I hereby propose a series of comments--yes, the ones that are hidden and only visible by clicking below--to discuss The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. I'm about 2/3 through the latter, and my! It sure would be nice to exclaim about them with someone. So! I'll start us off:
Isn't Peeta's unorthodox cooking technique adorable and terrifying?
And did anyone else almost cry (in public) when the man whistled R's tune from the arena?
29 comments:
I am on the waiting list at the library for these...grrrrrrrr
I hope they are as good as I hear they are!
I devoured those books-- ha, devoured, hunger *coughs* anyway.
Great stuff. Killer pace and plot. The ending to the second one has me really wanting the third...
My problem is, I think she belongs with Peeta. There's just been SO much more development between them. Their relationship is shown, while the author does a more "tell" thing with Katniss and Gale, trying to make us believe this is the deeper bond. I don't even doubt that's true, but I haven't "seen" it like I've seen the bond between Katniss and Peeta in the books. The whipping and the moment following was just not enough to dissuade me from Peeta. The time Peeta has spent on the page versus Gale is just so much more.
Oh, but the ending of Catching Fire. Can't wait to hear your thoughts.
Hunger Games is sitting on my "to be read" pile, waiting for me to finish Sarah's Key (not to be confused with Going Rogue). :)
On a completely different note...I searched your blog for some info on word counts by genre. I think you've posted something on this before - can you refresh us? Most specifically, YA?
Team Edward? Team Jacob? Move over cuz I'm Team Gale all the way! I love Peeta too, but Gale and Katniss have much more in common. Oh and I read Catching Fire in a whopping four hours with a severe concussion. So yeah, it was that good.
I haven't read Catching Fire but I'm getting it for Christmas (or getting it for myself with Christmas money) so maybe I shouldn't read other people's comments. Thanks for the spoiler safe-zone... Rue!!!!! I am usually such a tough nut to crack but the tears ran down my face. There should have been a way, why wasn't there a way! And a love triangle gets me every time, especially if there's tons of suffering. The heartwrenching way she pretended to love Peeta... anyway, excellent. Gush-gush-gush. I should mention something writerly, but all I can think of is how much I love books that suck me in and don't LET me feel like a writer because they are that good. Showing-telling-characterization-plot... *whatever!* I'm in the arena with Katniss, fully and completely. I love to learn from books that get it right, but I love it even more when my internal editor is sucker-punched in the gut by brilliant writing, and I get carried away by the story. Hopefully I still absorb something, but when the writing is that good I do not care. I can be a reader again, and pause every now and then to relish the awesomeness.
Publishers Weekly reported that book 3 (title not yet announced)will be available 8/24/10. I can hardly wait.
I don't want to spoil the ending of CF. But let's just say the whole Peeta/Gale thing is about to get more complicated.
Oh! This is a new kind of good--"read it with a concussion" good!
I confess I'm still saving the last few chapters of Catching Fire--I don't want it to be over! I can't wait until August to know what happens...
If only I could just call up Scholastic (or, erm, wheedle my way into one of their parties, schmooze the editor, and ask about what happens!...And sign a non-disclosure, of course). Oh, I wish. You know how in The Devil Wears Prada, she gets copies of manuscripts before they come out? And they're not ARCs, either, they're just Kinkos-bound manuscript pages? Um, that would never happen. Unfortunately for me.
I've heard rumors of a group that creates buzz--prove you have a lot of friends/readers (that's where you guys come in) and that you'll say nice things about books, and you get a ton of free ARCs. Man. I'd so love to be in that group of the new HG/CF book comes out that way...
I'd love it, also, if there were some fan fic about cooking with a force field. "Throw forest rat into force field at 45 degree angle. Be sure to catch it after its bounce in a cool bath of water. If unevenly cooked, toss again at 70 degree angle..."
And that's a new topic, Anon! "How to sucker-punch one's internal editor." Man. If only I knew.
I imagine some other writers try the following:
1. Gin. Or your alcoholic beverage of choice. But I imagine some peoples' internal editors just get belligerent. And extra mean.
2. Sufi dancing.
3. "Keep the pen moving" exercises
4. Classes that are so expensive you'd better write/attend or you've wasted a ton of money.
5. Those writing retreats where they creep up to your cottage with a basket of lunch.
Any other dieas?
I'm really wishing I had my copies of HG and CF with me right now, so I could flip to some of my favorite parts and read them and sigh all dramatically, with a silly and bemused grin.
I love Katniss and Peeta. And Katniss and Gale. I can honestly say I'd be happy with either choice.
Oh man, a drunk, belligerent internal editor will do no one any good. Mine is mean enough already. Let's fill a pillowcase with good books and hold IE down while we take turns whacking it or something.
The Devil Wears Prada... I KNEW it! That seemed so crazily unlikely! So do you find movies about the publishing industry wildly inaccurate? The way nurses/doctors apparently find medical TV dramas?
I tell everyone that will listen to read The Hunger Games. To say that I love this book is an understatement. But ironically I still have not read Catching Fire though I bought it the day it came out.
Sick? Insane? Super power restraint?
Hmmm, maybe a little, but my reason for not reading it is because I vowed to myself that I wouldn't until I finished my final revisions on my current ms. I know that once I start I won't stop! Eeee, but I cannot wait to see what happens after hearing everyone say CF is even better than the first. How is that possible?!
I read The Hunger Games last month and was blown away! I'm picking up the next one this week and can't wait to sink my teeth into it.
Not sure who I sympathize with yet as far as Gale and Peeta go. So far I know more about Peeta's emotional journey with Katniss but it's also obvious that she holds Gale close to her heart throughout the first book.
I'm dying to learn more about the setting of the stories and the what will come from the government next.
(I didn't *almost* cry -- I bawled! LOVE Rue. Love that she even HAS a tune. Also love the sound of her name when I say it.
Brilliant writing, two brilliant books!)
On that note:
Writers, Agents, Editors:
Today is the last day to RSVP for @jimsissy (Julie Buthcher)'s #holidaybash!
Party with your contemporaries online, complete with white elephant presents!
http://bit.ly/6eGLc6
Will be brilliant fun -- the event of the season! : )
I think Sufi dancing is the closest (though far too dizzifying for me).
It is a sort of meditative state, though, in which the internal editor is banished to some forsaken corner of the subconscious (to carouse with the vivid and catastrophic imaginator).
Oh sure, he/she will have his/her day later when the editing starts, but at first an anything might fly if it flies atmosphere is helpful. Mr. Ed just causes trouble (didn't he always, though?)
:)
Oh fun!
6. Snacks. Along the same lines as gin, but with the annoying side-effect of going to our thighs.
7. Maybe reading a ton of not-so-great fiction in the hopes of feeling better about our own writing. That might backfire, though.
8. I would say reading "How to Write a Novel" books, but I think that actually backfires too
This is hard! I like the ones you came up with much better!
I'm in favor of a Hunger Games cookbook. A favorite recipe from each character, complete with menu guide.
I keep thinking of those orange cream-filled toasted birds--not to eat, but I bet they're structurally beautiful. But they're also kind of sad--there are so many little finches flitting about the city now, and I certainly don't want any of them to be roasted!
Also, what do we think of the (was it ipecac?) that was served at the banquet so that everyone could taste more? I'd heard of this in Roman times, minus the liquid technology--as a method of eating more and more and more.
I love how Collins brings in things from the outside world--the Hickory Dickory Dock song, say--and makes them foreign and new, really managing to see them from a perspective of someone different.
All I can say is I can't wait until Christmas when I can read these!! And then begin to make sense of all these comments ;)
They are very awesome books! Suzanne just has a way to make you want to read more and more and more! We finally found out the release date of the third book in the series, and believe me when I say I am like counting down the seconds!
-Eric
http://themockingjay.vndv.com
You know, Anon #2, this is an interesting new idea--has anyone invented a plush (so you can beat it up all you want, and toss it in the washer to get rid of the blood/sweat/tears/ink) internal editor/punching doll? I think we should hire someone on Etsy.
Rebecca--this is genius!
Okay, forget the "write a novel in November" thing. (I know there's an acronym; I'm too lazy to write 70,000 words in four weeks or go digging for the letters.)
I propose a new idea: write a novel before The Hunger Games: Book Three comes out.
In other words, git r done now, cause you're so not allowed to read the book until you have. You could stage a sort of intervention. Your local bookstores could have your picture next to the registers. "That her? Ma'am, I need to see a completed manuscript before you purchase that...ma'am!"
Anon #3 (really, y'all, pseudonyms! Call yourselves anything--anything! Even numbers! And do check the box that alerts you to updates):
I find this so very odd that there are online parties. SO ODD. Does everyone bring their own (to their desks) cookies?
Just so you know, the NYC holiday party scene varies from truly awful--hipsters and academic types who will randomly quiz you ("Oh, you haven't read Aspects of the Theory of Syntax?"--a scoff--"That's too bad") and/or miserable people catching fire to, yes, the really fun where you meet tons of amazing people and have incredible esoteric conversations that make you buzz with the synchronicity that seems so much more likely here.
But online parties? Is there web chat? Something to stand in for food/drink?
Click the "Name/URL" button and you can give yourself a nickname. Sweet.
"this is an interesting new idea--has anyone invented a plush (so you can beat it up all you want, and toss it in the washer to get rid of the blood/sweat/tears/ink) internal editor/punching doll? "
This would be called a Dammit Doll. I only know this because my Mother-in-Law is making a bunch of Nurse Dammit Dolls for her nursing friends. Apparently, whenever you're mad, you bang it or beat it up saying "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" I'm sure they could make an agent/editor dammit doll (with a bunch of books on them or something). :-P
Oops, I meant to leave a link for you: http://www.thedammitdollstore.com/
I just finished Catching Fire and I was SO disappointed. I loved Hunger Games and I was pants-peeing excited to start Catching Fire. But it had that sophomore slump. The writing wasn't as polished, the pace wasn't as perfect. Too much summary in places and not enough in others, the real action started way late in the book and was then sort of rushed through, and the ending? Uncool. Not cool at all.
So with all the talk weeks ago about these books I called my dad and told him to read them. Random yes, but he loves mind reeling concepts set in the future so I figured there was no harm. He ended up loving the books and was so upset that I could not discuss them with him for not having read them yet. (I told them that you were a genius and since you liked them I figured I was safe to suggest.)
Anyways, he shipped them to me in a hurry and even with my usual restraint (I refused to read the Twilight series for months just trying to rebel in my own little world) I could not put them down! I'm so upset that I have to wait until August to finish the saga.
As a result, I'm totally on Team Peeta, but I figure it is because Gale only comes and goes when Ms. Collins decides so it is that much easier to be invested in all that it is Peeta. I could babble on about this forever, but the whole point in my post is that I even dream about this book. I'm pregnant and have these crazy dreams to begin with, but I cannot stop from closing my eyes and being launched into the Games. To be honest, they are not all dreams due to the nightmarish versions being crazy real and waking up with such a thirst and hunger that I'm in pain. Sooooo... drum roll please now that I'm finally at my point! These books are so good that even in my sleep I cannot stop obsessing over them. There is no escape!
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