[rosygirl]

i just got back from my holiday, and got a hell of a lot of reading done. almost a book a day :O
the list:
-Rebel Angels-Libba Bray (reread, mostly on the train while stuck in a station on the way there)
-The Sweet Far Thing-Libba Bray (reread. over 800 pages of amazing trilogy conclusion)
-The Immortals-Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell (reread, newest and last of the edge chronicles, as awesome as ever)
-The Declaration-Gemma Malley (reread, pretty good, but a little forgettable)
-The Resistance-Gemma Malley (sequel to the declaration, been sitting on my shelf for a while. better than the first)
-Thursday's Child-Sonia Hartnett (bought in the borders closing down sale years ago and not read til now. just plain wierd)
-A Thousand Splendid Suns-Khaled Hosseini (beautifully written and very moving, shame i had a really terrible pirated kindle version)
-The Da Vinci Code-Dan Brown (surprisingly compelling, my guilty pleasure kind of book)
-The Graveyard Book-Neil Gaiman (strange but beautiful, wonderfully writen)
-The Lovely Bones-Alice Sebold (again a little wierd, but beautiful and nowhere near as depressing as you would think)
so glad i have my kindle, otherwise i would have run out of books :/

[ServalSpirit]

Has anyone read anything by Juliet Marillier? I read Wildwood Dancing ages ago and really liked it and now just finished Heart's Blood and adored it. I loveeeeeeeeeeed the characters. ♥♡♥♡♥ *sigh* So sad for it to be over, I loved living in that world!

[Eyes of Wolf]

Also on holiday reading, though unfortunately also holiday revision. Therefore, I haven't actually read much yet! So far I've reread Numbers 2 by Rachel Ward, which isn't great so I'm not sure why I reread it, then read Great Expectations, which grew on me as I read and is really wonderful. Currently, I'm rereading Noughts and Crosses. Just because.

[PellinorFanatic]

Going back to The Odyssey for a moment. I absolutely love that story! I read it two years ago in Freshman year and I ended up getting a 100% on the test for it :)

Right now I am currently reading tons of manga and a book called The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. I just started it last night and it's fairly interesting so far.

[ServalSpirit]

Hello all! :D So, has anyone read the Hunger Games? I did! (tho skimmed the last third of the last book). The first book was really exciting, but then they seemed to get worse... :(

Other thoughts? :D

[Eyes of Wolf]

I've read the whole trilogy. As you said, I liked the first book, but they did decrease in quality from there. I also found the characters cliched and predictable in many ways. There was a bit of controversy over the similarities in concept and plot between The Hunger Games and Battle Royale, which is a Japanese novel published a few years before. It has the same setup, and while it's more violent than The Hunger Games (the Japanese government considered banning it), it is very very similar. It's possible that it's a coincidence, but the sheer scale of the similarity is a bit difficult for me to ignore.

[ServalSpirit]

Oh! Didn't know that. I also had a problem with how twilight-y they seemed as the series went on. Especially the 2nd book. Katniss was acting a lot like Bella, thinking she was horrible, didn't deserve either guy, etc. Gale=Jacob in so many ways (even overly warm hugs!). And Peeta was too perfect and forgiving and adoring, like Edward. The plots seemed to randomly develop halfway through the books too, like Twilight. (The first book is an exception, since the Games were the plot since the beginning.)

[Eyes of Wolf]

Exactly! The whole love triangle involving one kind, sweet, boy and one rugged, exciting one vying for the perfect heroine is completely overdone. Katniss is a more interesting character than Bella in that she can actually think for herself, but her amazing-survival-skills-with-emotional-insecurity spiel is basically that of the typical "strong" YA heroine. It's a bit overdone. (Maerad is a brilliant subversion of that, imo - her emotional insecurity actually runs deeply in her and is adequately psychologically explained, rather than being the token "weakness" as it is for most YA heroines.)

[summer]

The first book I really enjoyed, although even while reading it I was picking out a few things I didn't like so much about it, and then I just got more disappointed as the series progressed and the weaknesses of the plot and characters became more obvious. It's a good concept though, even if it is almost identical to Battle Royale, and they were easy to read too which was nice after all of my university reading. There are good parts!

[Eyes of Wolf]

I also found it a lot of fun to read, but I think it really doesn't deserve the amount of attention it's getting. I'll probably watch the film because a lot of my friends are fans, and I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Maybe.