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Mel

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Mel is Currently Reading

Mel is currently reading

Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)

by Suzanne Collins

bookshelves: 21st-century-fiction, childrens, distopia, scifi, post-apocalyptic, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in August 2012

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Mel said: " The third book of the Hungar Games was quite possibly the grimmest book I've ever read. While not quite as good as the first one I did enjoy it much better than the second one. I loved the fact that the "hidden" society that showed up to rescue every ...more "

Sep 19, 2012 02:43AM · see review

Mel is currently reading

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)

by Suzanne Collins

bookshelves: 21st-century-fiction, post-apocalyptic, scifi, distopia, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in August 2012

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Mel said: " I read the second volume of hunger games yesterday. It was enjoyable but I didn't love it quite as much as the first one. In a way the world seemed even darker which was very good. The problem I found was that Katniss didn't seem to have quite as muc ...more "

Aug 15, 2012 05:06AM · see review

Mel is currently reading

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)

by Suzanne Collins

bookshelves: 21st-century-fiction, childrens, distopia, gender-issues, post-apocalyptic, scifi, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in August 2012

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Mel said: " I read the first book of the hunger games triliogy and now understand why people love it so much. I grabbed a copy at smiths for emergency train reading and couldn't put it down. The lead charcter is just engrossing. She's strong, smart but also angr I read the first book of the hunger games triliogy and now understand why people love it so much. I grabbed a copy at smiths for emergency train reading and couldn't put it down. The lead charcter is just engrossing. She's strong, smart but also angry and surley. The book just has the best gender balance of any distopian fiction ever. I really recommend it!They are really engaging. I put the first one down to eat dinner and do an afternoon of work but read it all in a few hours. For a kids book there was an awful lot going on

I think it really is an excellent book for girls. It reminded me why I spent my teen years reading science fiction. I didn't see her as that indecisive just really focused on staying alive. I thought it was a nice twist that it was the boy who was in love and the girl was just thinking what do I have to do to survive this and keep my family safe. I don't think I want to see the film though as I think it would ruin my idea of what she's like.

I also liked how in the first book while the culture in the capital was supposed to be horrible the people she interacted with were all really nice. As were the "rich" people in her village. The threat and the evil was very undefined and pervasive but not really something tangible, like voldemort, that was identifiable. With the exception of the "careers" it was kinda just good people letting bad things happen. And even in the case of the nicest people support and encourage the killing, I'm thinking of the designer who is really nice but whose job it is to prepare children to kill.

I think Katniss in the first book is powerless to go against the society even though she risks her life hunting to break the rules she's not willing to help the girl and the boy she sees trying to escape. And seems to hate that she has to go along with it but when she acts against it when she gets angry about the trials she's then terrified her family will be punished. It really is a very good example of a powerful distopia that people hate but support cause they can't do anything to change it (though I suspect that changes in the next two books)

It was very claustrophobic and very scary and I realy enjoyed it. ...more "

Aug 15, 2012 02:54AM · see review

See all 62 books that Mel is reading…

Mel’s Quotes

“Nothing in this world, is completely new. That's why we study history and compare today, with the past. In the end, every human being, has the same way of thinking.”
― Da Xia, 長歌行 3 [Chang Ge Xing 3]

tags: history, humanity

15 likes

“How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloudshadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

tags: attitude, change, courage, depression, dragons, fears, helplessness, inspirational, poetry, sadness, strength, transformation, weakness

687 likes

“Sometimes I sits and thinks. Other times I sits and drinks, but mostly I just sits.”
― Neal Cassady, The First Third

66 likes

“I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn’t even feel it. And yet I believe you’ll be sensible of a little gap. But you’d clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is just really a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this —But oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it.”
― Vita Sackville-West, The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf

tags: letters, life, love

337 likes