Fiona’s Comments (group member since Sep 25, 2023)

Fiona’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

Nice, Christina!

384 pages

Current total: 757,753

I still had one book to finish that I started before the Book Games, now that's finally done and I can add everything I read to the games!

Jean wrote: "There have been 74 previous Hunger Games. Haven’t the districts been punished enough? Shouldn’t Panem have moved on from the rebellion. Hasn’t anyone in power thought that the idea of children killing children for sport is something that should be condemned and not celebrated?"

Personally I do think of course that they've been punished enough. But it being the 74th time - probably there are a lot of people in the capitol & especially the ones that are responsible for hosting / creating the games who were born into this and don't know it any other way. I assume they think this is the right way so this is what they do.

Christina wrote: "I finished tonight and I realized I actually wouldn't mind a novella or short story collection about career tributes, their families' and their districts' point of views and how they actually feel ..."

Novellas about the career tributes would be really interesting. You really have a good point here. How do they train? How do the families feel? Do they have so much faith in their kids that it will come as a shock to them if they die? Do they have a system to get their names in more often since they won't need tesserae?

Christine wrote: "Fiona wrote: "Ashley wrote: "Ok, I decide to break this up into the 3 parts of the book.

Reflecting on Part 1, several themes and character dynamics stand out..

* The relationship between Gale an..."

That was probably the same for me, although like I mentioned earlier: Gale being in the picture or not, for some reason I don't like Peeta at all.

Corrected total after msg 1016: 752,778

401 pages

Current total: 753,179

Michael wrote: "A few other things that came to mind as I re-read this book in the series.

1) The general subject of morality within your employment. I couldn’t help but see correlations between the Peacekeepers..."

Re the names: I don't know about any greater meaning for Collins but I do believe that it shows really well how they are connected to nature (district 11, 12). Especially if you look at capitol names like Effi or Coriolanus

Laura wrote: "Why do they wait to insert the tracker until just before the game starts? I would have thought that was something to do before they left the district."

I've not read any further comments yet so I don't know if someone else said it already but I think they rely on the peacekeepers to keep them in check before they arrive in the capitol and the trackers are more of a "where are they in the arena, which camera should we focus on, where do we throw some fireballs" kind of thing

Ugh, that really sucks. I definitely want to quit my job but I haven’t found anything else yet

Oh god and there’s me complaining about being underpaid for my qualifications and the raise I got in December was laughable. Sorry to hear about the pay cut!

Day 1 DQs

1. The book has the MPG Dark Fantasy. Do you like this genre in general? If so, do you have any favourite authors or books?

I do enjoy a little fantasy from time to time but am usually not so much into it - high fantasy for example is not really my cuppa. I can’t think of any Dark Fantasy book I have read at the moment - maybe there is one I enjoyed - but I usually tend to read romance or mystery/thriller.

Picture a wizard. Go ahead, close your eyes. There he is, see? Skinny old guy with a long straggly beard. No doubt he's wearing iridescent silk robes that couldn't protect his frail body from a light breeze. The hat's a must, too, right? Big, floppy thing, covered in esoteric symbols that would instantly show every other mage where this one gets his magic?

2. The book starts with the quote above. Is this your mental image of a wizard, too? Or something different? :)

My mental image of a wizard is Professor Dumbledore from Harry Potter, which kind of fits the quote.

3. And the author lands us in the middle of a siege (ideal for the Book Games, right? ;) with 2 of the main characters Cade Ombra and Corrigan Blight. Cade is narrating what is happening and offering us his views on good and evil, the part they are playing and how they "win" this particular siege.
Do you think it's a strong start to the book? Has it got you intrigued?

I think it is a good start to the story because I feel like the book would have lost me if it had started with a lot of world-building. So in that regard, I liked the start. I am not sure if I’m very intrigued by the entire story yet though.

4. As an extra incentive & entertainment, the Ascendant Lucien offers young girls and boys (sublimes) to the wanderists after the siege. We get introduced to Fiddick and Galass and learn that Cade decided to kill Lucien. We can actually start putting some pieces of Cade's character together. What do you think about him at this point?

At this point, I think that he is a little bit shady but also has his good qualities. But I also must say that I couldn’t concentrate on the story in between because I’m listening to the audiobook and all I could think was “the narrator is really strong on his fricatives” which, as a linguist, was bothering me lol

5. Some demonic highlights to this introductory part: Tenebris the demon, with whom Cade as an "infernalist" mage trades with to get his spells.
What were your impressions of Tenebris? How do you find the "religious/magical" system of the Infernals and the Celestines?

I found Tenebris to be really funny actually. He’s my favorite so far. I definitely like the magical system so far because it is different from others that I’ve read about. I will need a few more chapters to understand it better though.

Definitely fair!
Additionally to the office presence I also am not allowed to work more than 8 hours anymore “unless I request it via email”. We’ve never written each other emails ever, we don’t communicate like that. And when I leave work after those 8 hours, my boss is complaining, how could it be that I’m already leaving? Hahahahahaa

Oh I love that for myself as well, I spent the last 3 weeks sleeping on my mattress on the floor soooo I’m beyond happy 😁
Happy for you that you can work while in bed. I am currently not allowed to work from home because my boss is going crazy 😢 so I went to the office, came back at 5 and immediately started my second job. Not so great lol

That’s great, Judy!!
I have my bed ready and already had a 2 hour nap in it because it was so exhausting to set it up. I don’t think I’ll leave the bed until Tuesday morning 🩷

Hope you two are feeling better as well :)
My headache is almost gone. In a few minutes my new bed will be delivered, so I’ll spend the morning setting it up (and listening to audiobooks obviously)

Finally the weekend has come with lots of free time to read and I’ve got a raging headache. Not fair!

I’m confused as well 🤯

Here to vote for my love Henry ❤️

Thanks 😊