Run!

Wow. I haven't actually posted in a really long time. Life is busy, but pretty decent. Not to be terribly obvious, but life changes a lot when there's suddenly a very small person who is wholly dependent upon you. And of course, because I never do things the easy way, I've decided to make myself even more busy by taking up a few hobbies; one old, one new. I've gone back to singing in a choir (that's the old) and, the point of this particular post, I've taken up running.

I really love to run. I loved it when I was a kid. I wasn't really much for actual athletic effort, though, until I started fencing at the end of high school. For a long time, that was enough to keep me in decent shape, but as I got older, I needed more exercise to feel my best. Off and on I would go out and trot around, but stuff hurt, and I just didn't commit myself. Fast forward to a few years ago, when I started having a lot of trouble with my hip. It took me a couple of orthopedists to figure out that I had arthritis caused by dysplasia. But I also took away something important from the last guy I saw. We were talking about running, and the common excuse from a lot of people about how it's bad for your knees. He said "You know, it's not the running that's bad, actually. It's when you run for a long time, and then stop, and then start again." Essentially, he made me realize that stuff hurts in the beginning, but it ought to stop hurting as you go on, since it's all getting stronger.

Fast forward again, though, to early this summer. I have had a baby, and I am struggling, a bit, to lose the weight. I've never actively tried to "lose weight" before ... I always just exercised and felt good with where I was. Feeling at the end of my rope, and having had a great conversation w/some friends who are runners while on vacation, I made a decision: it was time to "become a runner."

I came home from vacation at the beginning of June, and decided that my plan, to start out with, was that I would run 2 miles three times a week. In July I would up it to 2.5, in August 3.0, and so on, and just see where it took me. I decided if it went well, I would look for a 5k (3.2ish miles) in September.

It's now October. I get up at 5 am at least three days a week (and I'm gunning for 4) and run 2.25 miles, which is a convenient loop near my house that includes one painful and one slightly painful hill. On Saturdays, I'm now trying to go for a "long run," which for this month is the originally planned 4 miles. Basically, there's not enough time in my regular day for anything much past 3 miles.

I'm having a great time. Getting up really early kind of sucks, but there's the awesome feeling of having already exercised when you "officially" start your day. Plus when I get home at night I'm not trying to juggle spending time w/baby AND getting dinner AND cleaning up afterward AND THEN trying to decide if there's still enough time to go out for a run. Oddly enough (not really), I feel more tired and low-energy on days when I don't run. I'm actually a few pounds below pre-baby weight now, looking for a few more. And yes, I did run my first 5K at the end of September.

I ran the "Hoof it for Haiti" event in Rocky Hill, CT. I looked for a cause that would be more personal, but this particular event was about 15 minutes away from home, so that was the deciding factor. Despite the threat of rain, my husband and daughter came with and cheered me on. My goal, officially, was just to run it and finish. Unofficially, though, I had this arbitrary notion of finishing it in under 30 minutes. I hadn't done any sort of speed training, or any "training" at all besides just going out and running, but I just thought 30 minutes sounded like a pretty good time. My only strategy was to run at my own pace for the first mile or half-mile, and then pick and choose people to see if I could pass them.

People seemed very cliqueish at the starting line, but since I was nervous, I didn't really mind much. As is universally advised, I moved to the back of the pack. I saw a tall guy who might as well have been wearing a sign that said "SERIOUS RUNNER" staying loose way behind everyone else before the start, and I thought "Ok, Red Shirt Guy's going to win." He just had that look. I tried to stay calm and relaxed, and to remind myself that I had been running 3.5 miles for the previous month, so this would be no problem.

And we're off. The first bit was a small downhill, and I made a crack to the lady next to me that it was designed that way to make us feel better. After that, I got into my usual pace and tried to treat it like just another Saturday run. The first half was through a residential area, and it was fun to see people coming out of their houses to watch all the crazy runners go by. I was pleased to note that at the first uphill stretch, I didn't really have to slow down much, and that even with my moderate, comfortable pace I was passing plenty of people, including a few that I thought looked like more serious contenders.

I think I may have sped up a little bit when I passed the first mile marker, but I tried to calm that down a bit. We passed back across the starting line and I waved at my fans and had some lady offer me encouragement by telling me I had a good pace. On we go. I passed fewer people the further on I went and was sort of bummed when I saw people walking who would then start running again a few minutes later. It seemed sort of like cheating to me. A little less than halfway through I started focusing on a woman a ways in front of me, who seemed to be moving at a decent speed. Passing her became my goal, but she stayed well ahead of me until about 2.5 miles. After I passed her I felt like it was time to go for a more full-on run, even though I was definitely starting to feel it. Managed to successfully snag some water from a Boy Scout on my way past; that felt like an accomplishment. As I moved back up a small rise and started to pass a few more people, it got exciting. I was sucking wind but I was almost through! I came around a curve and could see the finish line and my husband cheering, and then I saw the big digital clock at the finish. It said 29:32, or something close to that. I WAS GOING TO DO IT. I've long been a believer in the idea of "always saving something for the end," and this was the perfect time to find that reserve and go for it.

When I passed the clock, it said 29:42, although the official results would add 10 seconds to that for whatever reason. Either way, it was under 30 minutes, so that's a win in my book. I grabbed the proffered bottle of water at the finish and walked for a bit before turning back to catch up with the family. I felt AWESOME, if rather tired. Walked around some (we were trying to get the young lady to go to sleep in her stroller), wandered over and got some food, kind of wasn't sure what to do. I learned from my husband that Red Shirt Guy came in second. He finished about 20 seconds behind some teenager who'd been in the lead the whole way. Didn't look too bummed about it, though. Hung out for a while before wandering over to check the official times, and learned that I'd finished in the top half. Also a good feeling when all I'd really intended to do was get out there and do the thing.

Overall, it was fun. I was a little disappointed that I felt as tired as I did, but I chalk that up to probably keeping a bit of a faster pace than I usually do, and speeding up a fair amount toward the end. I felt a little bit of a let-down at having completed the goal, and of just no longer being able to say "Hey, I'm going to run my first ever 5K next weekend," but later in the day I started thinking about the next one, so I guess that means I'm hooked, huh?

Right now I'm trying to up the pace a little bit to see if I can finish the next one stronger. Planning on one in Middletown at the end of this month, and am tentatively thinking I'll do a Turkey Trot when we're down South for Thanksgiving. Bigger races and distances are a thought for the future (Hartford Half-Marathon in a year?), but for now I'm enjoying myself and not really looking to push things that much. I feel strong and healthy and like I'm accomplishing something, and that's a pretty awesome feeling. I'll let you know how 5K Number Two goes. I've got a PR to beat, now.

Book reviews

Der. I've gotten lazy about reposting reviews here. I am still going along, though, so I'll just post links here, and if you're interested, click away!

#20, Atonement, Ian McEwan.
#21, The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, Carolyn Keene. (Nancy Drew)
#22, Sunshine, Robin McKinley.
#23, The Fire, Katherine Neville.
#24, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie.
#25, Russian Winter, Daphne Kalotay.
#26, Spoiled, Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan.
#27, A Good Year, Peter Mayle.
#28, Gods Behaving Badly, Marie Phillips.
#29, Born to Run ... , Christopher McDougall.
#30, Wicked, Gregory Maguire.
#31, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick.
#32, The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova.
#33, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier.
#34, Run Like a Mother, Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea.
#35, Shakespeare's Wife, Germaine Greer.
#36, Breadcrumbs, Anne Ursu.
#37, The Woman in Black, Susan Hill.
#38, The Time Machine, H.G. Wells.
#39, The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn, Alison Weir.
#40, Matilda, Roald Dahl.
#41, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs.
#42-52, Our favorite board books.

Whee.

CBR Book 19: Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen

Ok, so this is a re-read. I took a Jane Austen course in college, in which we read all six of her novels, and this was one of my least favorite. Since I took that course about six years ago, and at the urging of a friend who loves it, I decided to give it another try.

Mansfield Park tells the story of Fanny Price, a poor girl who is sent off to live with wealthy relations. She is brought up at Mansfield Park by her Uncle and Aunt Bertram, and her aunt Mrs. Norris, alongside her cousins Tom, Edmund, Maria, and Julia. As they all enter adulthood, their personalities and manners all prove to be the making (or unmaking) of them, especially when they make new friends in brother and sister Henry and Mary Crawford. Maria Bertram marries Mr. Rushworth even while carrying on a dangerous flirtation with Mr. Crawford, Julia chafes at being the younger sister, Tom indulges in wild behavior, and Edmund struggles between his plans to go into the clergy, and his wish to marry the worldly and wealthy Miss Crawford. Fanny, meanwhile, is audience to all these goings-on, until Mr. Crawford turns his attentions to her, and she must fend off his advances while keeping her own heart a secret. In the end, everyone learns a lesson and/or gets their comeuppance, and it all concludes quite tidily indeed.

When I brought Mansfield Park home from the library, my husband asked me, "Why isn't this one as well known as some of the others?" and my response was "Because it's boring." Having read it a second time, that's not entirely fair, although it's a reasonably accurate assessment of why fewer people have probably read this one than, say, Pride & Prejudice. If all of Austen's novels highlight the social behaviors and activities of the time, Mansfield Park focuses on them primarily. It's really the most moralizing of them all. When her uncle agrees to take her in, it is his intention to not accentuate the social differences between Fanny and her cousins, but this does not come to pass. The entire novel is essentially a narrative of how Fanny's behavior is far superior to that of all her cousins (save Edmund, who nevertheless has his own stumbling-blocks), and the implication is that the difference is due to the inherent nature of the difference in their social status. Fanny is brought up in wealth and comfort, but she is always reminded to feel grateful for what she has been given, whereas her cousins are, in essence, spoiled, and take everything for granted. As a poor girl with very little expectations for her future, it is much more incumbent upon Fanny to behave in the most proper manner possible. In contrast, her cousins can expect to continue to live in style regardless of their behavior ... to a point, as we eventually learn.

The language and the writing here are, of course, gorgeous. It's very enjoyable to read, even if it is a litany of manners. The biggest problem for me is that really, all of the characters, well-behaved or not, aren't particularly likeable. Fanny herself is a good character; a fairly typical Austen heroine. She has a bit more spine than might be otherwise expected, but so much of her story is internal that she's still not that interesting. Edmund, the other "good" character, is actually kind of insufferable. He preaches to Fanny throughout, "leading her" as it were, but when he gets distracted by a pretty girl, a lot of his own behavior falls by the wayside, yet Fanny still finds him to be an ideal specimen. The Bertram sisters are pretty annoying, and the Crawfords are interesting in their moral difference, but are sort of summarily dismissed when their behavior is finally proved to be undesirable to everyone who hadn't seen it before.

I think I can now say that I don't dislike Mansfield Park so much as I simply don't find it as enjoyable as the other novels. The story is a good one, but the characters are a little more allegorical (for lack of a better word) than usual, and the proselytizing just overpowers the narrative to too high a degree. It doesn't move in my overall hierarchy of Austen's work, but I am willing to give it more credit now for its good points. If you're looking to read some Austen, though, I don't recommend starting here. Try Emma or P&P, and then if you like those, keep going.

CBR Book 18: Territory

Territory, by Emma Bull

Regardless of what I say about this book, the following sentence will either sell you or not. Ready? Here goes. Territory by Emma Bull is a fantasy novel, set in the wild West. No, seriously. It's set in Tombstone. The characters include Doc Holliday and his woman, most of the Earp clan, and pretty much everyone else who was involved in the shootout at the O.K. Corral. And guess what? Some of them are sorcerers.

Jesse Fox (the main characters are fictional) arrives in Tombstone in the midst of turmoil. There's been an attempted robbery of a stagecoach and consequent murder of two men, and one of the escaping would-be bandits has stolen his horse. He shoots the guy, who eventually dies, and retrieves his horse, but gets caught up in the subsequent mess before he can leave continue on his way.Turns out a friend of his, Chow Lung, a Chinese magician, is in town, and he wants Jesse to use his latent-but-denied powers to set things straight in Tombstone. Somebody's been using magic to control events (and people's lives), and Jesse and Lung have to figure out who. It's not really giving much away to say that the ultimate culprit is pretty obvious. What's interesting is that there are various other individuals in town who have the power but are unaware of it, or how to use it. One such is Mildred Benjamin, an attractive widow who works as a typesetter for The Nugget by day and as a writer of dime serial novels by night. She and Jesse strike up an uneasy friendship, and she uses her developing skills as a reporter to unravel the complex thread of events and murders that surround the attempted stagecoach robbery. The ultimate "showdown" is not one of guns, but one of power. Lines are drawn, and the stage is set, to some degree, for the events of the famous shootout.

The biggest problem with Territory comes from the author's attempts to make the thing a sort of mystery. For the first third of the novel, the reader is picking through information and learning along with the characters, and it's all very confusing. The second third irons itself out a bit and focuses on other things, so it's more comfortable, and then the final third gets all convoluted again. I hesitate to say that there are too many threads; I think it's more an issue of how those threads are handled. For instance: the plot is moving along, and we are satisfied with the identity of the main perpetrator of various deeds. Then, suddenly, for reasons that are never made entirely clear, we are thrown the curveball of learning that someone else who has been merely peripheral up to this point has these magical powers as well, and may actually have been responsible for one previous deed in particular. I'm not sure why Ms. Bull got so enthusiastic about making every other person in Tombstone a magician, but I didn't personally feel that it was necessary. It's hard for me to admit that the plot of a novel is too convoluted: one of my favorite books is The Count of Monte Christo, which is sort of famously tangled, and that's part of what I love about it. But here, for whatever reason, it just wasn't working for me.

What was working, and what I always enjoy about magic in novels, is the way in which an individual author chooses to manifest the magic. Is it related to light, animals, water, will, or what? In this case, it's sort of earth magic. Tombstone is a silver mining town, and so the "magicians" drawn there are brought, whether or not they know it, by the energies in the earth itself. The earth is used for important "spells," and the characters feel a strong connection to the land. It's not the most original manifestation, but it worked well within the framework of this story.

So yeah. Cowboys plus magic plus mystery. A little bit of a mess plot-wise, reasonably entertaining character-wise, and actually really interesting in terms of the use of the historical elements present. I would suggest that if you don't know much about Tombstone, Holliday, Earp, and the famous shootout (like me), you might want to hit up Wikipedia before reading Territory. Or watch Tombstone, or something. Speaking of which, I need to go put that on my Netflix queue. Pardon me.

CBR Book 17: Furious Love

Furious Love, by Sam Kashner & Nancy Schoenberger

In a book full of sad tales, the saddest comes from the acknowledgements section at the end. The writers, on telling a recently graduated theater major that they planned on writing a book about the world-famous Taylor-Burton relationship, received this response: "Oh, wow. I never know that Elizabeth Taylor and Tim Burton were married!" After being one-half of the most famous couple in the world, not to mention an acting giant, it's too bad that Richard Burton is somewhat forgotten in the realm of celebrity these days. I am forced to admit that I have not, as yet, even seen a movie in which Mr. Burton appears. I promise you that there are at least 5 currently on my Netflix queue, though, and I bumped a couple up after reading this fascinating story of Hollywood's royal couple.

Furious Love serves as sort of a dual biography, giving us a presumably abbreviated look at the lives of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton before and after tumultuous relationship, as well as the full account of their years together. Elizabeth Taylor had been a movie star from childhood, whereas Burton was the most promising of stage actors until he answered the siren call of Hollywood. She had lived a life of privilege, while he was the 12th of 13 children born to a poor Welsh miner. When they began their affair on the set of Cleopatra in 1963, they were both married to other people: Taylor to Eddie Fisher (her fourth marriage) and Burton to Sibyl, who had weathered countless affairs before. Their relationship caused a sensation; scandalizing and fascinating the world, and engendering the landscape of celebrity obsession that we see today. Throughout their affair and their subsequent marriages (the first lasting ten years, the second a matter of months) they were alternately beloved and vilified by the public. They functioned almost entirely in the public eye, allowing the world to live vicariously through their extreme decadence. They purchased fabulous jewels, paintings, yachts, planes; they ate and drank to excess; they rubbed shoulders with everyone who was anyone. Oh, and they made a whole bunch of movies, too. In the end, their life was too extreme to maintain, both in terms of their relationship, and their health. They both suffered from uncountable health problems, many brought on by alcoholism and drug abuse (mostly in Taylor's case), and Burton died in 1984 at the age of 58.

This biography encapsulates two different stories. The first is that of Taylor and Burton's film careers. The list of people they worked with and movies they made is truly incredible. More interesting is the way in which they commanded their world: at the height of their stardom, and even when their shine had faded somewhat, they were capable of asking nearly anything of the studios and getting away with it. Elizabeth Taylor usually had full veto rights over everything from costume design to screenwriters and directors. Despite being remembered for a certain amount of high drama and camp today, Taylor and Burton worked hard to bring challenging, literary pieces to the screen; often adaptations of plays written by friends like Tennessee Williams and Noel Coward, not to mention classics like Shakespeare and Marlowe. They were conversely the critics' darlings or the laughingstock of the press, but they almost always did things the way they wanted to do them. The rise and fall of their Hollywood reign is a fascinating story to follow, and will certainly swell your Netflix queue beyond all reason (if it's not there already).

Darker, and much sadder (to me) is the story of their relationship. What existed in the Taylor-Burton romance was a situation wherein two people loved each other very much, but were living in such a fantasy world of movies, parties, and riches that they were rendered incapable of dealing with reality. I often think that we, as a society, become brainwashed by the romance of media. We believe in things like meet-cutes, last-minute reconciliations in airports, and happily ever afters; and more importantly, we think that these things are all engineered by magic, rather than hard work and communication. And if the average Joe gets sucked in by all of those things, then the movie stars themselves are twice as susceptible. Taylor and Burton are a perfect example of this. They did whatever they wanted, often suffering the consequences but usually coming out ahead because they were so popular that they were guaranteed to make money for anyone they worked with or for. They lived a life of hedonism and never seemed to truly catch on that they were paying for it with their lives. Burton suffered a wide variety of health problems due to his (never acknowledged) alcoholism, but never truly got sober for more than a few months at a time. Elizabeth, and their entourage, were so busy having a good time that they never really supported his efforts. We would look with horror on a "regular" relationship in which one partner attempted to get sober while the other continued to booze it up, but this was simply par for the course where the Burtons were involved. Depicted in this book, that was their whole life. They got sucked in to the limelight, into their public personae, and they couldn't escape. It's not enough to say that they "weren't allowed" a normal life or relationship - it's more like a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, wherein they knew their life was destroying them, but they loved the poison.

This is a depressing and fascinating story of two people who only sort of existed, and of two people who weren't allowed to truly exist. "Liz and Dick," as opposed to Elizabeth and Richard, played out their every move for reporters. The situations and stories are presented so well here that in the end, instead of being envious of the fabulous life they lived, all you can really feel for them is a certain amount of pity. Sure, we'd all like to have enough money to casually drop 2 million on a massive diamond, but what price would we really pay? There are numerous references throughout to Faust (a role Burton played, naturally), and it's an apt comparison. Furious Love is a book about movie stars, yes, but I think it gives us many greater things to think about. If nothing else, you'll stop and feel grateful, at least once, for your comparatively quiet and sane existence.

CBR Book 16: Last Voyage of the Valentina

Last Voyage of the Valentina, by Santa Montefiore

I decided to read this book because a friend of mine wrote a blog post dream-casting the movie adaptation, and it sounded like brain candy. Everyone needs brain candy sometimes, right? There are lots of problems with candy, though, and so too this novel. It's basically a dressed-up romance novel with all the schmoopy writing and dialogue, a fair amount of sex (though not particularly well-written) and not much in the way of interesting character development or even sympathetic characters. The "mystery" at the heart of the novel isn't much either; half of it is easily solved, and the other half offers no clues whatsoever. But, if you're looking for something relatively mindless with which to pass the time, you could probably do much worse than this.

Alba Arbuckle (oy) is a spoiled playgirl who doesn't work, spends all of her money on clothes, and is so beautiful as to have men at her feet wherever she goes. She's got a distant but doting father, an "evil stepmother," and a mysterious, Italian mother for whom the houseboat on which she lives is named. When Alba discovers a portrait of her mother, Valentina, drawn by her father, she decides it's high time she went in search of her roots. To do this, she disrupts and upsets her family, enlists the help of a poor sap literary agent named Fitz who is in love with her (apparently he finds her brattiness charming?), and eventually sets off for Italy to find out about her mother's life and death. Along the way, I'm sure you'll be surprised to learn, she finds herself.

Seriously, Alba is one of the worst heroines I've ever come across. Everything she does is for herself, and everything that doesn't go her way is clearly done with malice, to ruin her life. She's twenty-six going on fifteen. Her cast of supporting characters are painted in such broad strokes, perhaps to make her seem more interesting?, so as to be hardly worth mention. Montefiore is going for a sort of "English values" vs. "Italian passion" idea, but her stolid English types come off as stodgy and boring, and her passionate Italians just come off as annoying. While Alba learns to embrace both sides of her heritage, her transformation is so hurried and so rote that there's no journey to be witnessed, no soul-searching or realizations. One minute spoiled brat, the next, lovely human being.

The novel is two stories entwined: Alba's own story, and that of her parents, told in flashback. The structure of the novel works fine, and I do think that it could actually be made into a creditable movie (although I disagree with most of my friend's casting choices). As a novel, though, it's strictly treacle. The language is truly florid and ridiculous. Everyone either is (or was) devastatingly gorgeous or grotesquely unattractive. All of the plot points get neatly tied up with a bow at the end, except for the love story between Alba and Fitz, which gets built up for a while but then unceremoniously dumped. It turns out that even though Alba has "changed," she's still going to get her own way, and the truest love extant in the novel is that of Alba for herself. What a beautiful thing.

CBR Book 15: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Let's just get this out of the way, first thing, so that those of you who are so inclined can declare me insane and go on with your lives: I thought this book was very mediocre.

Yeah, sorry. I really did try. I will admit that I tend to avoid things that are insanely hyped up. I've also recently become very tired of reading books in a series; the commitment is sometimes exhausting. And so, I have been avoiding these books like the plague for a while. But, as often happens, I decide to stop being a curmudgeon and see what all the fuss is about. And just so you know that I am always willing to admit when I'm wrong: I started reading the Harry Potter books after #4 came out, and became a huge fanatic. I mean, I can admit now that they're fun and inventive, but not necessarily terribly good from a literary standpoint, but I do love 'em dearly. But anyway. Back to the present day.

The Hunger Games is the first book in the new YA series hotness. It depicts a dystopian, post-apocalyptic state in the mid-Atlantic region of what was once the United States. The denizens of the Twelve Districts are poor, hungry, and extremely repressed by the people of the Capitol, who are effete and shallow. The worst of the situation is the annual Hunger Games, in which twenty-four children (a boy and a girl from each district) are thrown into an arena and forced to fight to the death. The game ends when there's one contestant left standing. The winner is set for life: returned to his or her district, given a large house and large sums of money. It's crowd-control at its most sadistic: the people are forced to first watch as their children are randomly selected as participants (called tributes), and then the games are televised as "entertainment". It's really a pretty disturbing, albeit interesting, concept for the central idea of a young adult fantasy novel.

Our main character is Katniss Everdeen, a teenager who lives with her mother and younger sister in the lowest district of them all, District Twelve. Katniss is the street-savvy one: she illegally hunts game and trades it on the black market in order to provide for her family. When her little sister, Prim, is selected as a tribute, Katniss of course volunteers to take her place. She is joined by a young man named Peeta, who showed her a kindness long ago. They journey to the Capitol, where they are paraded around, celebrated, and trained to survive. They are naturally at a disadvantage, being from the poorest District, which has only ever had two winners in the history of the Games. The lone surviving winner is their coach, Haymitch, and he's a drunken lout.

Now, let me ask you this: is there really anyone that doesn't think they don't already know how this is going to end?
I'm not suggesting that a predictable storyline is enough to ruin a novel, and in fact, one of the things Collins does best is keep the tension running high. She also succeeds in using first-person narrative (the story is told by Katniss) to really bring home the sense of isolation and danger that exists for the tributes. Katniss struggles constantly with the question of who to trust and how her own feelings are going to affect her chances.

For me, though, the first person narrative is also the main weakness of the novel. Katniss, despite her clear bad-assness, is kind of a bore. The language and descriptive passages are very terse. I do acknowledge that this brevity adds to the picture being painted, but being descriptive with fewer words is an enviable skill, and I'm not sure Ms. Collins has it as much as, say, Hemingway. I know, I know, it's "only YA". But so are some really excellent pieces of work, like the Narnia Chronicles. A book can be for young adults and still be beautifully literary. I found the writing to be rather uneven, as well. Throughout, Collins managed to keep the excitement and thrill of danger moving at a good pace, but in the final chapters, it's as though she realized she was two days away from her deadline, so decided to rush. The climax barely even gives you time to catch your breath, nor does it measure up to the events of the Hunger Games up to that point. Collins seems in a hurry to lay the groundwork for the rest of the series, which is understandable, but perhaps not worth rushing the end for. The foundation's laid pretty well throughout the novel, I think.

The last thing I'll say, and this is truly nit-picky, is that somebody needs to lay off the commas, or be less concerned about her word count, or something. Part of the problem with the writing style is that it is trying to be brief and to the point, but is also trying to sound conversational. Again, that's a hard skill to master, and I think that had Ms. Collins chose to be the tiniest bit more free with her words (say, using an "and" instead of merely a comma) the result would be more enjoyable and natural to read.

As I said before, I'm a little over YA fantasy fiction, so feel free to discount my opinions here. The Hunger Games was a fine way to spend a couple of afternoons, but I didn't feel that it was particularly deserving of all the hype. Maybe the next two books get better? I'm not really sure I'm inclined to find out, and that's kind of the gist of what I have to say about this novel. If a first book doesn't truly compel me to want to read the others, then it hasn't done its job.

PS: Jennifer Lawrence is, IMO, a really crappy choice as the star of the inevitable and upcoming film adaptation. I wish her luck.