Book Review Of Mockingjay By Suzanne Collins

Katniss wakes up in District 13 (yes there is still a District 13 which is being run by President Coin), she later learns of the destruction of her very own District 12. Thanks to Gale - her mom, Prim and a very few others were saved. On the downside (and of course this made me worry), Peeta was captured and is now in the clutches of the evil President Snow.

As we know Katniss is the Mockingjay, the symbol of hope and since most of the disctricts have started a war against the Capitol, she must take a stand and be their guiding light. Peeta on the other hand was brainwashed, so the moment he saw Katniss, the first thing he did was strangle her - that did not go well.

I really liked how the book ended because as I said, I am for team Peeta. Mockingjay was a slow read compared to the first two novels as it went on about the uprising, we also see Gale to be more of the supporting role - the goodlooking rebel who will not get the girl.  My one wish is that Cinna was alive. Remember on the first book where he said that he chose District 12? It would have been great for him to elaborate on that especially being someone who was born in the Capitol, also because he is such an interesting character.

Overall, I am truly satisfied with how it ended especially because Peeta & Katniss will live happily ever after (although they will always be scarred by what happened) with their 2 children.  I truly reccomend this trilogy and look forward to the movie in 2012.

Book Review Of Catching Fire By Suzanne Collins

The second book takes place after Katniss and Peeta's victory as they are back in District 12. Everything should be happy, bright and breezy, right? Well, the sinister President Snow pays Katniss a surprising visit as he leaves her with an honest threat. The worst part is he once again makes them his pawns as they are placed back in the arena.

Catching Fire to me is such an appropriate second book, it answers several questions and has also left  us with a lot of questions yet to be expanded on the third book. I am quite curious as to who Katniss will end up with.

Let's take a closer look on these two interesting lead male characters; Gale is strong, he and Katniss share a love of hunting which makes them compatible. Also, they have been childhood friends, it was also mentioned that Gale is quite goodlooking. Peeta, on the other hand is analytical and smart, he captivates audiences with his eloquence in speech, also, he will do anything even give his life for Katniss...I guess he had me with smart...with that, I am now more inclined to root for Peeta. I am confident that Katniss will make the right choice, most importantly I am hoping that no one dies.

On a personal note, we have guests coming tomorrow - I will need time to prepare dinner and clean the house, of course, I have already started Mockingjay which means I may possibly have a sleepless Friday night....good times!

What about you, Gale or Peeta?

TBR Thursday

My TBR are...
1. Cathing Fire (Book 2 of the Hunger Games)














2. MockingJay (The final book of the Hunger Games series)














3. Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets














4. Odd Mom Out













5. Fragment

My Book Review Of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Since the story had no specific timeline, my assumption is that this was set in the distant dystopian future when North America is replaced by 12 districts that is lead by the Capitol. Every year, the Capitol would get a male and female representative from each district via lottery whose age ranges from 12-18 and would prepare them to battle to the death for everyone to see.

We follow the perilous plight of Katniss Everdeen, a stong willed 16 year old. Ever since her father's death, she took over the resposibilities that he left behind, she looked after her mother and sister, Prim. The first selfess act that Katniss did was she volunteered on her sister's behalf when Prim's name was drawn. So begins her battle of survival together with Preeta, a baker's son who has his rown easons for wanting to be the last person standing next to Katniss. I really do not want to give out  anything more about the story because it is such a wonderful read.

From the first few sentences, I was suddenly immersed into District 12 and felt like I was with Katniss the whole time, when Prim's name was called,  even I had a knot in my stomach because I knew Prim would not survive a day at the games.

I downloaded the kindle version of the Hunger Games on a Saturday afternoon and finished the book the very next day.  The Hunger Games is a very visual book that most will truly enjoy reading.

In addition, here are some of my suggestions as who could play Katniss Everdeen. What do you think?

Kristin Kreuk

Summer Glau

Rachel Hurd-Wood

Chloe Moretz

My Review Of The Green Hornet

There once was a TV show called The Green Hornet and it was shown during the same time of Batman and Robin with Adam West playing Batman, that was all I knew.

When we sat in the theater, I truly had very low hopes for the movie since based on the trailers it did not seem to be as dark as the Hulk nor as deep as Batman Returns all the more not even close to the Dark Knight.

This is an unexpected pleasing foray of one of the super hero remakes of 2011. The Green Hornet had a lot of action, good actors, creative screen shots, a humorous and solid script which is a formula for a fun action flick.

Britt Reid is rich, without a purpose in life, his father who was the head of the only remaining family owned newspaper recently died. With a burden of seemingly wasted potentials, Britt joins forces with Kato (who is referred to as the human swiss knife) to do something more meaningful with their lives. Their plan was to pose as villains to get close to the bad guys so no one suspects that they are the good guys... confused? I am too. But it was funny.

Chudnofsky (Christof Waltz) is such a terrific villain (he was in Inglorious Basterds), by being not truly scary and yet managed to do awful things to people, he also had a very cool double barrel gun. Cameron Diaz is such a seasoned actress, she plays Lenore Case who inadvertently becomes the mastermind.

They also payed homage to Bruce Lee by showing drawings of Kato which was of Bruce Lee, in one scene Kato also did Bruce Lee's famous 1 inch punch.

The Green Hornet is highly enjoyable. On a personal note, it was mostly fun for me because we saw this film with good friends in a really upscale theater that served food and alcohol as we were comfortably seated in recliners.

A Review Of The Perfect Woman By James Andrus

I told several folks (like my husband, guys at work, some friends) about the latest book I was reading and almost always the person I am having a conversation with would blurt out a description of what their view of The Perfect Woman is....I won't even site an example of what was mentioned.

James Andrus' novel, The Perfect Woman is a story of a serial killer, out to catch him is a police haunted by the case of his missing daughter.

William Dremmel lures a woman and gives her a combination of medication until her life slowly runs out, he is determined to find the perfect woman and in conjugating a precise formula for his victims. William or Billy then places these lifeless victims in a luggage with no leads nor prints at random places until the police find them.

John Stallings is a highly decorated and well respected detective who has a good heart especially with runaways as her daughter Jeannie is one and has not been found yet. He strives to be a good father to his to other children, a supportive husband to his wife who has her ups and downs in coping with her eldest daugter's disappearance.

I found The Perfect Woman to be such a great roller coaster ride, it has its dark moments, some fun and a lot of action. I truly love James Andrus' writing style, as it is very visual and to me the story could be made into a film. If you have some spare time, this is a good read.

Movie Review Of Piranha 2010 and Babies

Several months ago, a friend told me that Piranha 3D was pure fun, with that in mind, we saw it last week and gosh...if you look at the dvd cover and the title then that's it - it is merely a film with killer piranhas set during spring break, so there were a lot of women in bikini's (some were half naked) being eaten by fishes, if you look deeper within the story...well, not really, there isn't much to it. In the middle of the film, Bong paused it and said two things; first, he asked if I wanted to continue or if we should see another film and second is (and I quote him), "Can't wait for you to blog a review about this," and flashed his boyish smile. So I really have nothing else to say except that Eli Roth was there, did he give suggestions about the treatment of gore there? I would give this film 2.25 stars and that's because of the visuals - I don't mean the girls but the way they animated the lake and the fishes, if you don't believe me...see for yourself.





After Piranha, we saw Babies (yes, 2 movies in 1 night) which is about the lives of 4 babies from different parts of the world, Ponijao from Namibia, Bayar from Mongolia, Mari from Tokyo and Hattie from San Fransisco. The cameras as well as the viewers followed their lives from when their mothers gave birth  until they started to walk (talk about The Truman Show). It showed how they spent their days, their living conditions and how they interacted with their community. Of course from diffent parts of the world then, you would see the contrast of how their lives are, it was a very interesting plight and all the babies were so adorable.

My Book Review Of Wish by Alexandra Bullen

In coping with her twin sister's death, Olivia's parents thought it would be best to move to San Francisco in the middle of the school year and have a new beginning. The move was not what they hoped for since they still have with them the burden of Violent's sudden and untimely death. As Olivia tries to find new friends in school, she also meets a seamstress who makes magical and very attractive dresses which means whatever she wishes while wearing the dress will come true. She wished that her sister, Violet would come back and she did as a ghost. Don't get me wrong, this is not a scary book. As with all things there were rules about her wishes, and so the story goes.

This is a young adult novel, the idea was unique and fresh and yet I did not care for the story as much.  It seemed to stretch on scenes that were not really pertinent to the big picture. I was not enthralled with the lead characters, Olivia and Soren. I promised myself to finish every book I read, if this weren't the case, then I would not have completed this.

My Review Of Easy A

There is nothing wrong with one lie or is there? Olive's intentions were pure anyway - she did not want to go camping with her best friend so instead said that she was going out with a college guy for the weekend, the truth was, Olive spent her weekend at home doing nothing well, if you consider singing at the top of her lungs, painting her toe nails and her dog's toe nails as something, then that was what she did. Yet, the rumors about Olive spread and from being a high school nobody, she suddenly becomes the object of judgement in school since most of her classmates thought that she was sleeping around.  Olive had good intentions and valid reasons for lying and as a bonus for agreeing to some lies, she accepted gift cards to various stores (talk about product placement) as payment for them, but of course everyone knows that there is never just 1 lie and in the end the truth will come out.

The movie is loosely based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlett Letter, like what Olive said in the movie, it's the original and not the Demi Moore version.  Since it's set in the modern day, the main means of communication was through her web blog.

For a simple storyline, this movie to me had a cast of wonderful actors, they seemed very geniune and were amusing.  I found it interesting that the major actors of the 80's were included in a montage and yes, it was fun to see John Cusack holding a boom box, Patrick Dempsey riding a lawn mower, Judd Nelson with his hand raised to the sky and Matthew Broderick who randomly sang at an NYC parade. Overall, Easy A was cute, I mean, I'm glad I saw it but I will not go out of my way to do so and I won't see it again.

My Review Of Law Abiding Citizen

Clyde Sheldon (Gerard Butler) is a father and a husband, his life suddenly turns upside down when on one safe and seemingly serene night, while in their home, 2 burglars forced their way in and committed an unimaginably atrocious act against Clyde's wife and young daughter. What's worst was Clyde was bound, gagged and stabbed as he helplessly witnessed everything until he blacked out. At this point, we had to stop the movie because it was so intense. Believe it or not, we waited a week to see the rest of the film and I'm glad we did, so here is the rest of my blog...During the pre trial, Clyde's lawyer, Nick (Jamie Fox) informs him that due to some tampered evidence and having Clyde solely testify would be insufficient so they just struck a deal that would put one criminal to the death penalty and the other would be imprisoned for just 3-5 years. It was evident that the deal was also due to Nick's own selfish reasons.

After 10 years, Clyde shows up and takes revenge to those who killed his family but he does not stop there, he also wants to make the whole system pay for the injustice that happened to him.

At first, I thought the film was just another one of the Death Wish movies where a vigilante, Charles Bronson takes revenge...in the end, justice prevails - which means, the vigilante walks free. This movie is way different than expected. Granted that the first twenty minutes showed a lot of violence, the rest was extremely engaging and smart. Not to give anything away but on one scene, Clyde stabs his cell mate with a steak bone, it seemed very real yet I could not look away...I hate to admit it but I found that scene to be awesome! Gerard Butler is an impressive actor and the movie kept me at the edge of my seat until the very end.  It was a highly engrossing.

Chicklit Plus Challenge And The Eight Books On My List

Happy 2011!!!
To prove how psyched I am with the 2011 Chicklit Plus Challenge, here are the 8 out of 12 books in my line up for this year's chick lit reads. I've completed Perfect Blend and have moved on to Stuck In Downward Dog.  Since I am short of 4 books, if you have any suggestions, please send them my way especially if they are written by the 2011 debut authors.


What about you, what are you currently reading?

Perfect Blend













Mini Shopaholic













Stuck In Downward Dog













Odd Mom Out












I'll Have Who She's Having












Lovestruck












Divorced, Desperate and Dating












Dixie Divas

My Book Review Of Riptide by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

The story opens when a fisherman stumbles upon a mysterious island in New England during the 1700's, thus begin the myth of a pirate's treasure - after several hundred years of trying yet ending in bankruptcy or death for anyone who dare to conquer the gold and a prized possession known as St. Michael's sword.

The novel actually begins with 2 brothers Johnny and Malin whose grandfather was blinded by the treasure -bought the Island and has gone bankrupt in his quest. The young boys for fun go to the island and one of them meets an untimely death.  Years after, the surviving brother, Malin who is now a Doctor is approached by a treasure hunter with a lot of  money, backed up with high tech equipment and the hunger to succeed in acquiring the treasure.  Neidelman manages to convince Malin to join his team and thus their expedition to find the gold and the sword is formed.  The team encounter several mysteries that surround the island and ultimately they have to make a stand on what truly matters.

The first several chapters talked about the drilling, searching and all the technical aspect of amassing the treasure which I did not care about but as the story progressed, I found that their hunt sparked my interest as it seemed like I was with them, in search of the treasure and the truth. This was my first novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child and I must say, it was highly enjoyable. The novel is somewhat similar to the movies Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean.

My Book Review Of Perfect Blend by Sue Margolis

The story begins with Amy who has a series of dating disasters as the men she goes out with does not seem to want children, the problem with that is she is a single mom and has a son named Charlie who in his tender age of six is precocious and creative.

Amy works as a server in a small cafe while her dreams of becoming a journalist is still somewhat under development, she needs a breaking story to make it into the writing world.  In addition to her not so bright career, Amy's parents recently got divorced and have started to date other people. Her sister who is highly competitive has become quite annoying to others. Amidst her chaotic personal and work life, she meets Sam, an architect who seem to be quite a catch as they get along really well. He also has good chemistry with Charlie. But is everything turning out as it should be and is Sam truly the one for Amy?

As my first book for the 2011 ChickLit Plus Challenge I found this novel to be truly in the lines of what a chick lit novel should be. It is humorous and well written. There was even an issue (in the story) that I was curious about and was pleasantly surprised to find out that my guess was partly incorrect.

I began reading at around 2pm and finished it a few minutes before midnight. The novel is light and easy to read, Sue Margolis is an entertaining writer.