Book 3 Review

Reading the same cliché things gets annoying after a while, unless you know which ones to read. After being able to read the final book to the Hunger Games trilogy Mocking Jay, written by Suzanne Collins, you come across a well written dystopian book with a hint of science fiction. Mocking Jay is truly a spontaneous book that will literally keep you on your toes. This book is very similar, but yet very different to the final book in the Matched trilogy Reached, written by Ally Condle. Reached is more of a dystopian book with much more science fiction added.

Reading both of these books, you find yourself in a different time period where the government has way too much control. In Reached you find yourself in a world very similar to how it is today, but with more provinces that distinguish your label. Reading Mocking Jay you find yourself in the ruins of the world in 12, well 13 districts that really have a voice of their own. Mocking Jay has many strong characters that lead you throughout the entire book, but only one truly has the credit, the Mocking Jay. Katniss is a very strong character that you can always relate to, from being stuck between two guys and having one of them taken away from you. Katniss loves both of them like a child loves their teddy bear. You really can’t pull her apart from either of them but eventually you know you’re going to have to let go. With Peeta taken by the Capital, all Katniss can do is suffer while her “cousin” Gale, does his best to comfort her. Gale even risks himself to go get Peeta back for her. “You know who else, Katniss. You know who stepped up first. Of course I do. Gale” (165 Collins).

            Reached is not far off with the whole love triangle thing where Cassia falls in love with her best friend Xander and ends up having the hots for Ky. Although Xander does everything in his power to keep Cassia safe, like saving a pledge for her just in case she isn’t in the Rising, she really doesn’t need it. Ky has everything under control. Cassia even sends all the notes to Ky while leaving Xander in the shadow.

            Mocking Jay and Reached are both very similar in plot because they are both about a girl who falls in love with two guys and they all have to get through the uprisings together and safe. In both stories the characters up rise against a government that they no longer agree with. While in Mocking Jay the rising was slow and steady paced, Reached showed a much different approach that when they had the chance, they took it and got control of the government in as little as hours.

            Something that I think, really connects both of these books is that fact that the main character relates back to a poem or a song that keeps them calm when all is in chaos. In Reached there’s a line in the poem that stands out to me, “Wind over hill, and under tree. Past the border no one can see.” The reason for this is because it leaves you hanging trying to figure out the meaning.

            Both of these novels had many strengths and weaknesses but only a few really stood out. In Mocking Jay something that really stood out was the way Collins had written this book. She was so descriptive in many things, like when she was describing all of the injured in District 8 when Katniss had gone to visit them. Something else was that Collins was very careful about what she wrote, not only did she write the essentials but she wrote things that were beyond what you needed, like how messed up someone’s face was, or the gore on someone’s injury. On the other hand something that did not stand out much was how she described District 13. I couldn’t really get a sense of what everything looked like and it was an annoying thing to not be able to imagine the plot. Condle’s writing also stood out to me in some good and not so good ways. Condle was very descriptive in her writing to where I could imagine everything she wrote, like “I paused for a moment at the edge of the field. It was silver grass and gray and black rubble” (66). Sometimes she described thing far too into detail to where it was boring. She started off the book in a weird fashion and ended up on a good note. At first reading it you’re a turtle that’s waiting to get across the street but towards the end you turn into a cheetah that sprints across to the end.

            I would give the plots, characters and the story itself to both of these books an A. They were well written and you could really feel the mood the author wanted you to feel in all the right spots.      

Book Talk Presentation

Book 2 Trailer

Blog Post #5

In order for a book to be considered I feel like it has to be completely true. I mean I think that at least the facts should be real, but if you mess up a word here and there on the quotes then I don’t think that would be too much of a problem. A non-fiction book I supposed to be a TRUE story, it has to have truth behind it and if someone wants to stretch their story then they can have their book be a realistic fiction rather than a non-fiction story. I just think that if an author is writing and decides they want to say they did all these things and make them look like a great person, or like a person who went through so many things to make people feel bad for them, and that’s not the true story, they aren’t being true to themselves. They are cheating their life story if they are saying all of these things that they didn’t do, writers so take pride in the things they have actually done rather than take pride in something that wasn’t them.

I do not think a “half-truth” story is ok, just for the main reason that, they are distributing false information. I think that if they want to do a half-truth story to just leave it at a realistic fiction place, and at the front write something like, “some parts of this story are based from real life experiences.” That would be, I think, a much better idea than writing something that isn’t all yours. Either write a half-truth or write a true story. I think Frey and Mortenson was a bit wrong in stretching the truth, I understand they want everyone to think they have gone through so much but isn’t their life story enough for them? If they would have been true to themselves in the story, they could have avoided so many problems for themselves.

I think that we should label things non-fiction just because if we don’t, no one will truly know the truth. Although right now, no one always knows the full truth but it is just better to read something that someone tried their best to write it truthfully, rather than purposely know it wasn’t true, and write it anyway.  

 

Catching Fire Adaptation

Catching Fire Adaptation

In Catching Fire a part that I think should definitely be kept when making the movie is when Katniss goes to Haymitchs house and she tries to wake him up, when she is in his house it describes how messy his house is, the smell of it, and how she opens the window to breathe. I think that should be in the movie because it shows how he has just let himself go in that time period from helping Peeta and Katniss during the Hunger Games. Also because it would just be cool to see how messy his house really was.

Another part is at the beginning when Katniss is talking to President Snow and she has a flash back of something that happened on day when Katniss and Gale were together. To me what happened (the kiss) should definitely be in the movie because it’s extremely cute and it’s the start to a love triangle. Now not only is it a sifi book with great action but a real love story where she actually starts to feel something for a guy, when its Peeta (the guy she has to convince everyone she loves) or Gale her hunting partner and best friend.

During the beginning of the book I think it would be important to show how strained Peeta and Katniss relationship is. The fact that during the Hunger Games they had to act like they were in love and when they come back they completely ignored on another’s presence. When they were inside Haymitchs house they barely made eye contact and they talked for the first time since they returned home. It would be important to keep this because it would show how hard it’s going to be for them to really fall in love, well for Katniss to fall in love with him because she doesn’t want to.

            Something I would take away from the book is the fact that Katniss and Gale only see each other on Sundays. In the movie I think I’d make them see each other a little bit more often than in the book. Although not seeing each other much would create passion to see one another but I think if they see each other a bit more, maybe they will grow as close as they were before Katniss left for the games. I want them to be close and fall in love with each other. (:

Book Project #1

  

Something I would do to extend Gone Girl’s fan experience would be to create a scavenger hunt. The reason I think making a scavenger hunt will extend the experience is because Amy (the gone girl) created a scavenger hunt for hers and Nick’s, wedding anniversary. I would use the scavenger hunt she made because that’s when she went missing. I would have all the fans that are participating, read the notes that she wrote and go to all the places she went before she went missing. This way the fans have a chance to go everywhere and investigate what they think really happened. “I opened it as gingerly as if a head might be inside. I found only a creamy blue envelope marked FIRST CLUE” (page 73 Flynn). I would do something like this to the fans of the book and let them read the clues and find out for themselves everything about the clue and where she went next. They would have the experience to be surprised with what Amy had to say in her scavenger hunt and how well their marriage actually was in order to see if Nick would really be a suspect to killing his wife. I think making the scavenger hunt could be exciting and mysterious because you would never know where Amy went before she died.

 

 Another thing I really would like to do is make the fans into detectives and get a chance to investigate everything, like go to the places they think she might be (where Nick was in the morning she went missing) or interview the people they think were involved. The fans as detectives could decide if they think weather or not Nick killed his wife because he seemed to be lying a lot, “This was my eleventh lie” (47 Flynn). Nick had been questioned over and over again until one day things came into view in their house and they found Amy’s blood all over the floor and soon everything turned into a murder investigation. The fans would go into a full blown project to see if he did it because even his sister, Go, seemed to think that her own brother killed Amy, she started to question it because on page 200 Go says, “Since Amy has disappeared, all you’ve done is lie.” I think it would be fun to leave it up to the fans to go on a journey and figure out if Nick killed his wife, now that he is a prime suspect.

 

The reason I want to do this is because it was my favorite part, going through the journey to find Amy. I think that because it was my favorite part that maybe it was other peoples too and they might want to experience the book themselves, more so than reading the book. In the book there were a lot of places where they interacted with other people and went to a lot of places, like when they all went to different parks to see if Amy could be there and when they interrogated people like her parents and especially her husband Nick. This part of the scavenger hunt would maybe be for the people who had a hard time understanding the book or maybe people who haven’t read the book because then they would be able to go through the experience without knowing what actually happened. For people who have read the book maybe all they’d want to do would be to go to the places Amy was searched for and the places they thought she would be.

 

 I think this idea would work because it’s basically the beginning of the book that they look for Amy and investigate everything, and making a scavenger hunt or letting people try to investigate it themselves could be really interesting and exciting. I also think it would work because who wouldn’t want to be involved with their book? This idea encourages people to stay connected to the author because it’s a fun activity to go along with that could help understand the reading or just let you be a part of the authors work. I think this could broaden the audience because some people are interested in mysteries but maybe don’t know this book and with some activates that go along with the book could help people become interested and make them want to read the authors next book.          

 

What is a book?

            To me a book at a whole other world. It’s something you can turn to when you want to escape the real world. A book to me has to be something you can’t just download on the internet whenever you want, you have to be able to go out and buy it from a store. I have to have a physical book in my hands to be able to read and pay attention to what I read. If I have a Nook or a Kindle I feel like what I’m reading isn’t true, it feels like every other thing you can just read on the internet. It’s not the same as reading in a book than being able to read it online. To me it just feels like I’m cheating the book world by turning to an electronic device. I have to be able to feel the pages of the book, the weight of the book on my hands I can’t just hold a small device and believe it’s a real book. I have to be able to turn the page of my book to believe it’s a book, and I don’t consider sliding the page to work. A book is a small object that has importance and can be passed down generation to generation, I mean how long is it going to be before Nooks and Kindles go “out of style” and you no longer have those books. Think about it, would you like to have a physical copy of a book for as long as you want or just have it until your device is popular? Having a book is like having another life in your hands because it truly is a whole different experience. A book to me just has to be something I can feel a connection with for as long as I can, because a good book never goes out of style. A book is physical not digital.