Mockingjay Countdown Event Challenges

The Event over at Smitten With Books is quite jolly fun! I thought I would post the challenges I've entered so far here, along with my answers.

Since there is some news for a The Hunger Games movie-I want you to tell me what actress you would cast for the part of Katniss. And then you need to explain why.

Teresa Palmer. She has a spark that I think Katniss needs, and physically is similar to Katniss except for her hair, which could be changed. She also doesn't fall into the extremely boring personality pitfall, which several young actresses seem to have had problems with (like Kristen Stewart and Alexandra Daddario), but could still pull off Katniss more serious' moods and more girly on-tv moods.

For this third mini challenge, I want you to comment and tell me below if you are either: Team Peeta or Team Gale. And then I want you to explain why.

Team Peeta! I think he is way better for Katniss, as he's calm and big-picture oriented to her more fiery and "what's in front of me" personality. Gale is too much like Katniss, and has too much of a temper to really work well with her, I think. Plus, I just love Peeta to death. ^_^ The way he works the media to his advantage is delicious, as are his baked goods.

For this fourth mini challenge, I want you to tell me which of the The Hunger Games or Catching Fire characters you are most like. They can either be main characters or characters that are rarely in the book. And then I want you to explain why they are like you.

I think I'm a lot like Gale (female!Gale, lol), actually, when I think about it. Practical, but I can also be very impulsive and I definitely have a temper, and I take care of my family.

For this fifth and last mini challenge of the day, I want you guys to pick one song that most sums up, either The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins or Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. Make sure you tell me the name of the song, the singer or band, and which book it sums up below in a comment.

"We Are" by Ana Johnsson
I think it could sum up either book, but probably Catching Fire more so.
It's kinda from the POV of the contestants, like Katniss and the older ones who are making an alliance to get out of the Quell, and also from the POV of the rebels, telling the Capitol how evil and despotic and bloody they are.

For this first challenge of the day, I want you to pick one actor who you think would be perfect for the role of Gale if there is to be a movie of The Hunger Games book. And then I want you to explain why.

Garrett Hedlund. I've seen him be fiery, charming, hilarious, and achingly sad, plus he's gorgeous and looks like Gale to me.

For this second challenge, I want you guys to chose one animal that would best represent Katniss and explain why you chose that animal for her.

Horse: strong, brave, loyal, and can be helpful in battle or in domestic life. ;)

There are always book covers that are similar to another books, or remind you of another book. So for this challenge, I want you guys to choose a book that has a cover that is either very similar to or reminds you of one of these three books: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, or Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. You need to list the name of the book, the author, which book cover it looks like or reminds you of (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, or Mockingjay), and why it reminds you or looks like the books.

The cover of "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner. W/o reading the book it reminded me of Hunger Games, because the arenas for the hunger games are very like mazes that you have to figure out to survive, and also the image of trees is like the two arenas we've mostly seen, in Hunger Games and Catching Fire.

Since you have already chosen which actor/actress would be played for Katniss, and Gale, I want you to tell me which actor you would like to play Peeta in The Hunger Games movie and then you need to explain why you chose that actor.

Max Thieriot. He looks physically like how I picture Peeta, and he has the wide-eyed, innocent "Why don't you love me" look down pat. ;)

For the fifth and last challenge of the day (Day 2)-I would like you to tell me if you like the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer or The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins better. This is one of those questions that people have different opinions on, so it will be interesting to see which one you like better. I also want you to explain why you like one series better than the other.

The Hunger Games! I don't like the Twilight series at all; I don't find the romance believable and I hate Bella Swann as a character. I have issues with Katness but I still like her way better, and the love triangle is also more believable considering the dystopian world. I also like Hunger Games better because of the world difference, period. I'm way more interested in dystopias than vampires and werewolves, sparkly or not.

Mockingjay Countdown!

There is a really awesome Mockingjay Countdown event going on over at Smitten With Books right now! There are five mini-challenges each day from today through Tuesday, I think, and completing challenges gives you entries to win awesome Hunger Games prizes! The challenges have been super fun so far. Soooo yeah you should go participate!

(sooooo excited for Mockingjay!)

Beauty by Robin McKinley

I read this book in one sitting, in about 4 hours (which includes a couple of potty breaks). If you look up the page count you can see what a slow reader I am. ;) But the important thing to note here, is that I almost never do one-sittings. Nevah! Even if I'm really into a book I will read it over a couple days, especially if it's longer than 200 pages. I can't really explain why I read this all at once, except to say that it's SNUGGLY.

As far as plot goes, it's a pretty straight-up rendition of the Beauty and Beast fairy tale (legend? myth? I don't know what this goes under), at least as far as I could tell. And no, I do not mean the Disney movie. Get out. This one has Beauty's sisters and non-crazy!father and wonderful brother-in-laws and invisible servants and the whole, "Oh yeah, Beauty likes roses" thing. ^_^ Seriously, Ger, I love you. Greatheart, the horse, did remind me a lot of the Disney!horse, Filippe, but I don't know what the source on that is.

The tone of the book is also very fairy-tale-ish, which could get a little too snooty at times, but I still liked it and thought it worked well since she was going straight with the story. It was funny because I had totally wrong preconceptions about the book; somehow I figured it was a newer rendition and by that I mean has a big twist on the original story. So I kept expecting something that never came. Kinda like when I wait for trains. Or the bus.

I really loved Beauty as well as her Beast. ^_^ He was completely adorkable. However, I think that lessened a lot of the tension in the story. I mean, the Beast is just a SUPER NICE GUY. After his initial "K GIVE ME YER DAUGHTER AND DIE WITH GUILT" temper tantrum, he's a complete gentleman to everyone, and was completely not-scary, despite the fact he's enormous and has giant, if retractable, claws. I like the Disney version in that the Beast has a temper and is not the best person until Belle gets to work on him. This Beast seems to have all his problems worked out (whatever they were in the first place, that was unclear) except for his emo tendencies.

I also thought the ending was wayyyy too happy, but again, that's kinda a trope of the fairy tale business unless you're doing one of those twisted versions that I kept expecting, so this might be a casualty of my own preconceptions again.

But besides those two things, yeah, this book was VERY entertaining and enjoyable and cute and all that rot. I loved ALL the characters, they were just too cute and/or jolly. Yes, jolly. So I guess I would recommend this book to people who don't mind a lot of happy fluff and not many surprises-unless you grew up in a cave and don't know the story at all. 4/5.

HUGE ARC GIVEAWAY

Carol's Prints is doing a HUGE ARC giveaway, including Paranormalcy by Kiersten White and Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, plus MANY OTHERS. Go! Be free! Sign up!

55 Quirky Questions for Readers

Meme from the Literary Lollipop! I love that name.

1. Favourite childhood book: The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, I guess. I have a lot! Little House on the Prairie, Big Bear's Book, Moog, Harriet the Spy.

2. What are you reading right now? The Book That Changed My Life ed. Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannessen

3. What books do you have on request at the library? Many debut novels. I'm most excited about Hex Hall, probably.

4. Bad book habit: Buying too many, too fast, and reading them too slow. :P

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library? The Book That Changed My Life, The Changeling Sea, and Beauty (read Beauty straight through last night).

6. Do you have an e-reader? Nope. I may get a Kindle someday.

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once? Depends. If I start one and am bored with it, I will start another one. Also, if I'm in school, there is really no limit.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog? Not really. My reading habits have changed from READING other people's blogs. ;)

9.Least favourite book you read this year: Hm. Blu's Hanging. Made me feel icky.

10. Favourite book I’ve read this year: YOU IMPOSSIBLE QUESTIONER. I'll just throw out The Blue Castle by LMM because I read it twice in a row. ;)

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone? 30-40%, because of school and YA recs.

12. What is your reading comfort zone? sci-fi, fantasy, children's, and old classics. I'm pretty PG-rated too.

13. Can you read on the bus? Yes.

14. Favourite place to read: A couch or a deck-chair.

15. What’s your policy on book lending? I rarely do it and only to close friends, unless I have duplicates for some reason.

16. Do you dogear your books? No. O.o

17. Do you write notes in the margins of your books? Sometimes for school. I do underline, if I'm in the mood.

18. Do you break/crack the spine of your books? I TRY NOT TO???? But actually, I usually read paperbacks, and it's pretty impossible to read a thick paperback without CREASING the spine.

19. What is your favourite language to read? English. I can only read Latin besides that. :P And that takes me 10 times as long.

20. What makes you love a book? The characters and/or the writing style/language.

21. What will inspire you to recommend a book? If it is amazing in every way and overlaps in several genres, or is ungenreable, OR if I know someone well enough that I know they will love it.

22. Favourite genre: Probably children's fantasy.

23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did): historical

24. Favourite Biography: OOO HARD GAME. I haven't read many. I liked Tom Shippey's Tolkien bio, but it wasn't really a bio...yeah fail. Fanny Crosby by Bonnie C. Harvey was good.

25. Have you ever read a self-help book? (And, was it actually helpful?) I've read a lot of writing self-help books. No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty is a fave. 7 Habits for Highly Effective Teens (or something) was pretty good but I didn't actually end up USING it to help myself. lol.

26. Favourite Cookbook: I've never spent enough time with one to have a fave. :P

27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction): Little Women, strangely. I really identified with Jo (I know, how original of me! But that's what makes it classic, I guess).

28. Favourite reading snack: Reese's pieces. :P

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience: Hunger Games almost....I had such high expectations that it was just difficult to be objective. I also wasn't a huge fan of Wicked Lovely, but I don't think I would have loved it even if there wasn't hype. So I dunno.

30. How often do you agree with the critics about about a book? I don't really read book critics, so I don't know. And book bloggers all have different opinions, so if they ALL love a book, it's usually something special.

31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews? lol I'm fine with it. I'm not really a "professional" book blogger reviewer person though.

32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you choose? Latin? I want to be fluent, really I do!

33. Most intimidating book I’ve read: The Historian. 900 pages of travel and art and research and a little bit of thrill.

34. Most intimidating book I’m too nervous to begin: Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

35. Favourite Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, maybe. Or Robert Frost?

36. How many books do you usually have checked out from the library at any given time? 1-3, or 1-8 if we include manga.

37. How often do you return books to the library unread? 1/3?

38. Favourite fictional character: Faramir? Elizabeth Bennet? Howl Jenkins? TOO HARD.

39. Favourite fictional villain: Darth Vader. We've been like this & ever since I was 5 or so.

40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation: Something lengthy, fictional, and what I hope to be an engaging read.

41. The longest I’ve gone without reading: No idea. I had issues last year, before the summer.

42. Name a book you could/would not finish: I can't think of one just now.

43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading? Sometimes music. TV/movies.

44. Favourite film adaptation of a novel: The Fellowship of the Ring, probably.

45. Most disappointing film adaptation: Eragon, because at the time I loved the books way more than I do now.

46. Most money I’ve ever spent in a bookstore at one time: $50

47. How often do you skim a book before reading it? If it's for school, probably.

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book halfway through? If the writing is sloppy, and/or if I don't care about ANY of the characters.

49. Do you like to keep your books organized? Yes, plz! Especially now that they all fit on my shelves.

50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once they’ve been read? Keep them, unless I hated it or don't plan on reading it again.

51. Are there any books that you’ve been avoiding? Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell, and The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan. They're super long.

52. Name a book that made you angry: Liar

53. A book I didn’t expect to like but did: Albatross by Josie Bloss

54. A book I expected to like but didn’t: Gifts by Ursula K Leguin

55. Favourite guilt-free guilty pleasure reading: Manga and Star Wars novels.

Fall Term Booklist

GREETINGS! This fall, as an English lit major, I'm taking an American novel course (that covers 20th and 21st c, I think) and an English novel course (that covers 19th c, I think). So, being a nerd, I'm going to share the titles and first sentences of all the books I'm going to be reading over the term.

American Novel:

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin: "I stand at the window of this great house in the south of France as night falls, the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life."

Monkey Bridge by Lan Cao: "The smell of blood, warm and wet, rose from the floor and settled into the solemn stillness of the hospital air."

The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich: "In the year 1896, my great-uncle, one of the first Catholic priests of aboriginal blood, put the call out to his parishioners that they should gather at Saint Joseph's wearing scapulars and holding missals."

The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner: "Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting."

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson: "Why is the measure of love loss?"

Yonnondio: From the Thirties by Tillie Olsen: "The whistles always woke Mazie."

English Novel:

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins: "In the first part of Robinson Crusoe, at page one hundred and twenty-nine, you will find it thus written: Now I saw, though too late, the Folly of beginning a Work before we count the Cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it.""

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light , it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-in short, the period was do far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

She by H. Rider Haggard: "There are some events of which each circumstance and surrounding detail seems to be graven on the memory in such a fashion that we cannot forget it, and so it is with the scene that I am about to describe."

Dracula by Bram Stoker: "Left Munich at 8.55 p.m. on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6.46, but train was an hour late."

What's your favorite of these first sentences? Which one would you possibly read for fun?

2 Questions: Hunger Games and Bookshelves

Okay, people, this is SRS BSNS. I have serious questions.

1. Does anyone else LOVE the Hunger Games books but loathe Katniss? AM I A HORRIBLE PERSON??? I keep reading all these reviews and blog posts anticipating Mockingjay, and they keep mentioning how incredibly smart and brave and wonderful Katniss is, and I keep being surprised by this.

Don't get me wrong, Katniss has skills. But she is not badass, and she is not that smart. I mean, she occasionally does all right in a life-threatening pinch, but it seems Haymitch, Peeta, and/or Cinna do the brainwork in her life. She just has to be pretty, get people to love her, and occasionally shoot people. She is very good at all of those things. And she obviously cares enough about the people in her life to risk her life for them.

I think the main thing about her that annoys me is her neediness and drama-llama tendencies. She continually uses Peeta and/or Gale to make her feel better (which makes sense, as she has a horrible life in a horrible world), she's continually bursting into tears or having emotional problems or angsting about all her problems for a whole chapter.

Catching Fire did make me understand Katniss a lot more. In the first book, I was just "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS GIRL" but in the second book it was a lot more clear that she is very scarred emotionally and mentally by her upbringing. She's so scared of having children that could be killed in the games that anything approaching commitment puts her off. Which just makes it easier for her to lead Peeta and Gale on.

I'm trying not to make this a hate-post, but honestly, I just can't like Katniss. I can empathize with her, and I hope she turns out okay. But I don't admire her much.

What about all of you? Do you agree with me? If you don't, what do you like most about Katniss?

2. Completely unrelated question/scenario. Imagine with me, for a moment, a bookshelf. Half of the shelves on this bookshelf are filled, and have two layers of books on each shelf (if you know what I mean....one layer in the back and another in front of them...the shelves are deep enough).

Then imagine with me a different bookshelf, on which all of the shelves are filled but only one layer deep. Which, to you, appears to have more books?

*waiting anxiously for Mockingjay*

Jane Austen Challenge

I am hereby accepting this challenge. I've already read most of Jane Austen's books, so I'm just going to go with the "Newbie" level for now:

**Newbie 2 books by J. Austen, 2 re-writes, prequels, sequels, or spoofs (by other authors)

Austen Challenge books I will read:

1. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

2. Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence

3. The Watsons by Jane Austen

4. Sanditon by Jane Austen

5. Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Find Hot British People! Win Books!

Stephanie Perkins is giving away an ARC of her book, Anna and the French Kiss, over at her blog. Go. Do it. Fight. WIN! Her book has been reviewed (favorably) by Maureen Johnson. THIS MAKES HER AWESOME. She is also friends with Kiersten White. MORE AWESOME.

One way to earn points (besides the usual) is to find her a picture of a Hot British Person. Here is mine:

(Benedict Cumberbatch)