Suzanne Collins: Catching Fire

One Word Summary: Team Peeta
Review: Good. I spent an excessive amount of time discussing the merits of Suzanne Collins' emotionally detached style with my friend N. Bryson. I even called my best friend, P. Neale, in Canada to hear her opinion of the finale, Mockingjay. Everyone is talking about this book, because there is so much to say.

Synopsis: It's the quarter quell. Katniss and Peeta need to survive another round of the hunger games. And President Snow is out to get Katniss, before the districts rebel.
Rate: 3.5 atomic bombs
Censorship: The bad guy is named Snow!

James Dasher: The Maze Runner

One Word Summary: Build a better mouse trap

Review: Did I like this book? In a word, Yes. The monster is a fascinating mixture of disgusting and frightening. It's an Edward Scissor Hands Rolly Polly Ooze Insect. Maybe now I should read Lord of the Flies. It'd be fun to compare the two. Anyhow, the ending is a bit of a tease. I'll have to read the next books to find out what is really going on. It's intriguing.

Synopsis: "Everything is about to change." That's the message the girl brings to the boys living in 'the glade', a warehouse style encampment surrounded by stone doors which lead to a maze with an exit no one can find. When the girl wakes up from her coma it becomes apparent that the glade residents must find a way out soon, or die. But who put them in the impossible maze? for what reason? and why can no one remember anything about their life before?

Rate: 3 scourges

Other Books:
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Random House 2009

Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games

One Word Summary: Reality TV used for evil

More Words: The writing is sparse. The story is thrilling. I read about this series in the New Yorker, and then a friend recommended it to me. Thank you M. Stewart. I liked THG, but sometimes I wonder why the reader is expected to accept information, because Katniss does, with no explanation. For example, I'm not entirely sure what makes the capitol a bad place- okay the people are frivilous and shallow, the wealth is unequally distributed, the Hunger Game is insane, the President has mean eyes, the government is totalitarian (AKA: the dystopic boogeyman) and there's some mystery about the Avoxes, but I'm still don't feel chilled. However I do like the spin on reality T.V. and I will read the next two books.

Synopsis: Each year one boy and one girl from each of the 12 districts on Panem (what used to be the USofA) are chosen by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. A televised gladiator contest everyone is forced to watch. This year Katniss will be the female tribute. She has some terrible choices to make about love and survival and she must walk a subtle line between crowd pleasing and treason.

Margret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale

One Words Summary: Aiden Quinn
Storyline: In response to an apathetic population, unable to reproduce itself, a militant patriarchal group overthrows the U.S. government and establishes a theocracy which reduces everyone to a function. Suddenly women cannot own property, cannot work outside the home. Reading is against the law. Other minorities are silently removed. All infractions are punishable by death.

More Words: Now I feel guilty for enjoying my life as a stay at home wife and mother who bakes and is completely dependent on her man for food-shelter-clothing-affection. Gosh I don't even drive these days! However the real difference between my life and The Handmaid's Tale is choice. Still I can't help but wonder if I've been duped by The Man (or the troubadours).


Questions:

1. Why is Moira's lassitude so terrible?
2. The women in Gilead are segregated from the men, and they are isolated from other women by class, function, and suspicion. They seem to lack any form of companionship (even words). Which is more important romantic love or friendship?
3. What is the ancillary function of a Handmaid? Are the Commander's sterile?
4. Atwood uses pornography to manifest the level of 'social degradation', how is her barometric choice relevant to our society?
   The military coup is chilling especially in light of 9/11. Could something similar really happen?
5. THMT was published in 1985. When was America really becoming frightened by the AIDS epidemic?
6. Mme Defarge knit, Snow Flower had a fan, how would a woman in Gilead have 'written'?

Quotes:

I admired my mother in some ways, although things between us were never easy.
She expected too much from me, I felt. She expected me to vindicate her life for
her, and the choices she'd made. I didn't want to live my life on her terms. I
didn't want to be the model offspring, the incarnation of her ideas. We used to
fight about that . I am not your justification for existence, I said to her
once. (p122)

That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. (p 174)

No mother is ever completely a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. (p181)

I've tried to put some good things in as well. Flower's for instance, because where would we be without them. (p?)