The Hunger Games

Yeeeeeeeee!

Mortal Instruments

I have mixed feelings about the actor cast as Jace. He is too "pretty boy," in my opinion; as in straight out of a calvin klein ad. Hopefully they can rough him up a bit for the role. I remain optimistic about this movie...time shall reveal!

One for the Money

I've started this book and can't wait to get into the series. My friend Amanda tells me that by book four, you realize how laugh-out-loud hysterical Stephanie Plum is. As a bonus, One for the Money, the movie is releasing later this month [starring Katherine Heigl], so what better time to pick up the book and enjoy?!

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

bold.
contemptible.
triumphant.

I knew there was something special about this book when I started bawling like a baby after just a few short chapters. Ken Follett masterfully develops characters and entwines their lives in a way that is striking and full of raw human emotion. His readers experience terror, trepidation, peace, and every victory--big and small--alongside companionable protagonists and formidable foes.

This story is told in third person, limited-omniscient, so you gain a true sense of each individuals character—and there are many. I'm not going to lie; it took me the first five hundred pages to acclimate to Follett's writing style and the plethora of important characters in the plot, but it was all downhill from there. I found that I couldn't get enough--eat, read. sleep, read. kids, read. classes, read. and repeat.

Follett proves there is an artwork to creating characters that you feel you are psychically and invariably connected to. There are villains that you love to hate, yet for whom you feel a deep sense of pity and share their regret in the end. There are also people like you and I, who strive to make good choices in their lives, yet they suffer unspeakable acts and face ostensibly insurmountable challenges.

This novel is brimming with the dark and dreary side of humanity, and likewise, it glistens with the light of hope; for one cannot exist without the other, as they are complimentary parts of the whole.

5 out of 5 stars

I will read the sequel.

Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera

pitiful.
laughable.
naive.

My friend Kiel introduced me to a band called "The Airborne Toxic Event," who I had heard on the radio, but hadn't researched any further songs belonging to them. I also used one of their tracks "All I Ever Wanted--" the one played on the radio, actually--for a Sociology Media Analysis. Turns out that my analysis of the lyrics have nothing to do with the true meaning of the song.

Of course this piqued my interest and I ended up locating the short story that the song is written about, called "The Hitchhiking Game" from this book, Laughable Loves by Kundera.

I was hoping that learning more about the original short story would enhance my adoration of this emotion-filled song. Rather it had the opposite effect. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion--it got worse and worse. I have no qualms about Kundera's writing. It's the content that I am disagreeable toward. Perhaps it is due to the abundance of wisdom I've acquired in nearly thirty years, but probably not. I felt that the characters in each of the short stories were naive and didn't think things through all the way, which I found irritating as a reader.

This book ought to be titled "Pitifully Laughable Lust."

2.5 out of 5 stars