don't really care a whole lot. I do have to give Collins props because she made the ending seem like the only possible ending. It felt logical and right even though I felt bad for Jacob. Or was it Edward? I can't remember. Like I said, I didn't really have a dog in that fight, or even a two-dimensional-female-fantasy-generated male character.
There certainly were surprises. Like when Katniss's father turned out not to be dead but was the President of District 13. Holy cow! Didn't see that one coming at all. And the part where Gale rented a hovercraft and had it spell out "Peeta sucks" with smoke puffs. That was way tense. Katniss's mom being turned into a lizard mutt was a bit unnerving and when she kissed Haymitch with her lizard tongue--ooh, yuck. I did laugh when Prim gave Pres. Snow a wedgie, though.
Seriously though, I am tired and slap-happy because I stayed up all night reading it (and because my doctor said no more Dr. Pepper). So I did like it. And, I think Collins was quite good at developing the characters and plot so that Katniss's choice seemed right. I'm curious to hear from some of you who were seriously invested in Peeta or Gale being chosen, though.
Okay, calm down. Have I punctured too many sacred cows for one post? Truly, it was an interesting book and the ending did surprise me. I still don't quite get the parachute thing at the end. I can't see that being an advantage to either side, frankly, and I feel like it was thrown in just to help make Katniss's choice more obvious.
RSS Feed
