Plain Kate - Erin Bow

Title: Plain Kate
Author: Erin Bow
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), 2010 (Hardcover)
Length: 311 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Fantasy
Started: September 2, 2010
Finished: September 5, 2010

Summary:
From the inside cover:
Plain Kate lives in a world of superstitions and curses, where a song can heal a wound and a shadow can work deep magic. As the wood-carver’s daughter, Kate held a carving knife before a spoon, and her wooden talismans are so fine that some even call her “witch-blade”: a dangerous nickname in a country where witches are hunted and burned in the square.

For Kate and her village have fallen on hard times. Kate’s father has died, leaving her alone in the world. And a mysterious fog now covers the countryside, ruining crops and spreading fear of hunger and sickness. The townspeople are looking for someone to blame, and their eyes have fallen on Kate.

Enter Linay, a stranger with a proposition: In exchange for her shadow, he’ll give Kate the means to escape the angry town, and what’s more, he’ll grant her heart’s wish. It’s a chance for her to start over, to find a home, a family, a place to belong. But Kate soon realizes she can’t live shadowless forever — and that Linay’s designs are darker than she ever dreamed.

Review:
Plain Kate is a YA book that was heavily profiled at BEA (Book Expo America) back in May, but since I didn't get to go, I'll continue to be jealous of everyone that went and received signed advanced reader copies and got to meet the author in person. Plain Kate came recommended for a reason: it's well written, tugs on the heartstrings, and has probably the best talking cat I've ever seen in children's/YA literature. The fact that the author is Canadian and lives someplace other than Toronto is a pretty nice bonus as well.

Plain Kate takes place in a medieval Russian countryside setting complete with witch burnings. Katerina Svetlana (called Plain Kate), lives with her wood carver father in the village of Samilae. All she wants is to become her father's apprentice, but when her father dies and leaves her all alone, she must learn to survive in a town that believes she is a witch because they think her amazing ability as a carver can't possibly be natural. Years later when Plain Kate decides she must flee the town for her own safety, a witch named Linay offers her her heart's desire (which ends up being the gift of speech for her cat Taggle) in return for her shadow. Knowing the lack of a shadow will make people target her even more, Plain Kate travels in search of a place to belong. Along the way she becomes tangled up Linay's plans for revenge.

Kate starts out very vulnerable and weak. She's driven out of her town, essentially used by Linay, nearly killed by the Roamers she stays with, and nearly killed again as a direct result of Linay's plan. She has no reason to care about what happens to anybody, they thought her a witch and tried to kill her, or tried to burn her for the same reason. If I were Kate, I'd probably say "the hell with all you guys, I'm outta here". But Kate sees that the only way to combat fear is to love, that there is good in the world that deserves saving despite the fact that the general populace probably could benefit some smacking around by a witch. I love how little by little the "plain" part of Kate's nickname gets used less and less to coincide with her increasing strength as an individual.

The book is written like someone's telling you a fairy tale, which is a style I quite enjoy. I loved all the characters, though for various reasons. Taggle was amazing, he really is the best talking cat character I've seen in books, and there's quite a few out there. The author got the general cat personality so perfectly that Taggle's voice could be the monologue of any cat...and I'm sure if the cat owners I know read this book, they'd agree with me. Kate is very realistic and likable as a female lead despite all the crap she goes through, and she never gets whiny (thank you, gods of printed material for a heroine I don't want to smack upside the head). Linay is wonderfully multi-dimensional as the antagonist, you truly feel for him by the end and actually sympathize with him. I also liked Linay's complicated relationship with Kate, how he cares for her but still uses her at the same time to put his master plan into action. The Roamers I wasn't as fond of, mostly because I see their treatment of Kate as most unforgivable, considering their experience with witch burnings you'd think they'd be a little less likely to point fingers.

General things I loved: the Russian atmosphere, the lack of romance (this proves you don't need a stupid love triangle to tell a successful YA story), the use of plain ol' witches as opposed to vampires, werewolves, fairies, shape-shifters, etc. I would've appreciated the inclusion of a glossary due to some of the specialized vocabulary, but I made due without one.

Recommendation:
If you're looking for a fresh, different take on the typical YA fantasy novel that's beautifully written with some great themes, read this!

Thoughts on the cover:
Gorgeous. I love the colour scheme, the browns and yellows with the turquoise accents. The image is pretty with Kate and Taggle on the rooftops, and unique compared to the typical YA covers I've seen recently (images of girls with the tops of their faces cut off holding a glowing piece of jewelry). At first I thought Kate was looking out towards the reader, but upon closer inspection the opposite was true: Kate's back is to the reader looking out over the city balancing on the roof.

Library Wars: Love and War Volume 2 - Kiiro Yumi

Title: Library Wars: Love and War Volume 2
Author: Kiiro Yumi (original concept by Hiro Arikawa)
Publisher: Viz, 2010 (Paperback)
Length: 190 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Manga, Graphic Novel
Started: September 1, 2010
Finished: September 1, 2010

Summary:
From the back cover:
In the near future, the federal government creates a committee to rid society of books it deems unsuitable. The libraries vow to protect their collections, and with the help of local governments, form a military group to defend themselves---the Library Forces! When the director of the Kanto Library Base gets sick, a temporary replacement is assigned, according to regulations. But Iku and her roommate Asako discover a trail of missing books that leads back to the temporary director. Has he betrayed everything the Library Forces stand for and handed books over to the enemy?!

Review:
Army librarians yet again! I think this is officially my guilty pleasure series, I love it so much. The same things from volume 1 are here in volume 2: the funny bickering between Iku and Dojo, the friendly rivalry between Iku and Tezuka, and the whole censorship theme. Now that the characters and the plot are established, this volume examines some deeper political issues: the temporary director being in cahoots with the MBC to dispose of library copies of banned books, and the police force wanting the library to break privacy laws in order to expose a murderer's library account. Iku's still pretty naive about things and her black and white views of right and wrong cause everyone else around her to sigh in frustration, but that's Iku for you. Her rash behaviour causes Dojo to go in and "save her" from making things worse for the library forces... so cliche, but darn it if it isn't cute.

Recommendation:
Again, all book lovers should read this series, so much fun.

Thoughts on the cover:
Yay for cover continuity! Using the original Japanese cover image, plus keeping with the red accent colour from volume 1.

Bakuman Volume 1 - Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata

Title: Bakuman Volume 1
Author: Tsugumi Ohba (Art by Takeshi Obata)
Publisher: Viz, 2010 (Paperback)
Length: 200 pages
Genre: Young Adult: Manga, Graphic Novel
Started: September 1, 2010
Finished: September 1, 2010

Summary:
From the back of the book:

Is becoming a successful manga artist an achievable dream or just one big gamble?

Average student Moritaka Mashiro enjoys drawing for fun. When his classmate and aspiring writer Akito Takagi discovers his talent, he begs Moritaka to team up with him as a manga-creating duo. But what exactly does it take to make it in the manga-publishing world? Moritaka is hesitant to seriously consider Akito's proposal because he knows how difficult reaching the professional level can be. Still, encouragement from persistant Akito and motivation from his crush push Moritaka to test his limits.

Review:
I don't read as much manga (or graphic novels in general) as I used to. There used to be about 10 series I was following, but then a combination of being out of the loop and realizing that with manga, like many things in life, "90% of everything is crap", I didn't read as much. This series was profiled in the English version of Shonen Jump magazine, which I have no idea why I still read since I hate half the titles in it, but this series caught my eye.

Moritaka Mashiro is in grade 9 and has a talent for art and drawing, but has since given up his dream of being a manga artist since his uncle (an unsuccessful manga artist) passed away years ago. He's resigned himself to study hard, get into a good high school and college and just be an ordinary businessman like the majority of all other Japanese males. One day, Akito, one of the smartest guys in the school, comes to him with a proposition: they team up to create manga, Moritaka doing the art and Akito doing the writing. Moritaka is reluctant considering he learned everything about the manga industry from his late uncle, and he knows how hard it is to make a living off drawing manga. Akito then drags him to the house of the girl Moritaka has a crush on and confesses to her that the two of them are going to be manga creators, and that Akito thought she would want to know since he found out that she wants to be a voice actress. Moritaka, in his love-induced shock at finding out this girl he secretly loves wants to pursue an unrealistic career like he secretly wants to, asks Miho if she wants to do a voice in the chance that their manga gets animated. He then follows up with a marriage proposal if both of them achieve their respective dreams. She agrees. So motivated by the premise of true love and marriage to his dream girl if he can only become a manga artist, Moritaka and Akito go about writing stories, doing storyboards, and working like dogs in general to get a finished preview dropped off to major manga publishers.

This series is uber cheesy like most manga, the young protagonists pursuing their dreams and an agreement to eventual marriage by a cute girl seals the deal. But it's kinda refreshing too, it's a slice of life series rather than a typical boys series: swords, fighting, and magic powers. It's kind of educational too, I learned a lot about the manga industry that I hadn't known before. And since the author/creator of this series know what they're talking about (they wrote and drew Death Note), I'm inclined to trust the info here. Since the boys in the story take the roles of writer and artist just like the creators of the manga itself, it has the whole "story about a story" vibe.

There's one thing about this manga I dislike, but there's a few things you should understand first. This was originally created in Japan as a boy's manga, so it was serialized in a manga magazine (Shonen Jump) targeted at boys but also read by girls. Japan is still pretty backward when it comes to gender roles: girls are generally taught to finish school to go work in a company, but then are expected to get married by their mid twenties and stop working to stay home and do the stereotypical female stuff like raising a family. It's acceptable for women to return to work after their children are grown, so many women miss 25+ years in the workplace because of that. In chapter 2 in this volume, the boys get into a discussion about what makes a person dumb or smart. Akito says he thinks Miho is smarter than him even though her marks are average. Akito then tells Moritaka that since Miho is a girl she knows that she must be polite and graceful without being too smart or showing off, because she knows that as a girl its best to get married and be somebody's wife and she won't land a husband/be popular with boys if she's too outwardly smart. He says because she knows this instinctively and goes about these things effortlessly, it makes her smarter than the girl in the class that gets the best grades and takes pride in it. Although this mindset is common in Japan and it's accepted there and girls actually do do the things Akito talks about, it's not the same here. Although there are some boys that don't want to date/marry girls who are smarter than them or smart at all, there are plenty of people that are the opposite. I just think that this leads to one of those patented "teaching moments" for both boys and girls. Ask your kids what they think of Akito's comments and whether they think that girls who get good grades are somehow diminishing their dating prospects. To give my own little backstory: there were plenty of girls I went to school with who deliberately did poorly in school because they wanted to be popular with boys. I on the other hand was competitive and wanted to get better grades than the boys I went to school with, and my parents were fine with that. Thankfully I went to university and there were plenty of guys who wanted to end up with a woman they could have a serious conversation with, including my husband, hence why this little gender episode irks me just a tad...

Recommendation:
I really like this series, it's fun, different than the usual shonen fare, plus it's about manga itself. Use the little gender stereotype bit in chapter two to have a conversation about attitudes towards gender in different countries.

Thoughts on the cover:
The English cover is the same as the original Japanese cover, though I like the slight difference in the title font that the English cover uses (note: cover image for this review is of the Japanese cover since it's the only decent picture I could find).

East - Edith Pattou

Title: East
Author: Edith Pattou
Publisher: Harcourt, 2005 (Paperback)
Length: 494 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Fairy Tale
Started: August 25, 2010
Finished: August 29, 2010

Summary:
From the back of the book:
Rose has always been different. Since the day she was born, it was clear she had a special fate. Her superstitious mother keeps the unusual circumstances of Rose's birth a secret, hoping to prevent her adventurous daughter from leaving home...but she can't suppress Rose's true nature forever. So when an enormous white bear shows up one cold autumn evening and asks teenage Rose to come away with him-in exchange for health and prosperity for her ailing family-she readily agrees. Rose travels on the bear's broad back to a distant and empty castle, where she is nightly joined by a mysterious stranger. In discovering his identity, she loses her heart-and finds her purpose-and realizes her journey has only just begun.

Review:
I'm a big fan of fairy tale retellings, and since I've read most of the Beauty and the Beast retellings out there, I thought I'd move to another favourite: East of the Sun, West of the Moon. The original fairy tale goes as such (my very rough version): girl meets bear, girl goes to castle with bear, girl discovers bear is really a man under an enchantment, girl goes on long journey to rescue bear-man from a troll princess/queen who put him under the enchantment to begin with. I always liked the story because the girl has to be ingenious to go about rescuing the prince rather than the other way around, and like Beauty and the Beast, there's a lot of material to work with as far as retellings go. I've already read Ice by Sarah Beth Durst, so I'll be comparing the two at certain points.

I loved East because of Rose, the narrative, and the plot. Rose was a wonderful heroine, strong, spunky, loyal etc. (all those good traits), so I cared about her and liked her right away. The author structures the story as a string of different first-person perspective entries: Rose, Rose's Father, Neddy (Rose's brother), The White Bear, and the Troll Queen. Most people probably would be apprehensive about this structure, but the author did an amazing job of keeping the voices of all the characters separate and unique so they didn't sound the same but flowed well together. She was also good at making sure you got just enough from each character at a time without overdoing it (except for Rose since she's the main character so she gets more screen time, as it were). I kind of wish we got to know the White Bear better, but more on that later. As for the plot, I'm not a big fan of the whole journey motif, they usually get insanely boring and I usually view them as a detriment to the plot rather than enhancing the plot. Luckily, East doesn't suffer from this; at all the stages of her journey, Rose meets her helper characters and they're all interesting and enhance the plot in their own way. I especially liked Thor and Tuki ^_^ The journey takes up a large portion of the book (about half), so I was pleased that I didn't even notice the book's length (almost 500 pages) while I was reading. Everything was so smooth and seamless, nothing dragged, which was the opposite of what I was expecting. The theme of the compass and cardinal directions was a nice touch too, it kept popping up with all the traveling references (and since it's 15th century Norway, a compass is all they've got) as well as the superstitions of Rose's birth.

The only thing I didn't like about East was what I felt to be a lack of development of the romance and the character of the White Bear himself. He gets the odd section to himself, but most of them are written in poetry rather than prose, so we get a very limited view of his personality and what he's thinking of. There was mention of his animalistic side warring with his human side, possibly winning over in the girls he tried to have break his curse before Rose...did he eat them or what? This is the character-building stuff I'd like to know. In traditional fairy tales you never question why the characters love each other, you go with the flow and what's stated is fact, mostly because the stories are so short. In a fairy tale retelling, I expect some good romantic development; I mean, c'mon, in 500 pages they couldn't delve a little more into why Rose and the White Bear love each other beyond keeping up their end of the bargain they entered into? Ice covered this area nicely, but suffered in other areas (namely the plot and character development in the second half). I'm convinced that if you took the background concept of Ice together with its romantic development and put it together with the plot of East, you'd have an awesome East of the Sun, West of the Moon retelling. I have some more of said retellings on the way, so I'll have some more to compare to in due time. Hopefully I'll find a version I really like that doesn't suffer from one glaring fault.

Recommendation:
Excellent example of a well-done fairy tale retelling. If the romance had been handled better, that would've given it the extra push into extraordinary, but oh well, you can't have everything you want in a book.

Thoughts on the cover:
It's okay but not stunning. I do like the way the title font blends in with the cover image so you don't see a stark difference between the image and the font.

Keturah and Lord Death - Martine Leavitt

Title: Keturah and Lord Death
Author: Martine Leavitt
Publisher: Red Deer Press (Fitzhnenry & Whiteside), 2006 (Paperback)
Length: 200 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Fairy Tale, Fantasy
Started: August 25, 2010
Finished: August 26, 2010

Summary:
From the publisher's website:
Keturah Reeve is a beautiful young woman of sixteen who lives with her grandmother in a cottage near the forest owned by Lord Temsland. Keturah is renowned in the village for her captivating storytelling, and this beautifully woven novel is a response to a request from Keturah's eager audience for yet another of her fascinating tales. She tells of her experience of being lost in the forest, her eventual meeting with a dark figure on horseback who is Lord Death and her bargaining with him for her life-and for the lives of the villagers who are threatened by an onset of the plague.

With its richly textured medieval setting, Keturah's story exposes the tensions and desires of the villagers, the dangers that loom in their future and how they place Keturah's life in jeopardy. Keturah's escalating bargains with Lord Death allow her to protect her friends and reveal to them their true talents and destinies. But even as she negotiates with Death, she becomes more isolated from the people she is seeking to protect and seems less and less likely to achieve the dreams of her own heart.

The startling resolution of the novel confirms Martine Leavitt's reputation as a treasure of a writer, a storyteller who can weave magnificent spells. Leavitt confronts readers with issues and revelations that, while they occur in a setting far from their own experience, bear the intimacy of next door.

Review:
This book confuses me somewhat, but I know I like it.

Keturah is the village storyteller in a medieval England setting and narrates the tale in the novel around the village campfire, sort of a story within a story. Keturah follows a stag into the forest near her home and gets lost. After three days she is aware she will die, and meets Lord Death. A brooding, lonely man on horseback, she finds Lord Death not all she expected him to be. He is enchanted by her and in exchange for a story, he gives her one more day to live and find her true love, and if she cannot she must finish the story and become his queen. This is complicated further by the fact that Lord Death tells Keturah that plague is coming to her village, so she becomes a Scheherazade of sorts, extending the story night by night, playing on Lord Death's love for her and asking to live one more day so as to save her village and find her true love at the same time. It's a wonderfully written tale with a lot of depth if you choose to read into it.

The writing feels like an old fashioned fairy tale, and the dialogue reads like out of one too, which was cool for me. Keturah is clever and admirable and isn't afraid to speak up, especially considering her life is on the line. Lord Death is an interesting character to say the least, flawed and vulnerable, and shows that he does actually love Keturah considering what he does for her. The secondary characters are nice additions to bulk up the story, they play on typical medieval characters and are likable too.

Here there be Spoilers!
The thing that confuses me is the ending combined with the beginning. In the end, Keturah realizes that only in the presence of Death did she truly love her life, and that she was meant to be his companion. I don't have a beef with who she chose, I quite liked that part of the story since it was the opposite of what I expected to happen and it still felt right. What confused me was that since the prologue has Keturah telling this whole story at the village campfire, it didn't really happen then, did it? So then, is the story supposed to be a metaphor of how Keturah accepts that she must eventually die by accepting Lord Death as a lover? I got so caught up in the story that I forgot that Keturah wasn't telling it as it happened, which is easy to do since all the names of the characters are the same as the people she's entertaining at the campfire, so you know these people can't be listening to the story while getting married to each other at the same time.

Recommendation:
I loved this book, even the ending, which some readers might have issues with. It would be interesting to assign this for an English class and see how everyone interprets it.

Thoughts on the cover:


The paperback copy I read has a different cover than the original hardcover. In the paperback copy, the cover depicts Keturah in red off to the right, and you almost don't even see Lord Death in black off to the left because he blends into the trees between them, it's appropriate considering how he is there yet not there in the story. The hardcover copy has Keturah and Lord Death embracing and kissing. I like this one because Lord Death's face is obscured, versus the paperback where you see more of his face but still not enough to really see him.

Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

Title: Mockingjay (Book 3 in The Hunger Games trilogy)
Author: Suzanne Collins
Publisher: Scholastic, 2010 (Hardcover)
Length: 390 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Dystopian Fiction, Science Fiction
Started: August 24, 2010
Finished: August 24, 2010

Summary:
From the inside cover:
Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss' family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans-except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss' willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay-no matter what the personal cost.

Review:
Okay, since this is Mockingjay, I'll approach this review in two parts: one without spoilers, and one with. I was going to initially do the review without any spoilers, but after reading to the last page, I couldn't let this post go by without expressing thoughts over how things turned out, this book has drawn out so many varied emotions...like looking back on your life and realizing when you lost your innocence.

Okay, so this part is spoiler-free, nothing you wouldn't know from reading the above summary or the first chapter. I promise. I'll give you lots of obvious notice when the spoilers will come into play.

The book opens with Katniss walking around the ruins of District 12 after being rescued by the rebels and District 13. She describes the treatments she underwent to recover from her injuries in the Quarter Quell and the state of things: Her family and Gale's are safe, Peeta is in the hands of the Capitol, and the officials of District 13 want her to officially embrace the role of the Mockingjay and incite the rebellion in the remaining districts where they have not yet overthrown Capitol forces. Katniss is mentally unbalanced and feeling betrayed, I don't blame her, so she initially resists what they want her to do. But when she realizes that she has a chance of bringing Peeta back alive if she assists the rebellion, she agrees. She becomes the poster girl of the rebellion, just like she was a pawn in the Hunger Games, so the similarities are funny but sad at the same time. I can't give away too much more without going into spoiler territory, but I can name some things that came to mind as I was reading: deceit, lies, cruelty, soul-crushing decisions, and despair.

This final installment is, to say the least, an experience to read. It has a completely different tone from the first two books, and simply because of that I'm going to say it is the best volume. I didn't think it was possible to top the previous volumes in terms of content and voice, but the author does it, and man, she is not afraid to pull the hard punches. I'm really going to miss this series now that it's officially done, but I'm going to go a step further and say that the whole trilogy should be required reading for high school English classes, simply because of the themes and lessons it teaches...plus the fact that it's one of the best YA titles to come along in years doesn't hurt either.



Okay, so now on to the spoiler part, so please don't read what's below unless you've already read all three books or you just want to have everything spoiled for you.


Once more: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!!!


Okay, on to the spoiler part of the review. Good lord, my first impression was that this book was so, oh so bleak and depressing. Katniss spends most of it in a morphine-induced, nightmare-filled existence, there are so many deaths, and the rebellion turns out to be no better than the Capitol they're trying to displace. Once you get past the first two parts you realize this book isn't going to have a clean ending so to speak, and I kept waiting for the hopeful part that I myself hoped was there somewhere, and I didn't feel any hope at all until the last twenty pages or so.

Very bleak.

I felt angry, not to mention sad at this kind of portrayal, even though this series has dealt with children killing children, horrible governments and the like, there was always some hope....Katniss and Peeta survive their first Hunger Games, the rebellion rescues them from the arena the second time, their families were safe...Mockingjay pulls out all the safeties you thought you had.

Gale turns into a really cruel bastard (I did not see that coming), Peeta gets brainwashed and turns insanely mean, Katniss herself votes to allow captured Capitol children to participate in one final Hunger Games, Prim is killed at the hands of the rebels, and Katniss' own mother essentially abandons her eternally damaged daughter. And that's not even scratching the surface of the cruel crap that goes on, there really are no words for it.

But then I realized what the author was trying to write about: the true effects of war and exactly what it does to people. War is bleak: people die, the survivors have nightmares that they can't escape, and the things you witness are truly ghastly. There is no perfect government, everyone is capable of committing horrendous acts no matter what they claim to want for the good of their people, and Katniss realizes this when she clues into the fact that District 13 and President Coin killed that group of children, including Prim. But what Katniss does realize is, I think, what allows most of us to live with ourselves: that the world will never be perfect and it can be falling down around you, but you need to be able to make peace with yourself and what you've done. That you can obsess over all the bad things, but if you take stock of all the good things, it keeps your hope alive and prevents you from turning into a walking ball of darkness. Katniss has this with Peeta, he represented hope for her, and the fact that she bears his children is proof of that, because everyone knows she didn't want to bring children into a world of the Games.

okay, off my deep-thought sentimental train, cause that train's put me through the ringer tonight, on to random stuff:

- She ended up with Peeta! Ha! I was right ^__^
- I loved the analogy that Katniss used to describe Gale and Peeta and why she made the decision she did (dandelion versus flame)
- loved Castor and Pollux purely for the myth reference...this is from a family that named their dog "Freya" and their computers "Castor" and "Pollux"
- I actually cried once I realized Cinna was actually dead and had no chance of coming back, it was actually hard to read the references to his costumes knowing that that's the only time his name would be mentioned
- loved the hanging tree song, I could actually sing the melody in my head and it came together rather well, unlike Rue's song which I couldn't sing off the top of my head cause the words didn't flow in any melody I could piece together
- the scene with Katniss and Pollux and the mockingjays singing the hanging tree song is one I cannot wait to see filmed well...truly beautiful
- Crazy Cat game = laughs
- loved the "Real or Not Real" game Peeta plays with the others, especially the question he asks Katniss at the end of the book, probably one of the only "awww!" moments of the book
- we finally are why President Snow smells of blood and roses, and it just reinforces that he is one sick bastard
- by the end, Katniss literally is the "girl on fire"
- liked that Prim actually got some character development before she was killed off
- wished Katniss and Peeta's kids had names...
- really really wanted a map of Panem, but looks like we'll never get one -_-
- we finally find out what the heck District 2 does!



Spoiler section complete!



Recommendation:
Just read the whole series if you haven't already, trust me, this is mindset-changing, thought provoking material. Keep in mind, this does get very bleak towards the end, so I'd probably not give this to kids younger than high school age unless you want them to become cynical very fast and lose their innocence via book series.

Thoughts on the cover:
All the covers flow in terms of colours and elements, the mockingjay evolves from a pin to an actual bird breaking free of its constraints. Mockingjay is done in a nice shade of blue, and is shiny like Catching Fire's cover was. I also liked how texture was used on the mockingjay image, I kept running my fingers over it.

Mockingjay Midnight Release Party!

All the gear-up for Monday night was well worth it, the Mockingjay midnight release party was well done and uber fun to boot ^_^ First off, I have to say that the staff at Chapters Burlington (my local store) did an amazing job in organizing and executing this event. Everyone was enthusiastic and in costume (they'd get props from me just for going in costume), and everything was handled wonderfully, my nephew and I were out within minutes of midnight, yay for efficiency!

After arriving at 10pm, we were greeted by staff in costume and directed to the central table to pick up our survival passport to sign and take to each of the stations to get stamped. All the completed passports were eligible for a draw to win the first copy of Mockingjay, complete with a signed bookplate by the author! This is significant because the author (Suzanne Collins) has a hand injury and doesn't autograph her books normally (she uses a pre-made signature stamp), but as a special promo for Mockingjay, she personally hand signed numerous book plates (stickers) and one was sent with every event kit that the bookstores having a midnight release party received. Of course neither me or my nephew won it, a lucky girl did, I just hope she realizes the significance of how lucky she was to win that ^^;

Anywhoo, so we went from station to station, starting with Peeta's Bakery where we got to decorate cupcakes. My nephew was looking forward to this the most, so we went there first. Sadly, there was no stamp credit for doing this, but they were darn tasty so we didn't care, we need no incentive to eat cupcakes. We did the trivia stations afterward (Food and Matches) to get our first stamps, and thankfully I reread the books earlier this week, or else I would've been screwed. We went to the Medicine station next, where we had to match the descriptions of the medicinal uses of plants to the physical plants in front of us. Then came the Weapons station where we made knots out of pieces of licorice, that was fun, we ended up helping other people in line cause we clued into the knots pretty fast. Lastly came the Water station, which was a ring toss over full bottles of water. Thankfully we didn't have to actually get a ring over a bottle to get our stamp, or else we would've been there for quite a while, we both admitted we suck at the ring toss ^^;

Here's my completed passport:



After we finished the stations and were entered into the draw, we browsed around since we had lots of time before we had to line up. We went to the tribute preparation station where my nephew got his hair spray painted purple to match his shirt. We went to see Liz, a local artisan who made Hunger Games inspired jewelry! She had Mockingjay pins and necklaces (I bought one of the pins), plus Katniss and Peeta bread/pita keychains (they were squishy ^_^), as well as Rue's necklace, "Peeta's Pearl" necklace, and a "Girl on Fire" necklace. She made such wonderful stuff, I wish I wore more jewelry, but she had plenty of girls buying her pieces. Go see her website if you want to see examples of her wonderful work: Meister Artisan Jewellery

Here's Liz's booth and her awesome Cinna reference:





After buying a book I've been trying to find for a while, as well as The Ask and The Answer finally in paperback (reviewed back in January), we looked at the wall of Hunger Games merchandise including stickers, buttons, mockingjay brooches, magnets, tote bags, bookmarks, bracelets, and the Training Games card game (which we kinda balked at for a while). After that, it was time to line up, so my nephew and I waited for a little while and talked to the other people in line. Right at midnight they started letting people up to cash where they had the books behind the counter. It was all amazingly quick and my nephew an I were out of the store with our copies mere minutes after midnight, so we were happy.

Here's the "stuff shot" from the night: the red bookmarks from Scholastic that they handed out to us in line, the book itself (it matches the shiny look from the other two books, hence the shine on camera), the mockingjay temporary tattoos from the costume station, plus Liz's mockingjay pin from her jewelry booth.



Was also pleased to find out (via bookmarks inserted in copies of Mockingjay) that the same Chapters is hosting another teen preview night like the one I attended back in late April, this time from Simon & Schuster (last time was Harper Teen), so you can bet I'll be going to that one in a couple weeks.

All in all, it was a wonderful night. I only got about 6 chapters into Mockingjay and succumbed to sleep at 3am, but I'll continue reading today, so expect a review either later today or tomorrow.