More Minds - Carol Matas and Perry Nodelman; ISBN: 0-590-39469-X; Fantasy, Young Adults; Scholastics, 1998.

(This review was originally posted on my multiply page on January 25, 2009.) 
 
Reading this book is like watching a full-length kiddie movie, the kind shown on Disney or Cartoon Network. And it is fun, if a bit surreal. What impressed me is that the premise of everybody having a too tremendous power – being able to change reality to suit themselves –is shown as not being the deux ex machina readers expect it to be (well, most of the time anyway). Unfortunately, the reason why the story was enjoyable, its bizarreness, is also its weakness; the story became too confusing, with incoherent storyline shortcuts done to quickly wrap up the plot. In short, it reads like it had been severely edited to keep it short, presumably not to tax out the attention span its target readers – children. It’s either that or they are planning to make a sequel. Either way, it is a good way to spoil a decent fantasy. Way to go Scholastic. Coupled with slightly unappealing lead characters, I give this a 4 out of 5.

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Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins

Science Fiction, YA; ISBN 0-439-02351-3; Scholastic Press, 2010.

Anticipating and then actually reading this book is like expecting to watch an Oscar-winning film, but you end up with an average blockbuster flick. Exciting - yeah. Unforgettable - no. Disappointing - a big HELL YEAH.

2 out of 5 stars

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Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins

Science Fiction, YA; ISBN 0-439-02349-1; Scholastic Press, 2009.

Katniss Everdeen thought that after winning the Hunger Games and all the obligatory PR that follows, she and her family and friends are going to be left alone. And sure, it was a bit controversial how she and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mallark won but that's because the pair is crazily in love with each other - so all's well that end well, right?

Apparently not. President Snow, the ruthless tyrant of Panem, had set his flat, deadly eyes on Katniss. Not only for her borderline treasonous actions in the Games but to punish her for unknowingly setting off the starting fires of rebellion in the twelve districts. So what should Katniss do? Flee or fight?

One can roughly divide the book into two parts: first, the continuation of the tension and resulting rebellion that started from Katniss and Peeta's victory, reabbreviating within and without District 12; then second, the Hunger Games of that year (called Quarter Quell), in which there's going to be a surprise (and sure enough, terrible) twist to the already horrible Games.

Catching Fire has the same exciting quality that The Hunger Games have; needless to say, it's a page-turner through and through.

I'm glad that I got to see more of the other districts and the country of Panem in general. I'm one of those people who like to see lots of details in their science fiction, and I'm crossing my fingers that Suzanne Collins might be persuaded to write some sort of prequel on how this world had came about, and how Panem had been in its first few years. You see, as I read though the first part, I've been struck at how this society is so not like the nearest equivalent countries of our real world (I was thinking of communist Russia, China, and more particularly, North Korea). It's not even like it's older literary dystopian cousins (let's give 1984 and Brave New World as examples).

If I'm forced to put a finger on it, I'd say it's because Katniss' story (and consequently, the country of Panem) is still, despite the misery and the hunger and the violence, a story of fulfilled (more or less) hopes and human decency. And the fulfillment of hopes and the realization of basic human goodness are commodities that few dystopian fiction are willing to provide. But then, I'm not sure if this characteristic is inherent in this trilogy only or is some sort of unwritten requirement to dystopian young adult fictions in general. I guess that just mean one thing: I need to push up in my TBR list a few similar books like Lois Lowry's The Giver and Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series. :P

So anyway, the only thing I didn't like in the story are how the romances were handled. It's too deliberately vague and manipulative, of both characters and readers. And it's so unfair on Katniss. I mean, this is a girl who's supposedly decisive and caring - so why on earth should she dither on the emotions of her two closest friends, and thus heartlessly prolonging the two boys' agony? Remember, this is NOT Twilight, and Katniss is NOT Bella.

On the plus side, I'm glad they fleshed out a bit my favorite character, Haymitch Abernathy (I know his last name, yay!). Plus, I did like most of the new characters, particularly Finnick (Hollywood would have a field day in choosing the actor to play him). President Snow's bad guy character is a tad too cliché, so I'm figuring Ms. Collins will flesh him out a bit more in the third book. And the cliffhanger at the end is the bomb! :)

There, that's my review of Catching Fire. I tried to make it spoiler-free but holler if you found something (yes, I'm still the spoiler queen but I promised Blooey I won't deliberately spoil this time around, so there). Mockingjay (the third and final installment of this series) is going to be released in the Philippines on August 25. This post is quite long already so I'm going to refer you to Blooey's post on the launch event happening on Sunday, August 29. Be there!

4 out of 5 stars

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I procrastinated long enough. I need the box to put some of my to-be-read and to-be-given away books (via Bookmooch, if you’re still not into the hottest thing to hit the book swapping world). Hence I need file away my to-be-reviewed ones. I’ll be short and snappy – if I can’t deliver my reviews at a minute reading time, then I won’t deliver it at all.

Hey now, I think I like this new reviewing format! Do you agree with me? Or should I go back to the longer ones, the one book per review posts?

The Case of the Left Handed Lady: An Enola Holmes Mystery – Nancy Springer
Fiction, YA, Mystery, Adventure; ISBN 978-0-399-24517-6; Philomel Books, 2007

I like Enola Holmes, not just because she’s the sister of the celebrated Sherlock Holmes (of which I am a most devoted fan). She is one of the rare YA female protagonist that I like at all levels – she is resourceful, brave, intelligent and rational, yet have a tinge of vulnerability and loneliness – so much so that she reminds me of Katniss of The Hunger Games. Though the story itself is weak (both shaky in terms of logic & believability), the characters makes up for this shortcoming. You must also remember that this is just the second book of what seems to be a long and promising YA series. I suggest you read this one instead of watching that dreadful Sherlock Holmes movie. 4 out of 5 stars.

ShrinkLits: Seventy of the world’s towering classics cut down to size – Maurice Sagoff
Reference, Poetry; ISBN 0-89480-079-5; Workman Publishing, 1980

There are a lot of books out there that do this kind of thing: cutting up books into perhaps a paragraph or two of the bare essentials. What I like about this one is that it pushes the envelope further – Maurice Sagoff trims down them hefty classics into bite-size rhyming poems. How exact to the original text are these concise poetry? Not so much. How high is the enjoyment factor? Very high indeed. 5 out of 5 stars. A warning though: if you are a literary purist, don’t read this book.

Jane Austen: A Life - Carol Shields
Non-fiction, Biography; ISBN 0-14-303516-9; Penguin Books, 2001

Carol Shields is an Austenite and it shows. Warmth, empathy and frankness permeate in her short discourse of Austen and her work that you can’t help but agree with the novelist’s (Austen, I mean) exclamation, “If a book is well written, I always find it too short”. I quite agree. 5 out of 5 stars. One of the best biographies I ever read. If you can help it, I suggest reading the main six works before reading this one.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – Seth Grahame-Smith (even if it says so on the cover, I refuse to add Jane Austen as an author to this mockery of a novel!)
Fiction, Horror; ISBN 978-1-59474-334-4; Quirk Books, 2009

Wow, this chick Jane Austen is so in nowadays. Look at these, all her sh- being relabeled as the original “chick-lit” novels, didn't know these chicklit sh- are *that* old. Too bad there’s a lot of boring stuff in here, like balls and parties and people making funny looks at each other. Bleeaach! Now, here’s an idea! Since this chick Jane Austen is a hot item commodity, why not sell our own version but one with zombies and killer ninjas and shaolin masters and pentagrams of death… * six weeks later* Dude, this writing thing sucks! So maybe I’ll just make an exact copy of this chick’s book then cut out all the crappy boring stuff then insert the cool stuff! Yeah, that’s the thing! They’ll be making a movie out of this sh-, I’m sure. I’m going to be famous and filthy rich! Yeah! Ride on!
Do I need to put stars on this one?

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The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins Science Fiction, YA; ISBN 0-439-02348-3; Scholastic Press, 2008.

Dystopian societies are not new in the world of science fiction, and neither are gladiatorial games. These two succinctly describe Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, the first book of a trilogy that describes the future nation of Panem, a nation comprised of a capitol city surrounded by twelve outlying districts. To keep the people of these districts subservient and frightened, the Capitol yearly hold The Hunger Games, where twenty-four children from the districts are forced to fight each other to the death. Enter our heroine Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen-year old girl from District 12. Life had made her into a survivor – but can she survive the arena of the Hunger Games?

I got my copy of the book one night when two nice people from Scholastic came to meet a few book bloggers. I must admit I wasn’t impressed the first time I read the blurb. The plot is a mixture of different science fiction, historical and fantasy novels and movies (let me just enumerate those that I know: The Running Man, Spartacus, Gladiator and the most comparable of them all, the Japanese movie and book, Battle Royale), not to mention that it borrowed heavily from usual Greek mythology sources (the Minotaur tale, to be exact) and those popular reality shows (umm, Survivor & Big Brother, anyone?).

I was therefore surprised when I found myself hooked after just reading the first chapter. It is one of those books that you can’t put down – to use that old and tired phrase, this one is a page turner. It struck me that for a dystopian novel, The Hunger Games is surprisingly full of hope. This lack of cynicism is probably what had appealed to me. Katniss is a survivor yes, but she is also a symbol of human decency and compassion even in the face of moral and societal degradation. Suzanne Collins made her characters unforgettable. I’m also pleased with the way romance had been handled. To intermesh it to the basic survival of our heroes is one clever plot trick.

I’m annoyed at how the marketing people overly do the hype for the trilogy, even when the last one is still non-existent. Ms. Collins doesn’t need the extra pressure right now, and I just hope this clamor will not affect the quality of the last book. I like Katniss of course, but I hope that other characters would be fleshed out by the second and third book (would love to know more about Peeta and Haymitch). So until I read the next two installments, I consider this review incomplete.

5 out of 5 stars

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The Named – Marianne Curley
Fiction, Fantasy, YA; ISBN 1-58234-913-4; Bloomsbury, 2002.

For once, the review blurb at the back had been accurate. It is from Kirkus Review (I don’t know this publication though) and it says:

“Swashbuckling time-travel plus soap-opera relationships make for a page-turning start to a promised trilogy… An ongoing guilty pleasure.”

Yup, that sums up what I think of this book so neatly that I just stop right here… but then, I don’t want to be accused of plagiarizing another person’s review.

In my own words, I just will describe The Named as a decent read. Not a must-read but it is a good book that can be absorbed as an in-between. It has all the right ingredients for a fantasy adventure YA book – exciting action, good nicely-plotted fantasy story, characters that aren’t annoying (only slightly so), even a hint of budding romance (but not so much). By the end of the book, I’m searching Bookmooch to see if there are copies of the second and third book out there. Yet I’m still giving this one an imperfect score.

The problem is that the story is predictable and the book is rife with fantasy clichés (for more information, I suggest The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, Diana Wynne Jones' very excellent 'travel guide'). Time travel, hidden worlds, nine chosen ones as destined saviors – yes, all the familiar and comfortable fare. Even the six of the nine chosen saviors (gods, nine is so Lord of the Rings) is formulaic – the rugged handsome young leader, the Elvin-like almost-immortal guide/mage, the angst-ridden haunted warrior, the jokester, the doubter, and right down to the pure-of-soul female cleric-err, healer. As in any typical fantasy yarn, most of the characters are underdeveloped, to make way for the adventure-driven plot. Despite this, the book isn’t that bad – it’s just that a true-blue fantasy reader might find herself a little restless, that’s all.

4 out of 5

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