Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Book Jacket

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts.  The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games.  But Katniss has been close to dead before--and survival, for her, is second nature.  Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender.  But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Review

You guys.  I just can't even talk about Hunger Games without flailing.  When I created this blog I decided not to review anything without reading it just before the review.  So even though the Hunger Games (and its sequels, Catching Fire and Mockingjay) is my favorite recent series, I couldn't review it until re-reading.  This makes my fifth time entering the world of The Hunger Games, and it's just as good as the first time.  What more do you need as proof that this book is awesome?

I'll start with the world Collins created.  This dystopian future is horrific and eerily remniscent of today.  The Capitol's obsession with reality TV, violence, beauty, fashion, and celebrity highlights and perverts our own cultural interests. 

Within the world of Panem, Katniss stands out as a super-cool girl heroine who has crazy survival skills (the result of sneaking out to hunt for food most of her life) and a reluctance to love (wouldn't you if every day might be your last, and marriage will only lead to children who might have to fight to the death in future Hunger Games?).  She is incredibly intuitive and clever about fighting and survival, but when it comes to relationships--familial or romantic--she is absolutely hopeless.  I love Katniss like whoa, and she is one of my top three literary female role models (along with Hermione Granger and Eowyn).

Besides Katniss, Peeta is just the most perfect boy in all of fiction.  I would marry him if he were real.  He is smart, charismatic, hilarious, and a hopeless romantic.  The character love doesn't stop with the two District 12 tributes; Rue, Haymitch, Cinna, and Thresh are also heartbreaking, brave, and wonderful.

This book kills me.  You know going in that only one person can survive the Hunger Games, so meeting and loving new characters is excruciating.  The action never stops in this book, and I would almost dare someone to put it down for more than fifteen minutes. 

The Hunger Games has action, satire, romance, fantasy, science fiction, and drama.  I know 12-year-olds who love this book.  I know 55-year-olds who love this book.  It hurts so good.

Five out of five nightlock berries.

Release Date:  September 2008

Reading Level:  Grade 7+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection:  YPL COL

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins


Book Jacket

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris - until she meets Etienne St. Clair: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home.
 
As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near-misses end with the French kiss Anna--and readers--have long awaited?

Review

This book is held back by a seriously embarrassing title and cover.  I read reviews everywhere saying it was one of the best books of 2010, even comparing it to the love child of John Green and Maureen Johnson (which is, of course, a WIN).  But really, that cover?  Eek.  Once I overcame my prejudice, OH MY WORD.  If you like romance at all, you must read this book, even if it means taping it up in a brown bag.

This story makes me want to move to Paris, make awesome friends, and fall in love.  And that's really all it sets out to do.  What makes this book special is the way it brings Paris to life.  I felt like I was nervously walking the streets with Anna, hesitantly trying out my faltering French.  Never before have I wanted to watch an old movie in a Parisian cinema, but now I desperately do.

And the romance!  Anna and St. Clair have a fantastic love story.  It's not overdone like so many high school melodramas.  They meet, become friends, have witty conversations, and slowly fall into a relationship.  Which is how it should be done, I hereby declare, in all books everywhere (and in real life).  Sure, St. Clair has a girlfriend.  And towards the end, there's a little more melodrama than I like.  But that's only for maybe twenty pages, and every other page is pure comic and romantic gold.

This book is perfect for any wannabe world traveler or old-fashioned romantic.

Five out of five chocolat chauds.

Release Date:  December 2010
Reading Level:  Grade 9+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection:  YPL PER

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Book Jacket

Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe.  I wonder whether the procedure will hurt.  I want to get it over with.  It's hard to be patient.  It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn't touched me yet.  Still, I worry.  They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness.  The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.

Review

I was crazy excited for this book, which is a dystopian novel in which our future society develops a cure for amor deliria nervosa--love.  Lena can't wait until her 18th birthday when she will be treated, and will never have to worry about the delusions and pain caused by the disease of love.  She has a deeply personal reason to look forward to the cure, as her mother committed suicide because of love when Lena was only a child.

This book is incredibly fascinating.  It very nearly convinces its readers that a world without love might actually be a better place (or at least, it nearly convinced me).  And when love is defined by romance only, I do agree with Oliver's fictional government that a lot of the world's problems could be avoided if it were eradicated.  But then the full implications of a life without love were shown, in which parents must read books on how to properly raise their children without parental love, and friendship is unnecessary, and hobbies and passions no longer exist.

What a horrible, dull world.  Oliver does an excellent job creating a believable future as well as a believable protagonist.  Lena's journey to rebellion is rightfully slow and marked by some regressions.  Because let's face it, a world without heartache is a tempting possibility.

My only disappointment was, ironically, with the love story portrayed in Delirium.  It seemed to me that Lena's romance proved the ridiculousness of love, with melodramatic emotions about rather dying than being without him (a boy she's only known for a couple months).  Maybe I'm a cynic, but I would have preferred that Lena's rebellion had focused on all the society's flaws instead of being driven primarily by infatuated love.

Perhaps all the other issues will be the focus of the sequel, because MAN, does this book end on a cliffhanger.  Write fast, Lauren Oliver!

Four out of five Books of Shhh

Release Date:  February 2011
Reading Level:  Grade 9+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection:  YPL OLI

Goddess Girls: Persephone the Phony by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams


Book Jacket

As Persephone's mother encourages her to do, she often "goes along to get along" instead of doing what she really wants.  But when she meets Mount Olympus Academy bad-boy Hades, she finally feels she has found someone with whom she can be herself.  He's the first person who actually listens to her, and she finds herself liking him, despite the fact that the other goddess-girls think he's bad news.  But if he makes her feel so special--and so comfortable--can he really be all that bad?

Authors Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams put a modern spin on classic myths with the Goddess Girls series.  Follow the ins and outs of divine social life at Mount Olympus Academy, where the most privileged godboys and goddessgirls in the Greek pantheon hone their mythical skills.

Review

The story of Persephone and Hades has always been one of my favorites.  I have never thought that Hades was as bad as his reputation, and I like the idea that there was a goddess who loved him despite everyone's disapproval.  Obviously, I subscribe to the stories in which Persephone chooses to live in the Underworld, not the ones in which Hades kidnaps her (though there's a nice allusion to that in this Goddess Girls book).

And Persephone herself is so interesting!  A goddess who lives in both life and death, who alternates between the earth and the Underworld....so much is fascinating about her duality.  Holub and Williams deal with that very nicely in their middle grade book, showing that Persephone has both a sweet side and an angry side.  It is only when she realizes that she is both of those moods that she can accept herself and truly be honest with her friends.

Nice lessons, cute story, funny nods to Greek mythology and terms.

Four out of five eight-armed lunch ladies.

Release Date:  April 2010
Reading Level:  Grade 1+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection:  J HOL

February LEGO Club

We had our first LEGO Construction Club yesterday, and I have to say it was a crazy success.  24 kids showed up and created some of the most interesting trees (there's a theme each month) I've ever seen.  Some were treehouses, some were underwater, and some were part movie theater. 

Pictures of their creations in the link below!

H.I.V.E. by Mark Walden


Book Jacket

Otto Malpense may be only thirteen years old, but so far he has managed to run the orphanage where he lives, and he has come up with a plan clever enough to trick the most powerful man in the country.  He is the perfect candidate to become the world's next supervillain.

That's why he ends up in H.I.V.E., handpicked (read: kidnapped) to become a member of the incoming class.  Inside a volcano on a secluded island, Otto, along with his elite peers--the most athletic, technologically advanced, and smartest kids in the country--will be enrolled in Villainy Studies and Stealth and Evasion.  But then Otto realizes that he's entered a six-year program--where leaving is not an option.  Can Otto achieve what has never been done before and break out of H.I.V.E.?

Review

One of the best book tropes is the orphan who is taken into a new and awesome world (ex: Harry Potter, The Thief Lord, The Graveyard Book).  I love this story line, and I especially love it when an established trope is turned on its head.  That is exactly what happens in H.I.V.E. when orphan Otto is taken into a new and awesome world, the Hogwarts of evil.

There is so much about this book that is fun.  Scarily smart kids, escape plans, classes that teach proper grappling hook lessons, and teachers that are temporarily cats (I'm seeing shades of Harry Potter everywhere). 

My one problem with the book is that it never fully commits to either "yay let's learn to be supervillains!" or "these people are completely evil and I'm getting out of here!"  Instead, Walden tries to maintain a kind of middle ground.  With everyone only partially evil, it's hard to know who, or what, to root for.  But regardless, the story is fun!  Definitely good for a quick read.

Three out of five H.I.V.E.minds.

Release Date:  May 2007
Reading Level:  Grade 5+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection:  YPL WAL

Anti-Valentine's Day Party

The Dunlap Library's first annual (possibly) Anti-Valentine's Day Party was a success!  By which I mean, I had a good time.  Three girls showed up, and we decorated anti-conversation heart cookies, created an anti-romantic Mad Lib that included the sentence "I'm a weightlifter.  And you are the stinkiest girl I've ever seen."  We ended the night defacing romance novel covers, and my favorite addition was a speech bubble that said, "Let go!  I hate man hair."

More pictures below the cut!