Getting Hungry

Sometimes a story comes along, a character comes along, that is so well crafted, that it speaks to the reader with clarity. The voice of that tale and that character resonate in your head for days and weeks after reading.

The Hunger Games trilogy is one of those stories.

Book 1.

It might not be particularly high brow of me, but I bloody LOVE the fairly specific genre of Young Adult Distopian Fiction. The Chaos Walking trilogy is one that springs to mind. Acoming of age story, set amongst impossible obstacles and unlikely odds. I may well just be carrying on the Australian obsession with the Coming of Age of characters, what with the fact that we still don't feel like a grown up country. But that is a whole 'nother post.

I am by no means the first one to pounce upon Suzanne Collins modern YA masterpiece. I read it two years ago, and at that stage the first two books had been out for some time. So there have been many others waxing lyrical about the wonders of the world Collins has created. But I just reread the series, in a holiday frenzy of reading. And it is even better on a second read. Because on the first read, I was so tense and nervous and excited, that my eye would often skip over to the bit where the action was resolved in an attempt to know what was happening next.

In the not too distant future, the society of America (and for all we know, the rest of the world as well) has collapsed. Risen from its post-civil war ashes is Panem. The central metropolis, The Capitol wields a tyrannical power over the agricultural and manufacturing districts, with police control and heavy rationing. The people of most districts live a miserable life, especially in Katniss Everdeen's native District 12. Starvation is common, as are mine collapses. Generally not an awesome fun time being had by her and her family.

Another weapon The Capitol wields against Panem's citizens is The Hunger Games. Each year 2 children from each district are sent to The Capitol to compete in a reality television, to the death competition.

Yes, it is not necessarily an original story line. There have been movies and TV shows that have had this To The Death Reality TV thing before. But I like this one better. I think Collins has much more to say about politics. And power. And surveillance. And the media. And the inherent issues of gender. Herein lies the power of spec-fic!

Now, I don't really want to give anything else away. I don't want to give any more plot points, because the richness of my reading experience of this book was a great deal to do with the fact that I didn't know what to expect. Rest assured that you will want to turn every page. You may, like me, swing past pages in an attempt to stop hyperventilating. The dudes at The Boy Factory love it. You will too.

Book 2.

But speaking of expectation management, you need to get your eyeballs onto this book BEFORE the film comes out (March 22nd, at West Bubblefuck cinemas, in case you were wondering.) I am currently grappling with expectation management. I'm thinking I'm going to need to defriend The Hunger Games peeps on Facebook and Twitter because their PR spin is NOT helping me keep my expectations effectively bottled.

And once the film is out, I am probably going to get into a little more detail of the plot and the questions that the trilogy raises. There will be spoilers. There will be high brow philosophical post-feminist, Marxist readings, and I promise they will be Reading Too Much Into It as ONLY an English Teacher can.

Book 3.

So do yourself a favour. IGNORE the testimonial on the front cover from Stephanie Meyers. It almost put me off too. But the fact that she of Twilight steaming pile of crap has read it and likes it makes it even more unforgivable that she created such a steaming pile of sexist crap.

Read these books. Double Dare.

The Art of Being Grateful

So this year there is a new project. A Blog Project. A Blogject.

Some year ago, I was working in a fairly thankless job manning phones in an advertising agency. The delightful Gemma was working in a similarly thankless retail job. After a particularly average Friday, we were sprawled in her living room, feeling particularly strung out, frayed and spent. Fridayed.

And rather than stay there moping, and whining, and whinging about how utterly unlucky we were to be living our day to day dreary lives, we switched it up.

We began to make a list of all the things we were grateful for at that moment. One of the first ones was the glass of red wine that was in our hands.

And one of the more memorable from that evening was "I'm grateful nobody is yelling at me right now."

A decade plus on, and we are now living a life that is much closer to what we actually desire for ourselves. We do grown up things, like own large pieces of furniture, and fall asleep before midnight on a weekend, and try sipping brandy at the end of the night.

But still we hope to remain grateful, for the good things that we find in our lives. The small things that make us smile, and the big significant things that we strive for. So we're keeping a record. A Blogject.

You can find it here, at Gratis. It is already teeming with the tasty, and silly, the smiley and the serene. And I can't wait to find what else is on there!