The Cracked Spine

Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James

Summary: When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too—but on his own terms.

 
Shocked yet thrilled by Grey’s singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success—his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family—Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey’s secrets and explores her own dark desires.

Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.

Rating: 2.5/5

Review:  OKAY, so I really have so much to say about this book, I’m a little overwhelmed by it. I am always extremely intrigued by any book that seems to capture a large audience out of nowhere. I was even more interested when I found out this was an erotic novel for women BY a woman that was attracting so much media attention. Given my personal interest set, I had nothing but positive hopes for Fifty Shades. I love open discussions about sex and I want nothing more than to support a book that is offering women an easy way to discuss their sexuality and preferences with not only their husbands, but their friends. In addition as a fan of BDSM-esque (granted, not hardcore) sex I was quite excited to get my hands on this.  

To begin with the positives, many of the sex scenes and some of the erotic conversation throughout the book did push my buttons, in a good way. I have a thing for overtly masculine, hyper-confident stern men in business attire - SO, I was certainly willing to be forgiving here. In particular, I enjoyed the idea of Mr. Grey wearing the tie he used on Anastasia to the graduation in front of everyone. Good imagery. Some of Mr. Grey’s dialogue was sexy in a sort of ridiculous, fantasy-porno kind of way, which I’m willing to take. I know a lot of people complained about the way the sex scenes were written, and while it certainly could have been better (no denying that), they weren’t the worst. Ideally, a porn company can hire Mrs. James and have her simply come up with some sexy scenarios and they’ll make a hot video out of it. That’s about all I want from her though. If I could have chosen a hot actor, picked some ideas out of her horny imagination, and had them film them I would have been more than satisfied. Unfortunately, a WHOLE LOTTA CRAZY comes with this shit.

I am generally a lot more forgiving of characterization, as well as the politics and health of the relationships involved in a story if it simply an erotic novel that is not intended to reflect any sort of social or personal commentary. If I were to pick up a sexy pirate romance novel, in which the Governor’s daughter is stolen and whisked away on some sex-crazed pirate ship in which she discovers her ~dark side~ and sucks a lot of dicks. SURE, that isn’t a realistic depiction of anything in real life, nor is it any sort of event I would support in reality, but if it is presented to me wrapped up as a ridiculous fantasy to which I’m supposed to get some sexy images and rub one out to, fine okay. I don’t mind that. I’m not wasting my time dissecting it - it was someone’s erotic idea that is being shared with others, and I have no issue with that as long as it is made quite clear that the entire plot is a sex fueled fantasy. Fifty Shades did not make it at all clear to me that this was the intention, and herein lies a lot of my issues (forgetting the godawful writing for a moment).

I felt as though much of what they were going for was intended to have that tone, and yet they wanted to create characters that were beyond one-dimensional sex objects. Creating multi-dimensional erotic characters and stories is certainly a noble task, but one that needs to be treated very delicately when dealing with a sensitive topic such as BDSM. By including much of their backstory, as well as the tenants of BDSM (or at least trying to) and writing up a contract in which they are able to create a “safe word and hard/soft limits you have just taken us AWAY from the world of unregulated sexual fantasy. While it would be terrific to see a novel that presents this world and these concepts in a healthy and realistic manner, while also including some hot sex scenes - Fifty Shades is NOT that book.

 Anastasia is an awful character. It is beyond me WHY the decision would have been made to make her as sexually inexperienced as possible. Not only is it unrealistic to imply that she is a 21/22 year old virgin who hasn’t so much as been groped or had oral sex throughout college, we are also supposed to believe that she is NEVER attracted to anyone and has not masturbated her entire life. I mean… what? WHY? If I’m reading this book from the perspective of a female who wants to “imagine” herself at the hands of Mr. Grey - would I not want Anastasia to be fucking EXCITED and basically begging to get spanked? I don’t want my character to be hesitant about her pleasure, I want her to need it and love it. There’s still plenty of room for drama and emotional uncertainty to explore in making the jump from rough sex to permanent submissive to someone - there is really no need to create such a large gap. 

Christian in some ways was interesting to me, and had his sexy moments - but a lot of his actions were way borderline creepy and inappropriate. His stalking was unforgivable and weird. I don’t think anyone in an actual BDSM relationship would condone any of that. The fact that he doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with being in a very impressionable position of authority and convincing some extremely inexperienced virgin to come and be his submissive is a little worrying to me. I think most experienced dominants could recognize the problematic aspects of that dynamic. If he’s as gorgeous and amazing at sex as we’re supposed to believe, I’m extremely confident there are hundreds of hot ladies who’d love to be dominated by him, so it seems really unrealistic and unnecessary that he’s so desperate for this girl. When Anastasia tells him she is uncomfortable, he never accepts her answer - at one point even saying “If that is how you feel, do you think you could just try and embrace these feelings, deal with them for me?” Yeah… that’s not normal or healthy regardless of what type of relationship you’re in. Ana’s constant whining that she isn’t allowed to “roll her eyes” but Christian is was bizarre and really communicated to me that she was not quite understanding the point of being a submissive and listening to what Christian says. If you are not sexually excited by that prospect alone and you feel the need to challenge this sort of thing -BITCH YOU DON’T WANT TO BE HERE SO YOU NEED TO LEAVE NOW. The entire ending in which she tells him she doesn’t enjoy being punished or spanked was really strange. And the fact that he AGREED to then hit her with the cane to “see” if she liked it was just … what what what. THAT ISN’T HOW CONSENSUAL BDSM WORKS AT ALL!!! If you want to attempt to present their relationship as such, don’t put completely fucked up shit in the book like that. And Ana being willing to be “hit” to use as an attempt to get more information out of Christian was really weird and unsexy as hell.

Aside from the incredibly problematic aspects outlined above (I could go on, but I won’t) some of the writing choices were just TOO bizarre. WHO THE FUCK IS THIS LADIES EDITOR? FIRE THEIR ASS JFC. How many times can the following be mentioned:

“he/she/it cocked their head”

smirking

lip-biting

oh my

“I’m doing [insert action] with Christian Grey!”

It was just too much. How could you feel comfortable repeating yourself that much?? And WHY is this bitch so technologically behind? She is a senior (English Major no less) without a computer? AND, when she receives one - it is a Macbook Pro with 32g of RAM. That is just … I’m not sure if I can explain how ridiculous that is. Did the author just really want to hyperbolize how “RICH” Christian is or does she just not know how computers work? And why are these assholes always EMAILING OMFG. Can you not IM each other or something? Even when she gets a fucking Blackberry, instead of texting or BBMing they apparently still need to email. Was all of this just some clueless middle aged woman’s attempt at writing about technology - or just a really terribly executed way of characterizing Ana as an “old soul” or something. Either way it didn’t make sense. And why oh why did she refer to her computer as “the mean machine” EVERY. DAMN. TIME. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

And seriously someone needs to make her Inner Goddess and Subconscious go away. What an awful child-like writing device. And do we not understand what “subconscious” means? You can’t TALK to your subconscious and actively think about what it wants - that would mean it’s your regular consciousness. 

And don’t get me started on his big reveal that culminated in the line “My mother was a crack-whore” as if that explains anything. wut.

Final Thoughts: I don’t even know what to think. While I clearly hated or at least took issue with 95% of the story, some horrible trashy part of me enjoyed it on some level. I’ll probably end up reading the other two if only because I enjoy criticizing pop culture and I am really curious where this story ends up (and like I said, there are some gems in there in terms of sex). The fact that I’m slightly invested may indicate some sort of talent, or perhaps it’s just a real character flaw on my part. The writing is bad, as is the depiction of BDSM so if you’re going in looking for either of those you will be disappointed. If you don’t care at all - maybe you’ll have some fun with it. I’m mostly upset by everyone trying to claim that this book is at all “good” or “THE BEST”. I mean, guilty pleasure I’ll take - but it is by no means a good book. If you feel that it was “the best” simply because the concept was so original and shocking to you, I suggest you visit literotica.com or watch a James Deen porn and investigate some other ways to satisfy these cravings.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Summary: Stranger in a Strange Land, winner of the 1962 Hugo Award, is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars. Michael is raised by Martians, and he arrives on Earth as a true innocent: he has never seen a woman and has no knowledge of Earth’s cultures or religions. But he brings turmoil with him, as he is the legal heir to an enormous financial empire, not to mention de facto owner of the planet Mars. With the irascible popular author Jubal Harshaw to protect him, Michael explores human morality and the meanings of love. He founds his own church, preaching free love and disseminating the psychic talents taught him by the Martians. Ultimately, he confronts the fate reserved for all messiahs.

Rating: 1.5/2 out of 5

Review: I’m really debating between giving this book a 1 or a 2. My main feeling towards it can be summed up as: UGHHHHHHHHH. I can’t even believe how LONG it took me to get through it, but by the time I came to the conclusion that Heinlein and I do not get along, I was too far along to just give up.

 To start with, I feel that this book can hardly earn the classification of “science fiction”. I understand Mike comes from Mars, and there were some spaceships mentioned once in a while but uhhh.. yeah that’s it. And I guess telekinesis and psychic ability? But the world seemed largely to be .. exactly the same. I wasn’t really into the science fiction “retro” feeling it had going on.

Bluntly, I felt like this book was Heinlein’s little self-masturbation piece thinly covered up with his “science fiction” story of Mike the alien. Masturbation in a sexual sense and an intellectual one. Some scenes he seriously just goes off the fucking deep end with his sex fantasies and I feel like I can literally imagine him sitting there jerking off and writing and then realizing he went way off course and just picking back up again. I don’t mind erotica, or any amount of really sexual scenes put into a book as long as it makes any amount of sense, but when drowned in ridiculous amounts of misogyny (and homophobia) it realllly got on my nerves.

This book was alll over the place. The characters were fucking beyond ridiculous and had no personality. It was just Heinlein using them as tools to rant and talk and be a pretentious asshat. I’m not saying his “free-love” concepts were bad, in fact a lot of his ideas were good and whatever, and certainly progressive for the time in which it was written. But at this point it is DATED and I have to laugh at all of the reviews saying that the book “CHANGED THEIR WORLD VIEW”. Seriously? You have never before considered that maybe sex isn’t a bad thing? Questioned the merits of religion? It was a pretty basic philosophical and sexual ideology for the modern world, I would think. I just don’t see the merit it has anymore. Aside from his long-ass rants, which are all conclusions that I had already come to in my own time, there was not a stitch of interesting story or characterization to be found.

Some lovely passages I bookmarked to discuss in my review:

“If a girl gets raped nine times out of ten it’s her fault.”

Following this gem, we have Jill (the main girlfriend of martian Mike) taking back all that she has felt about “pornography” and “erotica” and admitting that she secretly luuuuvs having men watch her all the time and it’s just a “female” thing (guys apparently don’t have voyeuristic feelings ever?) so like, she’s totally going to take tons of sexy pictures for her martian BF. (Heinlein: fapfapfapfap)

Next quote:

“They quit their jobs and saw every revue on the Strip. Jill found that she ‘grokked naughty pictures’ only through a man’s eyes. If Mike watched, she shared his mood, from sensuous pleasure to full rut - but if Mike’s attention wandered, the model, dancer, or peeler was just another woman. She decided that this was fortunate; to have discovered in herself Lesbian tendencies would have been too much.”

Do I really have to discuss what is wrong with this entire thing? Obviousllyyy only men understand erotica because us dumb asexual women don’t get it. And with all of his free-love shit that he talks about the entire second half of the book he REALLY was incapable of understanding homosexuality? Like, really? The all-knowing Mike informs everyone that it is a “wrongness”! Listen, I understand this was written in the early 60’s and “times were different” but I have a weird feeling there were SOME people who understood homosexuality, and I’d hope the man claiming to be a huge progressive figure would at least make an attempt.

And a few more, since I came across a lot of white men who loved the book and said they saw NO misogyny in it (that’s funny). After all of the characters join Mike’s church/group and start learning martian and how to “take control of their bodies” it is explained to us as this:

“I used to be that sort of whiny woman who is never quite well and given to female complaints. Now I’m more female than ever but I’m twenty pounds lighter, years younger, and have nothing to complain about.”

THE PERFECT WOMAN! TWENTY POUNDS LIGHTER, YEARS YOUNGER, AND DOESN’T COMPLAIN ANYMORE! A progressive, science fiction masterpiece.
(Heinlein: FAPFAPFAPFAP)

Discussing the merits of a free-love, self-sufficient society and the eventual collapse of big industry due to this:

“What happens to a cloak and suit industry when clothing isn’t necessary and women aren’t so engrossed in dressing up (they’ll never lose interest entirely)”

SERIOUSLY? You have the gall to write some sort of free-love anarchist manifesto but you can’t rid yourself of the societal driven ideal that women are obsessed with clothes? Must just be a natural urge LOL!

And the creepiest scene. Jubal is some old ass misogynistic man who helped Mike when he first came to Earth. He also has three sexy lady maids who call him “boss” and do his every bidding and put up with constant deprecating remarks about the fact that they have vaginas. It’s nice Heinlein tried to make them seem sassy and “independent” so we couldn’t call him out on the sexism, but it doesn’t really work like that. So, this lady Dawn is a character introduced halfway through the novel as some sort of ex-stripper religious sex goddess. We see .. no interaction between them at all. But when Jubal comes to hang out at the Martian free-love household for a day we are meant to believe that beautiful Dawn is so helplessly in love with old man Jubal (even though we’ve seen no evidence of this at all??) that she will DO ANYTHING to make him fuck her. After confessing her love (??) for him:

“‘You will sleep, when waiting is filled. Jubal…I could lend you strength. But I grok clearly that it is not necessary.’
(Goddamit, it wasn’t necessary!) ‘No Dawn. Thank you, dear.’
She got to her knees and  bent over him. ‘Just one more word, then. Jill told me that if you argued, I was to cry. Shall I get my tears all over your chest? And share water with you that way?’
‘I’m going to spank Jill!’
‘Yes, Jubal. I’m starting to cry.’ She made no sound, but in a second or two a warm, full tear splashed on his chest - was followed by another … and another - and still more. She sobbed almost silently.
Jubal cursed and reached for her … and cooperated with the inevitable.”

UHHHHH…… so Jubal was telling her “no thank you” and this BEAUTIFUL STRIPPER got on her knees and cried because she SO badly wanted to have sex with his old ass, and he was just such a nice guy he “cooperated with the inevitable”. And Heinlein also has a spanking obsession, since he mentioned it at least 5 times, maybe more, throughout the book.
(Heinlein: FAPFAPFAFPAFAFFAPFPFPAFP .. OOH GODDD!)


I didn’t understand why (especially in the beginning) everyone in this fucking book was SO DENSE? Oh wow, hey - we have a human who grew up as an infant on Mars! Clearly, he knows NOTHING about Earth or humans since he’s grown up with Martians, a completely different race. He barely speaks English. Let me talk in really convoluted, abstract ways and get angry when he doesn’t understand! Like .. I get that people would have a difficult time getting meanings across to him. But I have a feeling we would be smart enough to realize you can’t just say any random ole sentence and expect that he will grasp it the first week he’s arrived from another planet.

“Listen,” he said in a low voice, “I’ve got a fat proposition for you.”
“Beg pardon?”
“A deal, a way for you to make money fast and easy.”
“Money? What is money?”
“Never mind the philosophy; everybody needs money.” and blahblahblah


Sorry, no one who hears “a man who has grown up since a small baby on ANOTHER PLANET without any human interaction is now on Earth” is going to assume “YEAH WELL, HE’LL TOTALLY UNDERSTAND ENGLISH AT ALL - LET ALONE THE PHRASE ‘A FAT PROPOSITION’ AND THE CONCEPT OF MONEY’” Like .. ugh WHAT? I know that’s kind of the point Heinlein is going for (self-interested, money hungry humans don’t bother to learn about the Martian Man) but that is so extreme and unrealistic it ceases to make a point.

And it also bothered me that in this universe, we clearly have plenty of interaction with Mars since we sent humans there, and were able to retrieve Mike. And yet no one seems to have any knowledge or information about the atmosphere, culture, or anything. One character asks “what the martians look like”. You’re telling me in your futuristic societies where we just fly on up to Mars to do shit we don’t have pictures plastered all the fuck over the television and newspaper? No? We were just like “eh whatever, aliens” and no one bothered to report on their existence? I repeat: UGHHH.

Final Thoughts: SERIOUSLY, don’t read this shit. Just don’t. DON’T!!!! I don’t know WHO decided it was the best Science Fiction novel, or how it’s even considered a classic. Read Dune. Read Ender’s Game. Don’t read Stranger in a Strange Land. It’s a dated, fantasy-world of a sexist, homophobic, self-proclaimed philosopher.

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Summary: Jodi Picoult tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness. Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate — a life and a role that she has never challenged…until now.

Rating: 2/2.5 out of 5

Review: There seems to be two groups of readers with passionate opinions on Jodi Picoult books - those that LOVE her and see no faults in her writing, and those that completely turn their nose up at it and would judge me for even picking this book up. I worry that I may sound like the second group by the end of this review, but believe me I am willing to give anything a try and I actually have a weakness for light reads and trashy novels. For example, I love Charlaine Harris and anyone who thinks they’re “above” some erotic supernatural romance can kiss my ass. I can’t help feeling mildly depressed though when I read all of the reviews on Amazon and Shelfari hailing the brilliance of My Sister’s Keeper when I had to read through shitty one-star complaints about Freedom. 

Getting right down to it…this book just wasn’t very good. The premise was actually very interesting and what initially drew me into the story (no, I haven’t seen the movie) and I have to give Picoult credit where it’s due. Her strongest talent is creating scenarios with which to base stories, as well as moments within her books that do create an internal struggle in the reader. She presents a very difficult choice and forces you to grapple with it. Okay, good. Unfortunately this is where my praise ends. 

While the story between Kate, Anna, and the rest of the family wasn’t absolutely terrible (until the ending, that is) this book really killed me with fuckin Julia and Campbell. First of all… her attempt at creating some sort of Byronic Hero with Campbell being some sexy, jaded lawyer who you just ~luv to hate was really laughable. The whole service dog shtick added nothing to the story and it was really obvious the dog was with him for seizures. I’m not entirely sure if we were not supposed to figure that out? I guess we were supposed to feel sorry for him when he revealed that he had only abandoned Julia because he was “protecting” her or some weird shit, but I don’t know. Their characterization and relationship was so badly written I was continuously shocked. Julia’s character was flat, she did absolutely nothing and WHY on earth she included that she had a cool lesbian twin sister, I have no idea. Which also reminds me that her inclusion of gay/lesbian people in the book randomly was strange… it reeked of middle-aged suburban mom trying to feel cool because she is “accepting” of the gay community and just throws them in her book as if it was nbd! Maybe I’m reading into it but it bothered me. 

Again, Julia had no function. The descriptions of her ~rebellious youth had me cringing. A typical female character that is basically perfect - smart, individualistic, a dark outcast, but ALSO really sexually attractive and funny and nice!!!!! Give me a break. 

All of Picoult’s characters sound EXACTLY. THE. SAME. There is no way to differentiate. It’s all the same character. The family was whatever. Completely lifeless and uninteresting. I was willing to deal with their blandness just out of general curiosity for the sake of the moral/ethical arguments being made about Anna as a donor. The concept WAS interesting, but it was ruined by the writing and characterization around it. I know Anna was supposed to be ~mature because of her situation but some of the stuff coming out of her mouth was so unreasonably obtuse I couldn’t suspend my disbelief at all. It happened too often for me to overlook it. 

The ENDING ughhh. It was such a cop-out and hardly made sense? The “BIG REVEAL” during the case was that Anna was only suing for medical emancipation because Kate wanted pass on peacefully and no longer deal with the pain and suffering that came with the medical procedures. She did not WANT Anna’s kidney, regardless of Anna being dead or alive because she felt that the surgery would not be worth it. So … Anna dies and all of a sudden Kate decides she does want the surgery? We find out the whole book was basically about fighting for Kate’s right to not have to undergo another procedure but .. she does it anyway. And Anna’s dead. Oh cool. AT LEAST SHE MIRACULOUSLY OVERCAME CANCER IN THE END, RIGHT GUYS??? RIGHT??????

Final Thoughts: Don’t bother reading it. I don’t know. Unless you really love Jodi Picoult already, I guess you can give it a try. The only other acceptable time to read it would be if you are on the beach or at an airport and you find the concept of Anna as a donor interesting.. it’s such a quick/easy read that it may be okay (notice: not great, just okay) as a light distraction.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Summary: From the National Book Award-winning author of “The Corrections,” a darkly comedic novel, set during George W. Bush administration, about a troubled American family.

Rating: 3.5/4 out of 5

Review: I feel kind of stupid giving my first two reviews the same exact rating, but that’s the way this shit is, ya know? ANYWAY, this is receiving a 3.5/4 for completely different reasoning than behind Catching Fire, but they still average out to the same amount of enjoyment. First I’ll begin with the reasons I did NOT like this book, and why I didn’t feel confident in giving it a solid 4. Basically: too long. I’m pretty sure most who have read it are in agreement on this. It just could have used some editing, and while I found a lot of the population control statistics and passages interesting, I was really having a hard time with all of the Cerulean Warbler info. I know, it’s probably just lazy reading but it wasn’t exactly necessary. Definitely didn’t ruin the book for me though. I was also not super-thrilled by the formatting of Patty’s narration. It sounded WAY too much like the rest of the book for it to even bother being separated as a “autobiography”. Not to mention, it was unrealistically formal. Not sure why he bothered with that.

There is definitely a certain demographic for Franzen’s writing. It’s not anything I’d give to my parents, as I feel fairly certain that a lot of the political and social satire would go over their heads. I don’t mean that in a patronizing way, just that it seems very oriented towards a young/hipster/liberal/city-based crowd. Fortunately, I happen to fit into that demographic and so I found a lot of it hilarious. I know that a ton of people probably find Franzen obnoxious and “pretentious” but I think he’s well aware of how he’s coming across, and is doing it on purpose.

This book falls into the category of what I like to call Holden Caulfield syndrome. I have a philosophy that everyone who absolutely HATES Holden and Catcher in the Rye are probably really annoying and exactly. like. Holden. I think it’s ridiculous to read Catcher and not ON SOME LEVEL connect and understand with Holden’s irrationality and over-emotional thoughts. If you genuinely think he’s awful and you are nothing like him, unfortunately I think you’re probably terribly unrealistic and in your blindness are actually acting exactly as he does (which would include: being annoying and defending it to the death with stupidity). Similarly, Franzen’s characters are selfish, whiny, annoying, but REALISTIC. I’m sorry but even the best of us are pretty fucking annoying and self-obsessed at times. I find it kind of disorienting reading his work because I find traits of myself in EVERY character, and I’m extremely upset about it because none of them are desirable. But that. is. the. point. He didn’t write “bad” characters simply because they are sometimes unlikable. He wrote brilliantly in-depth characters, because he intended to have them be imperfect. And I don’t care what anyone says, if you absolutely hate all of them it’s because you are hating the characteristics you dislike the most in yourself. Instead of recognizing it, you are taking it out on the characters and shutting the book. And that is the reason I enjoyed Freedom so much. It’s rare to find a story that really makes you look at yourself with a critical eye, which I felt was accomplished - and is only emphasized by how many people insist the characters were 100% awful and unlikable. Denial is strong! I really liked the end as well - I’m usually not one for happy endings, but I thought it fit really well.

Final Thoughts: If you fit into aforementioned-demographic, I would give Franzen a try - but maybe start with The Corrections. I think it was an easier read. If you enjoy that, than definitely look into Freedom. If you like character studies (like I do) it is perfect. If you want an epic storyline with ~adventure and intrigue~ - don’t bother.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Summary: Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with her fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy; after all, they have just won a life of safety for themselves and their families. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge… the Capital WILL get revenge. President Snow threatens Katniss and her loved ones’ safety, and the only way to guarantee a chance at a normal life for herself and her family depends on Katniss fooling the citizens of Panem into thinking that starting a rebellion was an accident and that everything she caused was only because she was madly in love with Peeta.

Rating: 3.5/4 out of 5

Review (SPOILERS): Overall, I’m really loving this series. The first book was excellent and I waited a bit until I read this one - which I literally finished in one day. I really enjoyed the first half to 3/4 of the story, and if I was basing my rating purely on that portion of the book it would have earned a solid 4. I was ridiculously into it and I think I actually gasped when President Snow announced Katniss had to go back into the games again haha. I thought everything kept up with the pace well until the ending portion of the arena. I started getting a little bored and looking forward to the next “twist” since it was obvious that Johanna and Finnick weren’t going to turn on Katniss despite her insistance otherwise. And something about the ending seemed anti-climactic and rushed. The whole explanation from Haymitch about ~the plot against the games~ kind of made me angry because it was SO FUCKING SHORT and uninformative. Overall though, I adore the whole concept behind the books - it’s addictive and creative. I know it’s criticized all the time for not being well-written, but to be honest as long as a book has decent characters and an interesting enough story, I think it’s easy to look past. I’ve heard negative things about Mockingjay, but I’ll just have to wait until I get my hands on it to see if I agree or not. Until than, I’m loving Katniss.

Final Thoughts: DEFINITE read! Obviously start with “The Hunger Games”, but I promise you’ll end up reading “Catching Fire”. Even if you are not a Young Adult or Science Fiction fan, I think this series is likable across the spectrum.