This is my week:
Monday: I started
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, because it had been recommended to me and the Baby Hero was breaking his third tooth. So I needed some distraction.
Tuesday: I start a book club and inform them the first book we will read is
The Hunger Games because it is that good and I need someone to talk to about it with me. No, I can't post anything here about it because I'd give the plot away, and some of the powerful twists and surprises that Suzanne Collins puts in her writing. I reread
The Hunger Games.
Wednesday: I reread
The Hunger Games, anxiously waiting for my hold on the sequel,
Catching Fire, to come due.
Thursday: I check the website at 4:00pm and realize that
Catching Fire is waiting for me at the library. I stop making dinner and the Baby Hero and I go to the Library to get the book. I read the book--and when my brother calls to catch up on my life, I try really hard not to hate him for interrupting my reading. (Yes, it's
that good. Normally I'm not really upset if someone interrupts my reading, and it takes a really awesome book for me to hate someone for interrupting.) I think I barely succeed. I have to put the book down at 9:30pm to go to bed. I cry in bed for about an hour. I stopped reading at the absolute lowest point in the book. I couldn't possibly see how Suzanne Collins could possibly change the plot enough for me to enjoy this emotional book.
Friday: I finish the book by 8:45am. Peace, and slight frustration. I mean, the third book is slotted to come out Early Next Year...no exact date, and I can't wait for the final resolution. That, and I really, really,
really want to discuss this book with people.
Suzanne Collins is a wonderful author. I have read her other series,
Gregor the Overlander, and they were good. They are young literature, so the emotions are there but they are not extreme, the right level for a 4-6 grader. It's imaginative and wonderful to talk about the growth Gregor goes through. But not stunning. Fun and engaging, but not really worth talking about with your last dying breath.
The Hunger Games are her teenage series. And they have me stunned. She packs the book full of action, suspense, love, self awareness (the characters are teenagers), pain, despair, hope and joy. In short she captures life and the will to live. In these books, there is only one ending that will make you happy and I still don't know if she can pull it off--but she has surprised me on every level. I'm getting to the point in my reading that I can predict at least part of the ending and how it will happen by the middle of the book. I still like to read and see if I'm right, but it's getting to the point where I'm right about 90% of the time. It's a really good book if I can't predict part of the ending by the middle. In these two books, I couldn't predict anything. I could hope, but I didn't see if she could pull of my hopes and wishes.
All I can say is that the journey is worth it. You should read these books. Then you should call me up and we can talk about it, because I have this need to discuss both books.
These two books have consumed my week. (I've done other things, but even in my journal, I wrote about these books and my thoughts on different parts three times. I haven't written about a book in my journal for at least seven years.)
Baby Hero is healthy and happy, now that his tooth is fully cut away from the gum. Bug Hero is presenting at a conference today. The books are all consuming.
The Baby Hero is not sure if he wants to play this game. It involves a Stitch Hat. And the Baby Hero's Head.
Here we go!
Trying to get it off!
Repositioning it, so it's easier to get off!
And now it's off.
