You seem to be forgetting the the Hunger Games were a response to a rebellion by the people. I'm sure they were all scared that if they tried to make a stand again, it would result in an even worse punishment than the one they were now being given. The Capitol could just sweep through and kill half of the kids in Panem, if they chose to. At least with the Hunger Games, there was a slight chance of their child surviving. Now, I know it seems awful that people would just stand by and passively watch as their kids were forced to fight to the death, but I find it hard to believe that there weren't secret meetings being held and plots being made against the Capitol, throughout the 70 years since the first tournament. Revolution is more a process than an event, especially when you lack resources and your people are mostly malnourished...

Now I haven't read the second or third book, so I could be completely wrong here, maybe Suzanne Collins writes somewhere that for the 70-something years since the first rebellion, nobody spoke of uprising and had rebellious ideas and nobody seemed to care that there were kids dying on TV. But I find that kinda hard to believe.

Kendra - Yes! I was screaming at my computer "NO, NO, IT WASN'T CHO, IT WAS MARIETTA!" And also mumbling near the end of the movie "... so no brains then?" But I think I was more disappointed by the lack of the baby head Deatheater. I wanted to see that. :lol:

And thanks!

Bookish updates for those who might be interested for some reason: I finished Paper Towns yesterday and I liked it quite a bit, more than The Fault in Our Stars. Would be glad to discuss that with anyone who's read them. I got Deathly Hallows in the mail today as well as the book I recently won on Goodreads, Iron City. I can't contain my excitement about the former, so I'll be reading it before the latter. Man, I'm going to be bummed when I finish this series.

About rebellion in the Hunger Games - I'm trying my best not to spoil the second and third books, so I'm sorry if this comes across as horribly vague. :lol:

If you continue reading, there ends up being a pretty significant group of people who have been living in defiance of Capitol law, while those in power prepared for a rebellion. I wouldn't outright call it a rebel force, but it's the making of a rebellion and ends up turning into one. There are even a fair number of Capitol citizens who join in. :yes:

And I honestly think that the naivete and happiness of Capitol folk during the Games is a pretty accurate representation of privilege. They're in no danger, nothing bad is going to happen to them, and it's an excuse to hold a party - Why wouldn't they love the Games? After all, in your own lives, think about how many white people believe that racism is dead, men who see women as having equal rights in the workplace, or rich folk who yell about how the homeless "just" need to work hard and get a job. If they personally aren't experiencing hardship or threats, then it just plain doesn't exist in their eyes. (Not everyone, but it's scary how many people actually live that way.) Even the American news media covers a huge amount of violence in every day life, but few of us are really activists in gun control/counter terrorism/what have you.

I think it was really cool how Suzanne Collins threw the Capitol citizens into the mix and showed how such a large group of people could support oppression without necessarily being monsters or wanting to hurt people. It's excused as just a tradition, and the existence of their privilege hasn't even occurred to them.

Greendragon's 2012 book list
1. Freak Show by James St. James 304 pgs
2. Boy meets Boy by David Levithan 192 pgs
3. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by. John Green and David Levithan 304 pgs
4. The Secret Life of MS. Finkleman by Ben H Winters 246 pgs
5. First Day on earth by Cecil Castellucci 150 pgs
6. Luna by Julie Anne Peters 256 pgs
7.Room by. Emma Donoghue 352 pgs
8.Recovery Road by Blake Nelson 320 pgs

That's weird....I can't open the spoiler thingies in the first post...

Try refreshing the page, sometimes that fixes it.

Yep, the code on the first page looks good, so it should work for you guys. It works for me at least. :lol:

I've started reading Game of Thrones! I can't believe that I put it off for this long. The way that everyone talks about the series, I expect big things to happen.

Eeeeh good on ya Knerd! Im trying to figure out when to start it myself xD

Gotta finish re-reading Raymond E Feists first 3 books though! Need to catch up before starting the next series i was upto by him! (They're fantasy if you're wondering)

I have been on Mene in like 2 years lol. This is weird but its like seeing a best friend again. :]
Decide to record my reads here to keep track. I plan to read 75 books this year, though more if I can is better.

@Cherry Flavored Antacid: You liked Paper Towns better then TFIOS? Like, out of all John Greens books, I have to say PT is like, the least favorite of mine. I'm more of a Katherins fan, but I found TFIOS to just more interesting... Willing to disscuss more because John Green books are worth discussing! lol (thought might not answer right away, leaving friends house now to go home and sleep for work in 6 hours..)

Stormy - PT and TFiOS are all I've read thus far, so I can't say that PT is the ultimate John Green book, but I liked it more than TFiOS. I did like TFiOS, though, it's not that I didn't.

The problem I had with TFiOS was that it seemed like John was trying too hard to be profound with every single sentence. I understand that John is a smart person and he writes books about smart people, but smart people can't have every word that comes out of their mouth be an eloquent speech wrought with quotable existential revelations. For example,

SPOILERX

when Hazel goes to Augustus in the gas station parking lot and calls 911 and says something along the lines of "the love of my life is dying"... I don't buy that. Not in a high-stress time of crisis, no one says stuff like that. You say stuff like that after the fact when you've had time to cool down. In a situation like that, you're more like "SHIT SHIT HELP OH MY GOD *unintelligible sob-talking*"

So it seemed a bit that John was trying too hard and it was ultimately distracting. Plenty of the profundities were well-placed, but I felt they were devalued by their frequency. It was a legitimately touching book with grand themes, he didn't need to spend every other sentence trying to get you to say "wow."

Regarding Paper Towns, I liked it more for two reasons. The first being that the profundity-to-normal-behavior ratio was a bit more realistic. The second being that it dealt with themes that I had already been thinking quite a bit about over the years, so it was really cool to see them in novel form. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this little phrase, "we are not two-dimensional" and all that meant to me. John put it as "imagine people complexly." I really loved that he chose that as a theme, because I don't think it's fair how we so often tend to see people (even people we're close to) as two-dimensional caricatures and we never try to truly understand (or imagine, if you prefer) them as layered, multi-faceted people that defy any sort of "type." Another reason being that I had been trying to come up with a novel about a girl who "runs away" and the person who tries to find her, and then I discovered this book that did it way better than I could have done, with a theme that already meant a lot to me. It was like John wrote the book for me specifically. :lol:

Another problem I have (and I've heard that this is prevalent in his other novels as well, so I'm going to go on that assumption, but remember that Paper Towns and TFiOS are all that I've read yet): all the characters are John. They all kind of sound the same. I mean, except for Hazel's friend Kaitlyn. :lol:

Regarding the Hunger Games: I get where you guys are coming from, I really do. Especially when it comes to after it's been in practice for seventy-four (or more, depending on what book you're on) years. Though I do still believe that somehow more people would be appalled by the ceremonies than entertained by them (eg. Knerd's examples. Just because the people in privilege don't acknowledge that there's really a problem they also don't get sick entertainment out of it as well). My problem is with the fact that nobody seemed to object against it in the early years. It's more of a practice that never should have existed in the first place, particularly with children being the primary focus... especially considering how small the population of Panem really seems as you continue and see some of the societal concerns.

Knerd - I'm so excited that you finally started the aSoIaF series!! They're quickly becoming my third favorite literary series.


----
Have you guys ever bought a book and kind of forget about it because you didn't get around to reading it right away? I was just cleaning some things up the other day and came across a zombiefied version of Alice in Wonderland that I'd completely forgotten I bought over the summer...

I continually guilt myself about books I haven't read, so no, I've never forgotten one.

("why haven't you read lord of the flies yet? It's a classic. People read this in high school, you can handle this. Or what, are you stupid? are you too stupid to handle that tiny little book. just read it, why aren't you reading it? read it. read it. read it. god, why aren't you reading it yet. oh, oh, sorry, were you going to read sense & sensibility instead? oh, in that case, it can wait. what do you mean you're not reading that either. you've had that for at least three years. oh, what, is a romance too difficult for you?")

I do the same thing, Cherry. :lol: Like with Napoleon of Notting Hill. I have been trying to read it for MONTHS now and I keep pushing it aside to read other things. Like the Dresden Files. Or rereading the Harry Potter series. The reason I even picked up NoNH is because my cousin [who got me to read Love in the Time of Cholera] said it was probably his favorite book now. But I'm just not that in to it. So, I always berate myself for not having finished it yet.

Yes, and then you put so much weight on reading it that it feels like a chore to do so and you start to resent the book, right? :lol: Like, everything I know about Brave New World says I will love it, but because I've made a few failed attempts when I didn't have a good reading schedule down, I'm starting to feel kind of scared and begrudging towards it. I think that since I now have a better reading pattern established, I could get through it easily and properly enjoy it, but it's taunted me for a while. And, ugh, those Jane Austen books. I don't even know if I still want to read them. :lol:

The Jane Austen books are on my list, too. :lol: I started Pride and Prejudice and then got distracted by something else.

And I totally do feel like it's a chore. Or an "assignment" to read it. I am over half way done with it but in my spare time I just procrastinate finishing it. Such a bad book reader.

I have to admit that P&P was a bit difficult for me when I read it. Some parts just drug on for way too long. Like Mr. Darcy's letter, oh my god. I think there are epics that are shorter than that damned letter. :lol: I did enjoy the book, it was well written with wit, but at times I was like "why. why. why are you doing this." But it's been a while since I read it, I might feel a bit different now. OR I might just feel like "come on, where are the epic magic battles"

I actually think it was the Dresden Files that distracted me from Pride and Prejudice. :lol:
But I don't remember exactly. I'll probably like it, I like most books that I read. It's just hard for me to read lately anyway. I feel like by the end of the day I just want to space out on something like America's Funniest Home Videos.

Yeah, I know what you mean. If it weren't for the fact that I've been reading fairly "easy" books, I'm not sure if I'd be able to keep this up as well as I have been. Since I do my most consistent reading just before bed, I definitely wouldn't have the brain power for harder stuff then. That's not to say that I won't read harder stuff, I'll just need to work out a new plan. Like have two books going at once: one harder one for daytime reading, and an easy one for before-bed reading.

It only tends to happen to me when I buy multiple books at a time... and I purchased that one along with the first two in the aSoIaF series and got sucked into those pretty quick. Then I got so distracted with them - and the book that came out by my favorite singer-songwriter - that I forgot the zombie!Alice book existed.

I couldn't get through P&P until the addition of zombies, to be honest. I am just not a huge Austen fan. However P&P&Zombies was a nice way to keep the primary focus of the original with a few elaborations and changes.

OH! And I thought I'd tell you! I won my first giveaway the other day! Drown by Albie Cullen. It's not my normal genre but it looks interesting, and it'll be nice to see how he portrays the inside of the music industry since a lot of my friends are experiencing it for themselves.

2012 Reads:
1.) Light Boxes by Shane Jones
2.) The Walking Dead Volume 4: The Heart’s Desire by Robert Kirkman
3.) The Walking Dead Volume 5: The Best Defense by Robert Kirkman
4.) The Walking Dead Volume 6: This Sorrowful Life by Robert Kirkman
5.) The Walking Dead Volume 7: The Calm Before by Robert Kirkman
6.) The Walking Dead Volume 8: Made To Suffer by Robert Kirkman
7.) The Walking Dead Volume 9: Here We Remain by Robert Kirkman
8.) The Walking Dead Volume 10: What We Become by Robert Kirkman
9.) The Compound by S.A. Bodeen
10.) Autumn by David Moody
11.) The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
12.) Liesl and Po by Lauren Oliver
13.) Scored by Lauren McLaughlin
14.) Divergent by Veronica Roth
15.) The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
16.) The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges
17.) A Million Suns by Beth Revis
18.) Legend by Marie Lu
19.) Hana by Lauren Oliver
20.) Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
21.) Blood Red Road by Moira Young
22.) Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
23.) The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Justor
24.) A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L’Engle
25.) Vengeance by Kate Brian
26.) Prey by Lurlene McDaniel
27.) A Wind In The Door by Madeline L'Engle

Kendra - Congrats on the win!

iCreeper: Is that your to-read or books you've already read this year?

If that's all the books you've read so far, you're doing pretty well!

"The Phantom Tollbooth" is one of those books that I just never got around to reading. Maybe I'll pick it up someday, or maybe I'll just have to wait until I have kids of my own. :lol:

I just finished Game of Thrones! I'm both excited and really, really nervous to read further into the series. I'm definitely caught in the rush of the story, but knowing that more people are going to die isn't the greatest feeling.

The first book just left me with two words:

SPOILERX

Khal Drogo :cry:

I understand your tears. Seriously.
I'd advise you to not get too attached to characters simply because there's a strong chance they'll die - George likes to kill people - but it's impossible because he just makes te characters either entirely too easy to attach to or people you love to hate.
Continuing is a good idea simply because the books are so darn good, but it can be a bit depressing at times depending on who you grow attached to.

I'll just have to harden my heart and learn to suck it up. :lol:

The good part of finishing the first book is that I can watch the television series now, though. I'm a little excited to see how my vision of the characters and events lines up with the director's. I think that the second season is coming out soon, so I've got some good timing.