Book Reports

Thought I would just chime in and give anyone looking for a book to read a couple of reviews of the books I recently finished.

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Great easy read, comparable to a Harry Potter type book. I really enjoyed this book, in fact I stayed up until 1 am to finish it. It takes place in the future with a North American continent that has been decimated by wars, plagues and natural disasters. There is a central government located in the capital city and 13 outlying districts. The central city controls everything and has everything. The districts are basically glorified slave camps that supply the capital city with all they need. The districts attempted to rise up against the capital city, but were defeated, resulting in the destruction of District 13 and the beginning of the Hunger Games.

I'm not going to say much more other than I loved the book. I enjoyed Peeta's character and the curve balls he threw into the story. I will admit that the ultimate survivor is extremely obvious, especially if you really understand the characters, but the way it all plays out was pretty exciting. Read it.

The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson.

This was definitely a surprise. I picked it up at Walmart for $5 just to have something to read during Abby's gymnastics, but I put off actually reading it for a while. This book was nothing like I expected. I was expecting some far fetched, sci-fi laced, super hero type book and this was not it. Don't get me wrong, there is sci-fi in it (alien shrinks an entire city to keep as a trophy for example) but that wasn't the vehicle that drove the book, just a convenient way to set it up.

This book was written as more than just to finally tell the tale how Krypton was destroyed. It is a story with the strong themes, the strongest being that if men do not learn from their mistakes, the results could be catastrophic. This book has some of the best characters I've ever read. The evil is well disguised and you can even justify it's actions until you finally realize its intentions and by then it may be too late. The ultimate cause of the destruction of the planet is a surprise and very profound. This book actually left me contemplating many different things of which I would have never expected. If you read it, please let me know, I need to have someone with whom to discuss it.

And yes, I see a lot of our political situations right now pop from the pages of this book and illustrate what I believe is going on right now in the USofA. It would be difficult for me to distinguish between the man in the book that drums up fear in order to "come to the rescue" of Krypton and the man that is doing the same thing right now.

Let me know if you have interest in borrowing either book, but I may be passing them on to one of you anyway (and by one of you, I mean the imaginary people that I dreamed up that would actually read something I wrote).