Vanessa
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by Sophie Kinsella
Honest :) ]]>
Vanessa added 3 books to this list. Add your votes »
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This is by far the best book I've read in quite some time. It is completely different than anything else I've read. Katniss (not to be confused with Catsnip), our heroine of the story, learns to illegally hunt game in the forest, with her friend Gale (a boy), for survival. Her father, before he died (don't worry this is not a spoiler), taught her how to hunt and survive in the wilderness. She uses her gatherings to sell and trade in the Black Market. Without Katniss, her mother and little sister Prim, couldn't survive.
The story begins with the family, and every other family in District 12, going into a drawing. Although, a "drawing" sounds like a fun lottery, to District 12 and all the Districts in Panem, the drawing could mean death. Two members of each district between the ages of 12 and 18 are drawn. One boy and one girl. The 24 tributes (that's the word used for the victims, ahem I mean, the chosen ones) must all compete against each other in a survival of the fittest match a.k.a the Hunger Games. There can only be one survivor. When Prim's name is called, Katniss races to the stage and volunteers herself instead. The second tribute, Peeta, the Bakers son, is also called.
They're both swept into a different world. One, at first, is filled with an exceptional amount of food - a feast. They are heartily fed for the week before the match is to begin. They are assigned stylists who primp and prepare them for the cameras and interviews they're about to give, as if they were going to some happy place to vacation. (The irony of it all is never lost on the reader.) The purpose of this charade is to attract sponsors. The more likable you are, the higher your chances of attaining one. Sponsors will send you little packages throughout the Hunger Games that will help you in some way. Thus the more sponsors you have, the better chance you have of surviving.
Unfortunately for Katniss and Peeta, the tributes from the other places come from richer Districts. The have been training their whole lives for this. These tributes are known as Career Tributes. Katniss and Peeta feel they don't stand a chance. Apparently so does their "prep team" because they have formed an illusion in front of the camera and audience members during their interviews of a blossoming love. Katniss doesn't understand why're they're doing this at first because, in the end, when it comes down to the last few combatants, she may very well have to have a face-off with Peeta (since their can only be one survivor). It finally dawns on her that by playing up the "romance bit" it just may get her more sponsors. She's not much of an actress though so it's a bit of a struggle for her since she's always closed off her emotions.
The 24 combatants are thrust onto a man-made field for hand-to-hand combat. They must all fight for their survival and kill one another. The last person standing wins. When the buzzer sounds, signaling for them to get out of their starting point, they must either decide to run up to a table filled with some survival kits and possibly face other members who are willing to kill them over the same kits or run for their lives into the forest.
The members face starvation, dehydration, infections, fires, and everything horrible you can think of. In a place where everyone is out to get you, Katniss forms an alliance with an unlikely person and they strike up a friendship. Then the rules change: there won't be just one survivor. If two members of the same District are left standing, they will both be the winners. At that, Katniss and Peeta find each other and strike up a romance. Is it real? Is it played up for TV? Will they both survive or just one of them or will they both die from their infections and dehydration?
This is definitely a true page turner. Even though it's considered a young adult book, it deals with adult content. Not in the romantic "adult content" sense, but in the topics it covers and the questions it forces you to ask yourself, such as, what would I do in that situation? Would I be able to kill if I were being attacked? Would I survive in the wilderness (I already know the answer for me... NO). Would I be able to trust someone I know would kill me in the blink of an eye, but who's help I need to survive, ironically enough? ]]>
Wow! Where do I begin? Tarantino does not let us down in this World War II Nazi-infested tale of survival and gruesome murders (ahh, the irony). The screenplay parallels two different stories. The first being with Shosanna Dreyfuss. She's a jewish girl hiding from the Nazi's under the floorboards of a German Farmhouse. Her family gets machine-gunned by Colonel Landa's minions in front her. She is the only survivor. Her mission in life stays the same: survival but with a twist -- get revenge. The second story to parallel Shosanna's is about the Inglourious Basterds led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine. The basterds mission is to kill all Nazi's, torture them like they've tortured all the Jews, and scalp them. Their stories meet up when all the prominent Nazi's converge in the same cinema. Shosanna and the Basterds are simultaneously planning their revenge in the same location, at the same time, though neither knows about the other. Will they both execute their plans effectively? Or will they die trying?
The story is definitely Tarantino-esque will all the mayhem and witty dialogue. If I would post all the lines that I liked the most, I'd be here a while, and you'd be reading the entire screenplay! I'll just post a little dialogue between Lt. Aldo Raine and the Basterds that happened in the beginning of chapter 2 and sums up the Basterd's mission:
Lt. Aldo Raine: My name is Lt. Aldo Raine and I need me eight soldiers. Eight Jewish-American soldiers. Now, y'all might of heard rumors about the armada happening soon. Well, we'll be leaving a little earlier. We're gonna be dropped into France, dressed as civilians. And once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwackin' guerrilla army, we're gonna be doing one thing and one thing only... killing Nazis. Members of nationalist socialist party conquered Europe through murder, torture, intimation, and terror. And that's exactly what we're gonna do to them. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I sure as hell didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half Sicily and then jump out of a fuckin' air-o-plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass murderin' maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed. That's why every son of a bitch we find wearin' a Nazi uniform, they're gonna die. We will be cruel to the Germans and through our cruelty they will know who we are. They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, disfigured bodies their brothers we leave behind us and the Germans will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, at our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the Germans will be sickened by us, the Germans will talk about us and the Germans will fear us. And when the Germans close their eyes at night and their subconscious tortures them for the evil they've done, it will be with thoughts of us that it tortures them with. Sound good?
The Basterds: YES, SIR!
Lt. Aldo Raine: That's what I like to hear. But I got a word of warning to all would-be warriors. When you join my command, you take on a debit. A debit you owe me personally. Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps. And all y'all will git me one hundred Nazi scalps, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Nazis. Or you will die tryin'. ]]>