Those of you who have studied stars may recognize Mirach from suggestions on how to locate the North Star - Finding Mirach (or Mirak), then Dubhe - the "pointer stars" and then using the distance between Mirak/Dubhe (prounounced doobie) to point to the North Star... counting "doobie, doobie, doo..." The North Star lies two and a half more lengths away from the pointer stars ;) Diagram here! (diagram not to scale, I just liked the way it lets you hover over to see the constellation lines vs what the sky looks like)
Anyway... as I continue to read more and more dystopian books, this seems to be my preferred genre... my north star metaphorically.
A friend recommended Matched last week, and after reading one or two things about it, I immediately got it, even though it's still in hardback. I took it to the lake last weekend, along with The Truth About Forever. After the weekend, both books were read, and by Tuesday, The Truth About Forever had been sold to a used bookstore, and Matched has been added to my "WHY IS THE SEQUEL NOT OUT YET?!?!" list.
FAN. TAS. TIC.
I want more. Now.
I was a little turned off by a quote on the back of the book - "It's A Brave New World for the Twilight generation" but I think that has a lot to do with my disdain for Stephanie Myers and her series... bleh... sparkle sparkle barf... ;)
BUT. I did not let it stop me, and once I started reading it, I was hooked all over again - VERY reminiscent of my favorites such as The Giver and 1984. The characters in "the society" find out who their mate will be at a certain age because "that is the most effective age to find out" and they get married at age 25 because "statistics show that is the most optimal time to get married," etc etc etc - kids, death, it's all planned out by the society, for the good of the society... Each member of society has three colored pills that they can take under different circumstances (though one ONLY if an "official" tells you to take it...) etc etc... For those of you who have seen books like this, I'm sure it's all familiar to you.
Why is it always girls? Is it that we had a generation of girls grow up "in a box" who felt trapped by America's society? Are they now writing about how to break free from it? Are today's girls feeling trapped? Maze Runner is one of the few that involves a strong male lead... or maybe I'm just picking out the ones with female characters for my own reading....
In side news, I purchased for myself today a Mockingjay shirt from HotTopic, mostly because I wanted to get in on the trend before it truly became a trend - i.e. before the movie. It is a shirt that follows my rules - it only has a small mockingjay pin on it, no explanation (though in very small letters because of the copyright it does say the book) but you definitely have to *know* the reference to understand the shirt :)
I also finished The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordian this past week... it was kind of unfulfilling... I have been reading it for about 6 months now, on and off in my car as I wait for people various places... and maybe I just don't like Egyptian lore as much as Greek myths, but I just didn't find it NEARLY as interesting... I have the 2nd book in the series, The Throne of Fire from February... but I just am uninterested in picking it up...
For this weekend, as I head off, my books for the lake include Love Wins (a Christian book with some controversy), Life As We Knew It because I saw it at Barnes and Noble under "required middle school reading" and was intrigued since Ms. R had mentioned it before, Ender's Game because it has been a while since I read it, and one of my kids is reading it this summer, and City of Ember because while I don't know much about it, that book keeps showing up whenever I search for dystopian stuff, so I figure I ought to know what it is about...
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