The Hunger Games

I own The Hunger Games, Catching Fire

and am awaiting to buy Mockingjay by 

Suzzane Collins.

Hunger Games. These two words can make me talk for hours and by hours I am not joking, I mean HOURS. If you don’t believe me ask Aaryama Somayaji, she got so bothered with me talking about it, she got it for my birthday to shut me up. So, now I am a proud owner of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire (the second book in the trilogy) and I am thinking of buying Mockingjay (the third book in the trilogy). It’s really hard to write about your favorite book especially for me because the only thing I am really good at is criticizing them. 

The Hunger Games:

North America has long been destroyed and a new government called The Capitol has been formed, its even changed its name, its called Panem. Years have passed since District 13 had fought for a revolution, it was suppressed by the dictatorship of The Capitol. Out of vengeance, District 13 was abolished, since then only 12 remain. To suppress all the districts The Capitol controls its citizens by The Hunger Games.    

12 Districts, 24 Teenagers, 1 survivor. As a tradition two teenagers (one boy and one girl) between the age of 12 and 18 are selected by an annual lottery drawing for the “Hunger Games”, played in the form of a reality television show. All the participants also knows as the tributes have to kill each other until only one remains. Sixteen year old Katniss Everdeen from District 12, is struggling to feed her younger sister, Prim and her mother after the death of her father in a mining accident. When Prim is selected as the female Tribute for District 12, Katniss volunteers immediately to take her place along with male tribute Peeta, the bakers son. She promises to fulfill Prim's wish, she has to come back home, even if it means killing the boy with the bread, Peeta. 

My History/Opinion:

Katniss Everdeen, protagonaist of The Hunger Games and 

Peeta Mellark, her fellow tribute of District 12.

If you had a choice what would you pick? Hunger Games, a depressing dystopian novel or a vampire flick like House of Night. I chose Hunger Games, because basically it was recommended by Rick Riordan (author of the Percy Jackson series). The beginning was slow paced that’s why I chucked it out and started reading my other option House of Night. I don’t want to really get into House of night, because if I utter another word about it I am sure I will cause much distress to its fans. Concluding about House of Night, I regret wasting my entire two weeks trying to complete the entire series. Period. Which brings us back on The Hunger Games, if you ever try to read it don’t get bored urge yourself to get through Part I because after that your in for a ride. Putting the book down, believe me, is unstoppable, you get horrified with the killings, you laugh at Haymitch and most of all you sulk for Peeta’s and Katniss’s future. This book makes you think the future of our world  bringing up doubts and questions never imagined before.

  

For a good message, deep characters and for Suzzane Collins making a world totally unimaginable.

Additional Information:

12 Districts (Dah Dah!), 24 Teenagers (Dah! Dah!) Only 1 destined to survive (feet running in the forest crunching the leaves-in the video) – I can bet you that the future trailer of The Hunger Games, would have to resemble this. In fact, the I’m not really sure if I really want to see the movie, at all. The script is written by Suzanne Collins and she had planned before hand to make this book into a movie even before writing it. I don’t enjoy movies that are made into books, they ruin my imagination of the characters. But that wont really stop me from watching the film, which releases next year in March 23, 2012.  

Caution:  If you are wondering how Katniss will look like in the movie, please click on the link below. I really don’t want to ruin your imagination and I sincerely  hope they dye her hair black. http://bit.ly/eOfZBE

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Bragging On…

Jane Eyre Movie Poster-2011

In my last blog I bragged a lot about how my, “I Hate Classics” slogan took a completely different turn.  To continue the bragging I thought about introducing one of my favorite classics aside from LOTR (Lord of the Rings). 

As usual almost most of my book adventures take place at the book fair and because I buy mostly all my books from my one and only favorite book fair store it starts out with Rupa Publications. The main reason for me buying this book was because it was quite cheap, Rs. 85 then the other shops who were selling it for at least a 100. In fact, Jane Eyre wasn’t even in my list of ‘books-to-buy’, I just happened to be at the classics section immensely happy about how cheap classics are. Which is my favorite aspect about classics, even if I end up despising them, they are just so cheap it doesn’t even matter (like the day I brought Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë it cost me only Rs. 30 and it was almost new!) To continue about Jane Eyre -I liked the cover and didn’t even bother to read the back and bought it.

Jane Eyre:

Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Brontë
in 1847 is one of the most renowned
classic of all times.

Jane Eyre is an orphan raised by an aunt who believes her social status to be far beneath her own and her family. Being a nine year old, she has a nature to rebel and has a free spirit making her poles apart from the other people in the 18^th century. Amongst her cousins, her alien personality regularly gets her into fights with her eldest cousin who punishes her for touching his future inheritance. She is sent to a charity school called Lowood by Aunt Reed who can no longer support her foreign nature. After residing in the school for eight years, when she reaches adulthood she leaves to becomes a governess in Thornfield Hall. The master of Thornfield Hall, Mr. Edward Rochester, falls in love with her and asks her to marry him. Jane soon realizes that she has made the biggest mistake of her life by saying 'yes' soon the marriage is cancelled at the last minute, and Jane flees from Thornfield alone without a single penny. In her new life she has a new economic and social position, but eventually makes her way back to Rochester, a man now having no economic stability all because his insane secret wife, who was the reason of Jane and Edward's broken marriage.

My Opinion:

Classics are known to get on your nerves. For most human beings they are defined to be long, tedious and exceptionally descriptive. That can be one reason why you should read Jane Eyre because it eludes all these characteristics of a so called classic. No words can be great enough to describe it, perfectly. Its that kind of a book which is adored by everyone be it a little eleven year old girl to a fifty year old man. There is something magical about Charlotte Brontë’s style of writing that pulls you in and captures your imagination. If the protagonist is a female and the reader is a male, believe it or not the male reader will dissolve into the character of Jane. All of you who can’t read sad love stories, that is only a small aspect of Jane Eyre's story, in truth its a touching novel about the self discovery of a independent women living in the 18^th century. Its through her words you will see the trauma of that era, the fear of God and the power of love. (By the way to all of you. ‘I-cant-read-sad-stories’ the ending is happy anyway.)

For being one of the best classics I have ever read, deep insightful and full of meaning.

Additional Information:

The movie “Jane Eyre” has just released on 11 March 2011 (the date is not valid in India). It stars, Mia Wasikowska (actress know for her performance in "Alice in Wonderland") as Jane Eyre and Michael Fassbender (actor known for his performance in "Inglourious Basterds") as Mr, Edward Rochester. I am really exited to watch the movie but as my saying goes, to enjoy the book read it before watching the movie. 

Movie trailer:

  

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My Classic History

Sarah Dessen is one of the

popular Young Adult 

novelist of all times.  

Seeing my other blog’s you might have thought that  I’m not the one for classics judging that I am a young adult or in terms of speaking a teenager and that, my genre has mostly everything aside classics. Of course you might consider that I am not alone in this deprived state most teenagers my age prefer to read Young Adult romances like Sarah Dessen’s for girls and Percy Jackson for the boys (not that I don’t read both). You rarely see an adolescent sitting in a bus reading classics, do you? I observed that way back and set up a resolution. I had to read classics whether I enjoy it or not.

My hate for classics started when I was ten years old. I read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I hated it more then ever thought I had only read  eleven pages and threw it away. I declared that is was the worst book ever, too boring with too much detail. End of story and there I was skipping on my way to the library to issue Harry Potter.

A year later I thought of picking up The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein, the cover looked a little dull green hills a river, I tried it anyway. When I look back, I remember vaguely that I had read Eldest by Christopher Paoini that year. I had fallen in love with the idea of elves and dwarfs and especially beautiful dragons, I am still intrigued with it no doubt, but that is exactly why I loved the hobbit and mostly Bilbo Baggins quest and all the obstacles he crossed. As soon as I finished reading it I picked up Lord of the Rings. 11 year old little Sanskriti to read Lord of the Rings, the greatest written novel of all time-all by herself. Ouch! That sound’s harsh. I read half of the fellowship of the ring again declaring my all time now favorite classic as stupid and shelved it in my mind as: "To-Read-Only-If-Willing-To-Have-A-Sore-Head-Or-Go-Insane."

The Voyage of the dawn Trader 

by CS Lewis is considered the

best children literature ever. Even 

so, I've never been able to finish 

this book.  

There were rare classics that I did like. Like Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan or The Wizard Of Oz, the main reasons were because it was short and of course children literature. But even in Children Literature I hated the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis, I remember being in 4^th grade trying to issues the Voyage of the Dawn Trader again for the 4^th time. I never finished it although, I tried many times but happily gave up as soon as the four siblings went through the painting that is to say in short the 7^th or 8^th page. The thought of the four children going through the painting was supposed to be exiting and surely I had to be curious. It was quite the contradictory for me it was plain dull and immensely tedious.

I have this tendency of throwing away good books as soon as the exiting bit comes up. There are many instances, For example:

Sanskriti’s Age (in years)	Book’s Name	Left the book Exactly When
7	Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone- JK Rowling	Harry meets Voldemort and discovers Professor Quirrell’s has been hiding Lord Voldermort at the back of his head.
9	The Voyage Of the dawn Trader –CS Lewis	The four siblings are sucked in to Narnia by a painting.
11	Lord of the Rings- JRR Tolkein	Frodo and gang meet with Aaragon

There are a hundred others if I think very closely. I left these books and came back to them sooner or later (except Voyage of the Dawn Trader but this time I read ¾  of the book and left it again.)

Here I am now having read more then enough of classics for my age even if my age group does not read classics. I’ve read HG Wells, Sir Athur Conan Doyle, many shorts stories by Guy de Maupassant, Chinua Achebe, Henrik Isben, Johnathan Swift, Bram Stoker, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller,  Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë and yes everyone has read Shakespeare.

That is not even ¼ of the brilliant classic authors that have prevailed in this world young Twilight and Harry Potter fans, there is a world out there filled with classics, the ladies are swishing their robes impatiently, the men are scratching there long beards. There waiting for YOU, the same way Pride and Prejudice is for me. 

* Sorry about not blogging for a month. To read further excuses please do check out the NOTICE BOARD which is on the left column. 

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