The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

With the movie coming up I decided it was time to reread this book.  Last summer when I read Mockingjay I really wanted to go back and reread the other two.  Sometimes it is hard to take the time to reread a book or series knowing that there are so many other good books out there, but I keep reminding myself that reading is for fun and there is no right or wrong.  It isn't like I have to read a certain number of books, so when I start to take the fun out of reading I try to take a step back.

Knowing the outcome of this book allowed me to step back and notice other details that might not have seemed as important the first time I read the book.  It turns out I actually remembered the book better than I thought I would have considering I read it almost two years ago. 

The contrast between what the people in the Capital have and the people in the districts have is so huge.  In District 12 they only have electricity for two or three hours a day while the Capital has hovercrafts and expensive  medicines, while there is so much to eat and so little to do that people are surgically augmenting themselves with tattoos and skin dye.  I was left wondering how the people in the Capital ended up there.  Was it just about where you lived when Panem was formed?  Could people from the districts ever have the chance to move to the Capital?  Do any of them have relatives in other districts and can they communicate with them? 

We have some of the same issues now.  Some people have so much money that they spend it on unnecessary items while people in the same city are homeless and starving.  How can a society manage to provide for all its members?  How hard should survival really be?  How do we help those less fortunate without making it so easy that people start to expect not even need to help themselves at all?

Above all that, where does reality television reach a point where it is too much?  Just as Katniss views her prep team as a group of silly pets, they view the contestants in the Hunger Games as less than people too.  Can the Capital group and the Districts ever see each other as other humans?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out on the screen.  Of what has to be cut to keep the movie to a manageable length and what makes it in and how the faces of the actors will supplant the ones readers formed on their own when they were reading.  Already I lost my picture of Katniss and replaced it with Jennifer Lawrence from a photo on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

Werewolves Don't Go To Summer Camp by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones (The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids #2)

My thoughts:

In this adventure the kids go to summer camp together and suspect their camp counselor of being a werewolf.  None of the other kids at camp seem to notice anything strange about the man.  The camp is called Camp Lone Wolf and there always seems to be a lone wolf running around at night. Their counselor is a very hairy man who never wears shoes or changes his clothing and eats in a unique manner.

The four children work together using books to deal with the suspected werewolf.  I like that this series was written by an elementary teacher and librarian.  The writing shows that these women are very familiar with their target audience.

Details

•Pub. Date: July 1991

•Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.

•Format: Mass Market Paperback , 96pp

•Age Range: 7 to 10

•Series: The Adventures Of The Bailey School Kids #2

•ISBN-13: 9780590440615

•ISBN: 0590440616

Safe from the Past: A Story of Hope, Faith and Determination by Patricia Miller Mauro

About Safe From the Past:

A kidnapping, the divorce of her parents, the loss of her father, temporary abandonment and extreme poverty are just some of the issues the author dealt with as a young child.

Her mother finally tells her she must go to college so she can break out of this cycle of poverty and hopelessness. But how can she when she has no money and absolutely no confidence or self esteem?

Read this true story to discover what hope, faith and determination can do to change a life.

A truly inspiring, deeply personal tale of perseverance in the face of unimaginable hardships, Safe from the Past makes clear the restorative power of an education.

Told in an open, honest voice with the deepest sincerity, the author's life story serves as a rousing inspiration to those with the desire to create a better life than the one they are currently living.

No matter how helpless you feel, everyone has the power to shape their own life.

My thoughts:
First I want to thank Litfuse for providing me with this book to review.  I am excited to be on this blog tour and to be one of the first to post an opinion about the book.

Patrica Miller Mauro grew up in an unstable family who subsisted at a poverty level.  Her mother and father divorced when she and her sister were young.  Although her father tried to stay in her life, even going so far as to kidnap his two daughters, her mother made it difficult on all of them to maintain the contact and he exited their lives rather than continue to subject his children to intense grilling every time they came back from a visit.

Living in poor neighborhoods, buying food with food stamps, using space heaters and blankets in doorways to trap heat, and constantly being in survival mode became the families norm.  Then her mother remarried and new issues came into their lives in the forms of alcoholism and domestic violence.

Through going to college and getting an education, and figuring out how to do it all on her own with no financial help from her family, Mauro was able to build confidence in herself and build a new way of life.  Her mother always told her that she had to go to college.

I was struck by the intense faith Mauro had in God.  So many times we associate faith with going to and belonging to a religious community and place of worship.  Of spending time praying as  group, but it seems like Mauro had faith even in the worst of times and she never mentions stepping inside of a church.  It was a wonderful reminder that God is everywhere and everyone can have faith, even if they have little else.  God always provides for tomorrow if we trust enough and understand what is being asked of us.

It was a bit odd to me how much faith and love Mauro was able to have in her mother even after all that had happened.  From the not allowing her ex-husband to be a part of his children's lives to the alcoholism and later mental health issues, it was very hard for me to understand how she could keep saying how she owed her mother so much.  I'm not sure how many favors her mother really did for her except for drilling into her that higher education was the way to escape the life they had.  Maybe the faith and love come from her faith and love in God and her willingness to forgive the past.

Litfuse is sponsoring a $30 Amazon.com giveaway.

About the Giveaway! To enter all you have to do is send a tweet (using #litfuse) about Safe From the Past or share about it on Facebook!

If you tweet we'll capture your entry when you use @litfuse. If you share it on Facebook or your blog, just email us and let us know (info@litfusegroup.com). Easy.

Link to buy the book: http://www.amazon.com/Safe-Past-Story-Faith-Determination/dp/1933651849/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310054112&sr=sprightly-20


About the Patricia Miller Mauro:

Patricia worked in New York City's financial district for thirteen years in the field of securities operations. At that time, she went on to obtain an MBA from New York University. She and her husband moved to Dallas, TX in 2001 where they are raising their two children.

During her time in NY, Patricia wrote an article entitled "A Tribute To My Mother" which was published in "The Recovery Journal" in 1999. Her book is a continuation of that tribute and serves to spread the message to those in similar situations that good news is on its way to children considering a higher education but who are afraid to dream. For more information please visit, www.patriciamaurobooks.com.

Blog Tour Schedule: http://litfusegroup.com/blogtours/text/13380085)

Where in the World are You Reading 2011 Update

I updated my map and it looks like I still have a lot of states to hit.  Somehow most of my books seem to take place in New York, Pennsylvania, California and New England.  I have managed to read one each in Hawaii and Alaska though!  Check out my map  here.

Justice by Karen Robards

Synopsis:

Feisty criminal attorney Jessica Ford has done her best to comply with the orders of the Secret Service’s unofficial witness protection program ever since she became the lone witness in the First Lady’s murder. Unfortunately, winning her first high-profile case for a prestigious Washington, D.C. law firm and having her face all over the news doesn’t work so well with her new low-profile life. When Secret Service agent Mark Ryan is assigned to keep her safe at all costs, Jess is less than thrilled—after all, he is her ex-boyfriend.

Jess’s next case is just as newsworthy: a rape involving a senator’s son. When the victim makes a sensational revelation on the stand, Jess suspects it is because she was threatened. Meanwhile, Jess has an uneasy feeling about the beautiful young associate she replaced: where is Allison Howard? No one has seen her since she left the firm.

Taking over Allison’s position, Jess becomes more and more haunted by her predecessor. Then she discovers that the victim in the rape case has also disappeared. With Mark’s help, Jess starts searching for both women. Soon she uncovers the case of a missing teenage girl who knew Allison. Could there be a link? When someone tries to kill her, Jess knows she is getting too close to something.

As Jess hurtles closer to the truth—and the sexual tension between her and Mark grows hotter than ever—she finds herself in a race against the clock to find the answers before what she doesn’t know gets them both killed.

My thoughts:

I read this book as part of Pocket Blogs Book Tours on Goodreads.  I have been meaning to try a Karen Robards novel for a number of years, I have some on my shelves but as my shelves are overflowing I just haven't gotten to them yet.  I signed up because I was interested and I knew having a deadline would make me read the book in a timely manner. 

The book had a bit of a slow section towards the beginning, but once it picked up I read the rest of it in one evening.  It is classed as a romantic thriller and I would also say it has a bit of mystery thrown in as well.  Jess is a lawyer for a prestigious law firm.  She gets pulled into a high profile case a the last minute because her predecessor elopes to get married and go on an extended honeymoon.  The case throws her into the spotlight which she has been trying to avoid because of her past celebrity as the lone survivor of a car accident that killed the presidents wife.  When her life is threatened they can't figure out if it just local DC crime, targeting for being the sole survivor or related to the rape case she has been working on.

As more and more comes to light about the lawyer she is replacing more questions surface.  The suspense is very well done and some of the convoluted workings of the legal system are put on display.  How do expensive firms have such good track records in winning cases?  Is it the training of their lawyers?  The resources at their disposal?  Or is it by illegal means?

Jess really fights her attraction for Mark and that sometimes got a little tedious for me.  Since this is my first book by Robards I don't know if these two were together in a past book and this is picking up where they left off or if the characters usually stand alone.  I am interested in trying out some of her other books now that I have read this one, but it is going to take some shelf shuffling to find them!  I see this as a good summer read, perfect for sitting by the pool or one the beach.

Details

•Pub. Date: July 2011

•Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group

•Format: Hardcover , 352pp

•ISBN-13: 9781439183700

•ISBN: 1439183708

Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe

Overview
A wryly funny and surprisingly moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye


A teen idol at fifteen, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted to the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood.

The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surreal nexus of show business and politics both on the set and in the actual White House. And in between are deft and humorous stories of the wild excesses that marked the eighties, leading to his quest for family and sobriety.

Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last twenty-five years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.

My thoughts:
I love biographies and the chance to get a glimpse into anther person's  life, especially celebrities because they seem to live a charmed existence.  After seeing The Outsiders I remember being drawn to Lowe.  I'm not sure I actually saw him in much of anything until later on when he was in Austin Powers, but for some reason he was one of my favorite actors so to be able to read his own account of his life was intriguing to me.

I found this book to be a bit uneven.  It reminded me of when I took American History in high school and we spent a ton of time on the beginning of the country and the beginning of the textbook, and then as the year started to run out we learned on fast forward and by the end of the year we had barely covered the more current events.  This book covers a lot of Lowe's early history and then more recent events are only mentioned briefly. 

Parts of this book really grabbed me and kept me reading and then I would start another chapter and it would lose me.  I really enjoy books where it feels and sounds like the author is just sitting down and talking with the you, as if you were hanging out with a friend, and at times that was what this was, but not all the way.  I applaud Lowe for getting sober and for finding fulfilment with his wife and children, but sometimes when he was upset with not getting what he felt was his fair share of a show I felt a little less compassion.  I understand that stars make a lot of money and work a lot of hours, but they make more for a few months of work than many people will make in half their lives.

By reading this I realized that a lot of Lowe's movies I have never seen. I never watched The West Wing and only occasionally caught Brothers and Sisters before his character was killed off, an episode which I did see.  I'd like to look around to see if Outsiders:The Novel the movie was ever released to see the movie with the deleted scenes to make it more like the book.

I didn't dislike the book, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations either. 


Details
•Pub. Date: April 2011
•Publisher: Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
•Format: Hardcover , 308pp
•ISBN-13: 9780805093292
•ISBN: 080509329X

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 the Movie

My husband and I had a movie date this morning.  When you have kids sometimes you have to be flexible about times and I hate to be in packed movie theaters so this worked out great.  I love the low price of the morning movies at our local AMC theater too!

I remember when the first movie in the series came out.  I reread the book and went to see it the first week and felt let down.  So many things were changed and deleted from the movie that I as too distracted to really get into it and enjoy it.  Now I enjoy rewatching the movie and the changes don't bother me.  I have a feeling that this movie is going to be the same thing for me. 

I loved the story and it is evident that there was a lot of effort made in keeping it very close to the book, but there were still some changes that bothered me a bit.  I won't name them because I hate to spoil movies.  My biggest complaint was that the movie felt slow.  It was as if there were scenes that needed to happen so they made a checklist and just filmed each one then strung them together.  There wasn't a lot of continuity between one scene and the next.  There also wasn't a lot of suspense.  Yes I have read the books so I knew what was going to happen, but part 1 seemed more suspenseful and tense.  Even the scene with the dragon wasn't how I pictured it.

This is a movie that I may need to see again.  My older two children want to see it, but we wanted to see it first to make sure they would be okay and we feel they will.  One day I may take the two of them and try to relax more.  Maybe my expectations were too high.  All the other reviews I've read have been great, so it may just be me.  Perhaps it is residual sadness over knowing that the movies are over and the reminder that the book series is over as well.  I always thought Rowling would eventually write more, maybe about Teddy Lupin or Harry, Ron or Hermoine's children.  Maybe explore a new generation at Hogwarts.  Who knows, that may eventually happen.