The Hunger Games

Move over Bella, there is a new heroine in town, and her love triangle is just as riveting as yours. Now normally, I do not endorse these sneaky books that look like a single novel, but tun out to be trilogies, but for The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I will make an exception.

Meet Katniss Everdeen, a 16 year old girl who lives on the edge of poverty in a world that used to be ours, in a place that used to be America. In her time, it is the land of Panem, divided up into districts, hers being District 12 which exports coal to the all seeing Capitol. Katniss is a hunter, and she uses her skill to illegally feed her family and friends. When her sister is chosen for the gladiator style “Hunger Games”, in which one boy and one girl from each district, between the ages of 12-18, fights to the death while all of Panem watches, Katniss takes her place. Her participation in the Hunger Games is the beginning of a domino effect
that changes Katniss’s life forever.

The first installment of The Hunger Games is fast paced and riveting. The author introduces us to the world, sets up the characters, and creates investment for the readers in a deft manner rarely seen in Young Adult Fiction. She sweeps from the poverty of District 12, to the grotesquely lavish Capitol without breaking a sweat, and she never trips up on the worlds she is borrowing from (Ancient Roman culture, Orwell’s 1984, and Kurt Vonnegut among others) in the same way that J.K. Rowling often did. Her world is wholly unique and totally fascinating.

The love triangle between Katniss, her best friend Gale, and her fellow tribute Peeta, is so well put together and complex enough to be more than believable and perfectly confusing for the empathetic reader. The reader sees little of Gale, but Katniss is so invested in him, that is really throws a wrench in becoming to hopeful for Peeta, despite his major role in the book. Who is she going to choose? I really do hate these trilogies. How can one plan a trilogy? Do you really think Tolkein planned Lord of the Rings like that? I’m going to look into it. But, I diverge from my point.

For the budding female science fiction/fantasy afficianado, The Hunger Games is a must read. There is a generous amount of kissing in this book and a great deal of violence, so it is not for younger or more sensitive readers.

Grade: A-

I have recently learned that contemporary YA fiction is not to be trusted. I blame JK Rowling really. If she hadn’t made the genre so popular and accessible, we would have to dredge through all the muck that is coming out these days for the Harry Potter generation. Everything is witches this, vampires that, supernatural blah blah blah. It’s getting boring. Not only that, but YA fiction just isn’t what it used to be. It used to be beautiful, appropriate life lessons in packages for children and teenagers. There was an innocence about it that was beautiful for adults when they wanted to escape the sometimes stark and abrasive world of fiction. But these days its all sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Every fictional kid from 11-19 is thinking about sex, facing issues with homosexuality, drinking, has friends who drink, or hates their parents, except all in supernatural terms.

So, after yet another young adult fiction disaster of a read, I decided to make a top ten list of YA fiction you must skip! Really, trust me, and if you don’t, well…have fun wasting your time. In order to help spare you, I have offered alternatives from the same genre or theme that are much better.

Something Like Fate by Susanne Colasanti
Talking about dumbing down for your audience. The book is written to sound like a teenager, but comes off as sounding simple and ditzy. I wouldn’t read anything by Colasanti come to think of it. It deals with a serious issue such as outing a friend as a by-product of the narrator’s “serious” relationship issues. It also endorses lying to one’s parents.
Instead read: Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt

Fallen by Lauren Kate
Just another “girl meets boy, boy is supernatural creature, boy sends girl into emotional tailspin”. It’s just that this time, he is a fallen angel.
Instead read: The Giver by Lois Lowry

A Northern Light
see my post on this atrocious historical fiction here
Instead read: Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Beautiful Creatures
See my post on this fantasy novel here
Instead read: The Splendor Series by Anna Godbersen

I am Memory by Ann Brashares
This is the second “girl meets boy, boy is supernatural creature, boy sends girl into emotional tailspin” book on the list. Except this time everybody is reincarnated and remembers it. Ann, you should be ashamed.
Instead read: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

Vampire Diaries by LJ Smith
Trust me on this folks, this one is just…there aren’t words. And the writing is atrocious! Watch the show instead, it’s much funnier, smarter too. The characters are all flat and stale, our heorine is a vapid primadonna, and every line is a cliche. Oh and this is number 3 in the “girl meets boy, boy is supernatural creature, boy sends girl into emotional tailspin” genre on the list.
Instead Read: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
Books 2, 3 and 4 in the Twilight Saga. 2 and 3 are boring! Serious snoozefest, you read for about a thousand pages before anything happens. My friend Maor just asked me what page Edward comes back in book 2. She skipped to that and didn’t miss much in between (its about 300 pages between) and it only took me about 30 seconds to summarize it for her. I don’t think she regretted it either. Book 4 is just bizarre…grotesque…and strange.
Instead read: The Outsiders by SE Hinton

Confessions of an Ugly Step-Sister by Gregory Macguire
This is a new perspective on the story of Cinderella. It’s boring. Lots of fiction is focused on 17th century Amsterdam recently, and this is the least interesting among that new little clique. Gregory Macguire was a one hit wonder.
Instead read: Wicked by Gregory Macguire

Pretty Little Liars
This is the worst one can imagine of high school. Cliques, evil teenage girls, sleeping with teachers, sleeping with sisters boyfriends, drinking, rich girls who steal to get mommy’s attention…need I say more? Don’t read, don’t let your daughters read, and if you see someone reading it, take it away! Bad life lessons, bad, bad!
Instead read: Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery

The Golden Compass Series
Ok, we get it, you’re an atheist. Big deal, couldn’t you have explained your philosophy in one allegorical fantasy novel instead of a dense trilogy? And couldn’t it have made more sense? If the movie didn’t make much sense, don’t try the books, they make even less sense. The only cool part is that the characters wear their souls outside of their body, and they are the shapes of animals. There I’ve told you all the good parts.
Instead read: Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis.

I have been having a very strange book year. This could be due to my new habit of picking up deeply discounted books from Target or Amazon.   This combined with my new obsession for Young Adult fiction has led to many, many mishaps and mistakes in my reading list. My latest mistake was A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly.

This seemed, on the surface, to be a historical fiction about a teenage girl from upstate New York in the Victorian era. Mattie Gokey is a sharp, deep young woman who had the misfortune of being born into a poor farm family from a rural community. Therefore her dreams of college balance on a high wire, as her family copes with the death of her mother, departure of her brother, and emotional unavailability of her father. Mattie is left to raise her younger sisters and care for the farm. One summer she decides to get a job at a local resort and finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery. Sounds charming on paper, doesn’t it?

Well folks, if you pick up this little number, you are in for a rude awakening. It is crude, vulgar, and oddly written, leaving the reader to feel as if they have been hit by a taxi cab. At points, Mattie’s voice is poignant and lovely, and then she is drowned in scenes that are as ludicrous as they are bawdy. The murder mystery, which seemed to be the essence of the story, takes a back seat…no I’m sorry, it gets put in the trunk so Donnelly can focus on Mattie’s sad life. The sad life was great, why did she have to go and mix in a murder into the plot if she was never planning on dealing with it? The author seemed to have no clear perspective on what kind of story she was writing.

No character was developed beyond Mattie, leaving us with a flat story filled with two dimensional characters. What was the author doing beyond a lame attempt at trying to create a feminist perspective of the oppression of women in the early 20^th century? And as for being labeled in the young adult genre…look publishers: just because a book has a 16 year old in it, does not make it a young adult book! I would not give this to anyone under 16. The strange situations she places her characters in make this absolutely inappropriate for young girls. This is definitely a miss!

Grade: D

Some books define the kind of reader you will be for the rest of your life. Of course, you don’t know until you read the book, and I don’t think you can choose the book, I think the book chooses you. Kind of like the wand chooses the wizard. The key book that defined me as a reader was The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin.

The Westing Game (another Newbury Medal winner) is the story of 16 strangers brought together by a will, claiming they are all heirs to the fortune of Sam Westing. None of them knew Westing, nor that they were related to him, let alone to each other. In order to get the inheritance, they are provided clues, set up in teams, and must solve the mystery of who killed Sam Westing. Soon the game reveals much more about each heir than anyone was prepared to reveal, and the goal of the game becomes muddled as each tries to discover what they really want in life.

I love this book, because despite being Young Adult Fiction, it is complex, the characters are fascinating, and it is a page turner. As a child you identify with the character of Turtle, a misunderstood adolescent who is overshadowed by her beautiful sister. But after reading it as an adult, I find new characters who intrigue me, and who I identify with just as much as I identified with Turtle when I was twelve. This richness thrills me upon each reading. The mystery is interesting as is the plot, which is great considering the book was written in 1979. Sometimes books can go stale with age, but this one is a classic, so instead it is a breath of fresh air. The book is also smart, and you feel such satisfaction upon unraveling the mystery.

I recommend this book for teens over 13, because it is a smarter book, and might be confusing for readers too young. I also highly recommend this book for mystery lovers. Otherwise, I think most adults would be surprised how interesting they find this book, despite being YA fiction. If you haven’t read it, treat yourself. You won’t regret it.

Grade:  A

Once a year, give or take, I decide I would like to relive my childhood through books. This usually happens during the summer when the bookstores begin to display all of the popular summer reading requirements. I reminisce over The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Bridge to Terebithia, The Giver, and other childhood classics. Inevitably, I always discover one classic that had the gall to sneak past me in my early years. This year’s perpetrator was The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi. Have you ever noticed when you re-read children’s books as an adult, things that didn’t bother you back then, really bother you now?

The year is 1832. 13 year old Charlotte Doyle is the only passenger on a ship bound to America from England. She is a proper, well brought up, somewhat spoiled English girl, making this journey to reunite with her family. From the very beginning of the voyage, when her caretakers cannot meet her, the reader knows something is “fishy” about this particular ship, this particular crew, and this particular captain. As mutiny, murder, and treachery run rampant on the decks of the Seahawk, Charlotte must decide between the rules she has always relied on, and the ones that will keep her alive.

There are several problems with this book. The first is Charlotte’s characterization of her father. She spends the entire book mentally idolizing him, she chastises herself based on what he would say to her, and she becomes this new person because of what her father has taught her. So when we finally meet Mr. Doyle, we are sadly disappointed. This man is not at all the person Charlotte has described, and thus forces her hand for the “shocking” end. I feel that the blatant discrepancy lay in the author’s desire to make this character into a feminist hero, and not in the character flaw of Mr. Doyle. This gaping hole left me feeling unsettled.

A more uncomfortable problem for the contemporary audience, is Charlotte’s proximity to more than twenty unsavory men over the course of three months, several of whom she develops close relationships with. Women will understand why this made me uncomfortable throughout the book. I mean honestly, the girl is thirteen. 19^th century sailors were criminals of all sorts, and the characters on the ship are described as such. Hence, my discomfort.

Overall, the book is a slow read. I think this is because the standards of young adult fiction twenty years ago and the standards today are a bit different, so the pace wasn’t quite what I have been used to reading in YA fiction lately. I was interested enough to keep reading, but by the end, my annoyances with the book overrode any entertainment value. It may have won the Newbury Medal, but it was not one of my favorite recipients of the award.

Grade: C-

Have you ever bought a book that you thought was going to be about one thing, and then it turned out to be entirely different than what you expected? Fresh off of my adventure with John Grisham, I was in the mood for something Southern. It isn’t warm enough out here in California to embark upon a review of my dear old friend Flannery O’Connor (does it have to be a specific time of year for you to read an old favorite?) so I kept my eyes peeled for something new. As it happened, via a Facebook post, I stumbled across Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. It claimed it was Southern Gothic. I was envisioning a modern Faulkner-esque vision of the South.

Beautiful Creatures is the tale of 16 year old Ethan Wate, who has grown up in a small town in South Carolina and can’t wait to get out. His mother has passed away recently, his father is roaming the house is pajamas, leaving only his housekeeper Amma to keep him in line. Life is ordinary and boring for Ethan until he stumbles across Lena Duchannes, the new girl in town. Lena is the niece of the town shut in, and she seems different than the other girls at school. She drives a hearse, writes poetry, and wears her Converse sneakers with dresses. Needless to say Ethan is smitten. Soon, the two find themselves in the middle of family mysteries, unraveling centuries old secrets, and learning about life and love in the process.

I didn’t read the back of the book, I had no idea what it was about. But it said it was Southern Gothic. So I got it in my head, it was an adult novel about a teenage boy growing up in the South. It was definitely a Southern Harry Potter meets Twilight written for Teens. I was a bit off.

The first hundred pages are pretty entertaining, if you are Southern. There is plenty about the Southern obsession with the Civil War, family trees, debutantes, our hatred of all things strange or different, our church going ways, and secret obsession with the occult. After that, the book introduces the “supernatural” aspect of the plot, and while trying to develop a language full of strange new terms and characters, it starts to drag. Then it continues to drag for another 400 pages. The bad guys are a mix of small minded Southerners who are afraid of anything different (and that subplot is pretty thin and cliché) and a supernatural entity (who knows more about Lena than Lena does, again pretty cliché). The characters are entertaining, but nothing new or fascinating. The plotline is also just another Romeo and Juliet fighting against fate and the supernatural, so also nothing new there.

This book is definitely just for teens, preferably older (there are some boy/girl scenes and inappropriate language, the latter of which was pretty startling). I would only recommend it for huge supernatural fans, and considering the length, only for teens who really like to read. Oh, and it’s definitely for girls.

Grade: C