My view on the book Mockingjay

Hey guys. It’s Julio, sorry for the 2 month delay but I’m back and I have a new post for you. It’s on the final book of the hunger games Mockingjay by Suzane Collins. To be honest I was kind of disappointed, I thought it was going to have some suspense but it was just plain violence and death.  In 2010 I read the book for the first time, when I finished the book I thought to myself,” There’s got to be something good I’m just not seeing.” Second time I read it, I thought “What the f***. Words can't begin to express my disappointment, the first day it came out and I was preparing myself for a truly epic novel, one worthy of its predecessors. I loved The Hunger Games; it was fast-paced, thrilling, suspenseful. Catching Fire wasn't as good but it was still enjoyable (I was majorly impressed by the game arena). I wasn't let down by Catching Fire though; I figured it was just a transition novel, build-up to what would undoubtedly be a mindblowing, epic conclusion in Mockingjay. “

            Maybe I set my expectations too high. I do think Collins is a good writer; she definitely knows how to write and tell a story. But I feel like she lost her way in this book. Or maybe the only thing that made this series so great was the Hunger Games, and now that it's absent, there's nothing to drive the story.

            The love triangle wasn't well played out. First of all, I'm getting a bit tired of reading about love triangles -- especially in novels where there's a much greater plot present. But I'll admit, I was on Team Gale throughout the series, because he was strong and resilient and resourceful and caring. There was this attractive manly quality about him and he was so in sync with Katniss, and hot to boot. But towards the end of this novel, I didn't give a flying f*** about Katniss's love life and who she ended up with, because everything seemed like such a hopeless, depressing mess that there was no point. I also hated how she kept flip-flopping and toying with both Gale and Peeta (I've been bothered by this since CF). She should make up her mind about who she wants instead of leading them both on! Her fickleness is pretty inconsiderate to these two guys whom she supposedly cares about. And if she can't decide (I can see why, they both have great qualities), then she should give herself some space/time to decide, and in the meantime, don't go kissing or showing romantic affection to either one! 

            She ended up with Peeta, which would have been fine if it had been executed properly. But even in this aspect of her life, she didn't get to CHOOSE, which is basically the story of her life. She just ended up with Peeta because he was the only one who stuck around. At the end, I found myself wanting her to end up alone, of her OWN choice. Heck, instead of spiraling into bleak depression and continuing life as a puppet, I would have rather seen her die for a noble cause and for doing the right thing. That would have been a more satisfactory ending, and that's saying something because I normally LOATHE it when characters die.

 I didn't like that we didn't get to experience the action close-up. As the war unraveled, I felt like Katniss was always on the sidelines, only called in when other people commanded her to. We didn't get to see Katniss kicking butt against her enemies, we got to hear from other characters about events that occurred, or watch them on the TV. It is so mindnumbingly dull to be watching a character watching something, instead of experiencing the action with the character. Everything she did was for show, for a propo or campaign or whatever. It was all so .. fake. Here they are in the middle of a war, people are dying left and right, and all they care about is filming and getting good shots and angles and putting on a pretty face! It felt so staged and it was boring and infuriating to read. The only real action is towards the end when she and her team are going on the assassin mission to kill Snow, and even THAT was originally only for a propo (that went astray). 

            The last third of the book (the assassin mission) was gorey and bloody, which I didn't mind. It's war after all. But many characters' deaths were so rushed and pointless. Prim's death didn't have the impact that I'm sure Collins was aiming for; I didn't feel sad when she died, as she's barely in the story as it is, so I didn't get to know her well enough and connect with her beforehand. She was absent for at least 100 pages before her death came out of nowhere, for God's sake, so her death felt like any stranger's death. (Although it seems her death kind of defeated the point of sparing her from the Hunger Games.) 

That's another thing that bothered me: throughout the whole book, she had no control over ANYTHING, not even her own life and actions. She was a empty, lifeless pawn, a zombie if you will, who didn't do anything that wasn't directed or commanded by other people. In this novel, I was expecting her to STEP UP, embrace her role as Mockingjay, use her power/influence to get involved in the rebellion, take control of her life, and make a difference in the outcome of her world. I was expecting to see her grow and change and I was excited for her metamorphosis. Instead, we get this weak girl who's shirking all responsibilities, addled on drugs half the time, and lashing out at people the other half. Not only did she not improve herself from the first book (she was kickass in the first book btw), she got WORSE, an empty shadow of her former self. At the beginning, I could understand her confusion, her pain, her reluctance to be the Mockingjay. It'd be weird if she DIDN'T feel this way, if she didn't have that time of indecision and unwillingness. But after, I expected her to be strong and work through it, to face her fears and obstacles and choose to do the right thing, to really fight for justice. The best things in life never come easy; anybody who's done anything has had to overcome obstacles to accomplish their goals. When she decided: "I must be the Mockingjay", my heart soared (cheesy but it did!) and I was rooting for her 100%. When I heard her inspirational words during the propos, the fire behind them, my heart soared because I thought Katniss was back. But as I kept reading, I realized .. even though she verbally accepted her role, her mind still wasn't in it and she wasn't in control of herself. She didn't grow and become stronger, that's what pisses me off.

  

In conclusion the hunger games series went down the toilet. I pray that they don't make a movie from this.

Welcome to the city of thieves

         The book I'm reading  is called The City Of Thieves  by David Benioff. 


           CITY OF THIEVES is a fantastic story; set in 1942 during the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad. It’s a coming of age story filled with adventure, suspense, friendship, romance and tragedy all washed down with (surprisingly) a historically accurate picture of Leningrad during the blockade. 

      I should point out that despite the events of the time this is also a surprisingly funny read as our two main characters; Kolya the romantic optimist and Lev with his random internal observations both have an interesting way of looking at life around them during the absurdities of war. 

      The story begins with a powerful opening chapter; a writer asks his grandfather to tell him about his experiences during the war. All the narrator knows-and he doesn’t remember anyone telling him its just one of those family folklores that he always has. Is that his grandfather, "the knife fighter" killed two Germans before he was eighteen and is missing a finger. That I already know but, Lev begins to tell his story to his grandson. Talking openly for the first time about his childhood, coming to America and sex. Mostly though he talks about a two week period in 1942 when he met his best friend, the woman that would become his wife and killed two Germans. I actually referred back to this chapter several times during the course of the book and again.

      Its January 1942 Leningrad is under marshal law, surrounded by the German army and what’s left of its inhabitants are starving. Our hero 17 year old Lev Beniov has just been arrested for looting and placed in a cell with a handsome friendly deserter named Kolya Vlasov. Both of their crimes are grounds for execution and as our heroes get to know each other that’s what they expect come morning. However in a twist of fate they are given a chance to save their own lives, a secret mission for a powerful soviet colonel. All they have to do is find a dozen eggs for his daughter’s wedding cake. 

      A dozen eggs in a city cut off from supplies, a city resorting to cannibalism and eating glue from book spines to survive. It is of course a ludicrous and impossible task one which takes our new friends far into German occupied territory, through the bitter cold of winter and countless adventures and atrocities. The outcome didn’t really surprise me but I haven't stopped thinking about it either. 

       Here’s a quote from the book. “One moment I thought I had a few minutes left to live; the next a sniper was flirting with me. Was she flirting with me? The days had become a confusion of catastrophes; what seemed impossible in the afternoon was blunt fact by the evening. German corpses fell from the sky; cannibals sold sausage links made from ground human in the Haymarket; apartments blocs collapsed to the ground; dogs became bombs; frozen soldiers became sign posts. I had no food in my belly, no fat on my bones and no energy to reflect on this parade of atrocities. I just kept moving, hoping to find another half slice of bread for myself and a dozen eggs for the colonel’s daughter.”

 Surprisingly this was supposed to be an accurate war story.

The seven laws of life

This book “the seven spiritual laws of life” by Deepak Chopra is a very good book. This is a guide on how to live your life in peace with just a little amount of stress.

I've been reading this book for a few weeks. It's somewhat more complex and requires time to unravel and let the concepts sink in. It's definitely readable,

I have just had to read one chapter at a time and let the "laws" sink in one at a time before exploring the next. It shifts the thinking about the universe and our place in it. Rather than approach us as "stardust" or inconsequential, it challenges the individual to see that we are the center of OUR universe and we have to deliberately create what surrounds us and what is inside of us...it's a chicken/egg kind of thing that takes some philosophical thought to digest. Very fun reading! Pushes the envelope on spirituality.

                                        

What really helped me about this book was Deepak's "universal meditation" thing at the end where he asks everyone to focus on a specific spiritual law on a specific day. So for about a year, I did this. Sunday, being conscious of the Law of Pure Potentiality, for instance. This practice helped me to be more centered and aware. I just thought that this was a good book and I wanted to share my opinion.

         

          

The FNG of CHERUB

This week I read CHERUB mission 1: the recruit by Robert MuchaMore. It’s the thing that keeps me begging for more like, what happens next, why would he do that?

This book is about a child named James Adams whose mother has just died. When his little sister got sent to live with her father, Uncle Ron, James had to move to the Nebraska House. James meets a boy named Kyle. But a while after James came to the Nebraska House; they sent him and Kyle to Cherub. It turned out that Kyle was already a part of Cherub. Cherub is a organization in the UK that takes kids and turns them into agents. They send them on top secret missions that M15 or the police don't know about.

 There are different shirt colors for your rank at Cherub. Orange is guest, Red is before training, Blue is for training, Grey is for completing training, Navy is for doing a good job on missions and Black is for doing an excellent job on many missions. After James completed his 100 day training, he got sent on a mission with his swimming teacher, Amy to go into a place called Fort Harmony and find out about some terrorist related activities. After they nailed all of them except for one, James and Amy went back to Cherub. When they got back, James got his Navy Shirt and Kyle got his after. Kyle was jealous that James got his Navy Shirt before him. 

               

                        In Cherub, Robert Muchanmore writes as a James the latest Cherub recruit. He's a bit of a troublemaker, but he’s also very brilliant. And CHERUB needs him. But before he can start in the field, he must survive one hundred grueling days of basic training, where even some of the toughest recruits don't make it to the end. Throughout the book James is faced with lots of family problems. Although he has lots of family problems i think that helps him to push harder during his basic training. While James was attending school his mom died and his sister was taken into his stepfathers care. James stepfather is not really fit to be a father and James knows it but he can’t do anything about it. Robert Muchamore does a great job taking James from being the son of an alcoholic and a trouble maker to some one how is now a much respected member of a very elite club. So when you put it like this, he’s like a teenage James Bond, except he doesn’t kill anyone.

With a side of random

The book I’m reading is called Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. I have to say, it’s a good book but it’s no hunger games. To be honest, you eventually drift off and fall asleep from your book. That is what I get from some scenes in the book. Besides that, I’m okay with this book.

Cold Mountain is the story of Inman, a wounded and soul-sick Confederate soldier who, like his literary fellow-traveler Odysseus, has quit the field of battle only to find the way home littered with impediments and prowled by adversaries. Inman's Penelope is Ada, a headstrong belle who has forsaken her place in Charleston society in order to accompany her father -- a tubercular southern gentleman turned missionary -- to a new home in the healthy mountain air of North Carolina. Frazier divides the narrative between Inman's homeward progress and Ada's struggle to make it on her own after her father dies, establishing an underlying tension that is at once subtle and irresistible. 

Inman is critically wounded in the fighting outside Petersburg and, after a rough triage; he is "classed among the dying and put on a cot to do so." When his body stubbornly refuses to comply, he is evacuated further south to a hospital where he may succumb at his leisure. But against all odds, Inman's terrible injury insists upon healing itself. During the long months of convalescence he struggles to shed the hated, insulating numbness put on against the carnage he has seen -- Malvern Hill, Sharpsburg, Petersburg, Fredericksburg -- and probes his psychic wounds for the shrapnel of his former self. He finds instead a refuge in the "topography of home in his head" and the Cherokee folk tales of his childhood friend Swimmer: 

"As Inman sat brooding and pining for his lost self, one of Swimmer's creekside stories rushed into his memory with great urgency and attractiveness. Swimmer claimed that above the blue vault of heaven there was a forest inhabited by a celestial race. Men could not go there to stay and live, but in that high land the dead spirit could be reborn. This is all I know so far, I still haven’t finished the whole book, but I look forward to the end.

Fish

Fish: Add a touch of nature to your page with these hungry little fish. Watch them as they follow your mouse hoping you will feed them by clicking the surface of the water.

The story that they carried

          This week I’m reading The things that they carried. By Tim O’Brien, Due to my packed schedule, particularly towards the end of the school year; it has been a considerably long time since I've had the opportunity to so thoroughly drink in a book like this. The past week or so I've spent reading and reading (and reading, and reading) The Things They Carried, living in its pages, watching every word, hearing every phrase in my head, exploring, searching for meaning and truth and lies in every corner... 

I'm breathless as I'm typing this, actually. I just have so much to say about this book. I'm sure I could fill pages upon pages, examining every drop of ink in this brilliant text. I'll spare you, of course. 

I'll do you all a favor and give you with a quote from my point of view on O'Brien's masterpiece! 

I'm breathless as I'm typing this, actually. I just have so much to say about this book. I'm sure I could fill pages upon pages, examining every drop of ink in this brilliant text. I'll spare you, of course. 

I'll do you all a favor and give you with a quote from my point of view on O'Brien's masterpiece! 

"The only way to represent the self is to delicately smash that self into pieces, spread those pieces around, and create something new from the remnants of what previously existed. Some tremendous work, an engrossing web of stories and ideas and truth and lies, The Things They Carried and all characters and events in it were created by a Tim O’Brien who took the intricate ceramic vase of his own life and broke it into dozens of small and large segments, and, with fiction and lies, constructed and restructed his own experiences in order that they convey the real truth, beyond the 'truth' of what really happened and what did not... O’Brien put the fragments together to form a unified, fictional, honest story which I wish to mentor."So cool!!