29 September 2012

Shut Out by Kody Keplinger

Every high school has a rivalry. Usually, the rivalry is with another school, but Hamilton High's big rivalry is between their own Football and Soccer teams. After having yet another parking session with her Quarterback boyfriend ruined by a soccer player, Lissa Daniels starts thinking about ways to end the rivalry going far enough to beg her boyfriend to be involved in the rivalry anymore. Randy promises not to take part in an act against the soccer team, but breaks his promise to Lissa. The final straw for Lissa is her boyfriend's hasty departure after "makeup"sex to go fight with the soccer team.
She gets together with the rest of the football girlfriends (and Chloe, the football groupie with benefits?) and her ex-best friend, Ellen, the girlfriend of the captain of the soccer team. When the girls get together, Lissa gives them a radical plan. No sex or sexual activity with their boyfriends until the war between the two groups ends. When the girls swear on the pages of Cosmo, the boys have no idea what they are about to be up against.

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Kody Keplinger brings a new twist to a very old play. Lysistrata by Aristophanes was about the women of Sparta and Athens during the Peloponnesian War. Much like the girls in Shut Out Lysistrata and her friends are tired of the war and their men being called away from home to fight it.

I love how Kody Keplinger has taken an Ancient Greek play and turned it into an interesting and great read for teens of today. As I was reading the book  I kept thinking about reading Lysistrata in college and how this one was much more relate-able to her readers.




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27 September 2012

Bloggiesta

I am really excited to get back into blogging and I had a lot of fun doing bloggiesta a few years ago. This year its being co-hosted by It's All about Books and There's a Book. I can't wait!

29 March 2012

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and why I HATED it.

I Hate The Hunger Games.  Did I get your attention? I'm not afraid of the thousands (millions) of teens and adults who have loved the book since it first came out in 2008. I'm not afraid of the millions of people who saw the movie already (which I promise I will not be seeing). I'm not afraid of the beloved author being mad at me if she ever reads this. I have to be honest and true to me. I hated that book.

While I will say that Suzanne Collins wrote a brilliant novel that I could not put down, I still hated the book. I hated that I couldn't put the thing down, I hated that I kept wanting to read, I hated the whole thing.

I just read The Hunger Games  for the first time last week, and I only read it because everyone told me I had to read it. So after weeks of agonizing over it, I finally spotted a paperback copy on the shelf, checked it out and started reading it.

For those of you who don't know what The Hunger Games is about, it set in a dystopian country called Panem, which is a future United States, just a little smaller. In this country, there is a yearly "Reaping" where the names of every child between the ages of 12 and 18 are entered into big bowls. Two names are chosen from each of the 12 districts of the country- one boy and one girl- to fight to the death in an areana for all the nation to watch. These children fight to the death because of a rebellion against the Capitol that ended wipping out a 13th district. To keep the other districts from rebelling, the Capitol has to show its control and what better way than by killing the children.

The first tears fell at the end of chapter one. The end of the very first chapter I started crying. Even though I KNEW what was going to happen, the trailers for the movie that had been floating around every major television market in North America and half of the cable networks (Food Network, thank-you for not showing movie trailers!) told me what was going to happen so early on, I was still angry and devestated to see Primrose Everdeen called.

I found myself growing angrier and more upset as training went on, as the 24 tributes were introduced, as each adult who had lived their lives never being called to fight to the death for food did NOTHING to stop the madness. As people in the capitol were celebrating children being led to the slaughter and as little Rue was doomed to fail. . . and I felt no different from all of them. What was I doing, I was reading a novel about children being sent to fight to the DEATH in a competition made for television that everyone had to watch. I felt no better than the people who bet on different tribute to win. I was rooting for Katniss the whole time, knowing 23 other children would have to die for her to win. I rooted for Katniss, knowing that a 12 year old would have to die in order for her to win.

I want to reiterate, I think Suzanne Collins did an AMAZING job with the book. She produced a well written work of art that has encouraged thousands of teens to continue reading. She also made me think and gave me nightmares for a week. I woke up each night last week praying ferevently to God that He would not let this sort of the thing occor in the future.

Even though I HATE this book, I still must give it
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While I have no intentions of EVER reading it again or seeing the movie, it was well written and thought provoking.

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