So I promised I would do this movie review on The Truman Show. Woops I lied!
Truman Show is a great movie hilarious Jim Carry go watch it blah blah blah. INSTEAD...we are doing Percy Jackson and The Olympians, movie edition!
Most of you know how completely NOT a fan of this movie.Why? Well, I'll tell you why.
For starters, brief summary: 17 teen year old kid is attacked by a monster than is led to this camp where he finds out instantaneously that he is the son of Poseidon and then runs away with his satyr friend and a flirtatiously girly lady and they try and save Percy's mom from Hades.
Summary of book: 12 year old kid goes to the beach with his mom, at which point his completely normal friend shows up and urges to leave instantly. Minotaur shows up and said friend reveals he is a mythological satyr, at which point they drive away and come to a hill where his mom is killed by the Minotaur and Percy finds shelter at a camp where he (EVENTUALLY) finds out he is the son of Poseidon and is accused to stealing a powerful weapon at which point he is told he has to find the powerful weapon to prevent war. He then chooses his friend to come with him and out of pity chooses an annoyingly smart, clever, and fierce girl to come with him. They go on adventures and eventually find the weapon, as well as Percy's mom who is, plot twist, alive.
So, the similarities are scarce, for starters. I don't know why they took a perfectly exciting story and replaced it with a pretty much dryer one.
Secondly, its just so irrational. Like, the set is so immature and the script doesn't make much sense. The acting, oh geez, don't even get me started.
Ergo, to all of you guys who don't care when a movie adaptation is really far from the book, the acting, directing, and setting is terrible too. Sorry, Chris Columbus, tis true. I mean, you did so well on Sorcerers Stone...
In conclusion, not a fan of this film. So much that I am not going to end it with a picture! Okay, so its partly because I'm lazy.
Happy Tuesday, you guys.
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
I read this novel last year in Literature class and am currently rereading it whenever I find the time. Not many books stay in my top 10 list for more than six months. This one, however, has managed to stick to it like glue.
Charles Dickens, one of my favorite 19th century geniuses, published this book in 1837 in three volumes (today is can be bought in one. Also, if you're looking for more Dickens, he also published Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Bleak House, and a few others).
I'll start out with a brief summary: This story is told following a young orphan named Oliver Twist. Twist being his last name because orphanage runners believed that all orphans should be hung eventually. (I know, right?) When he is old enough he goes to the work house where he runs away, get kidnapped, is forced to thieve, and proceeds on his many adventures, plot twists, and cliffhangers.
One of the results I get most commonly when I ask people if they've read this is "No, sounds boring." Okay. So a helpless orphan gets abused, runs away, is forced to steal then finally finds a kind home that nurtures him, then he gets kidnapped and the only person who tries to help him escape gets murdered, and I would go on but no spoilers!(this book had extreme plot twists, warning)Doesn't sound very boring to me. Just. Saying.
As far as the story, its grabbing, adventurous, its absolutely consumable. But my favorite thing about this book is the writing, and not many authors pass this area. Dickens is extremely gifted in making his writing incredibly funny. He's hilarious! He once wrote an entire book about old men who think they are good at stuff, but they aren't. It's just amusing. Even in something like Oliver Twist where all the characters find themselves in danger. For instance, one part in the book Oliver gets kidnapped. Dickens pauses and goes on to write about how absolutely annoying it is when authors leave you on cliffhangers, and we're all wondering what happened to Oliver, and then BAM! He goes on to resume his story about the church Beetle, Mr. Bumble.
Anyways, I think when I read this book I underlined and learned on average about 82 words that I didn't know. Yes. I know. I spent much time on dictionary.com. Usually when you read an older book its like this, but I find Dickens' vocabulary incredibly expanded, which is one thing I love about his novels.
All in all, I don't know why I get so many complaints about this book. It's exciting, its absolutely hilarious while really sad too (which, like, no one else on this planet can pull off), there are tons of cliffhangers and its really educational. It's very symbolic in ways that I can't really explain in a blog post, you'll have to endeavor into that yourselves. You'll definitely finish this book...wanting some more. Ah, I crack myself up.
For those of you who don't know, "Please sir, I want some more." Is a quote.
Okay, that was nerdy.
Happy reading!
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
So your probably thinking "Another post? Really?" And as it's my fourth post in the last twenty minutes, maybe you're right. But I did promise to review this series.
PJ is one of my favorite series. I love it a lot. If you're debating with yourself over whether or not to read it...well, let me tell you about it.
Brief summary: Greek myths with modern twists.
That's it. Really. Okay, well, its a bit more complicated that that. Gods have mortal children, demigods, they have to save the world because the gods are lazy and worthless, and it focuses on one particular demigod, Percy Jackson. By the way, THIS IS NOT A REVIEW OF THE HEROES OF OLYMPUS!!! I will review that another day.
Okay. Anyhow, pretty much every book is a quest of some sort and in the grande scheme there is ultimately one enemy they have to conquer, and in the process they fight a lot of other enemies.
A lot people say that this copies other series. How many times do I have to say JUST BECAUSE ANNABETH IS FEMALE AND INTELLIGENT DOES NOT MAKE HER A COPY OF HERMIONE. WHAT. SO. EVER.
Others say that Conner and Travis Stoll are copies of Fred and George, when in actuality Conner and Travis are not even twins and they are actually made after a mythological pair of trouble makers.
In my opinion, Rick Riordan is extremely creative and would never dream of copying anyone else's work. His books, to me at least, are very original.
Now that that's out of the way...I can assure you that the plot is very grabbing and every book, every-single-one, ends in a cliffhanger. But you know me, of course the writing doesn't exactly satisfy my taste and yes this is brain candy.
But all in all if you're looking for an exciting, heartbreaking, clean book, you've got five of them staring you in the face.
(putting it out there that there are only two semi questionable scenes and those are in Heroes of Olympus. End of story)
I couldn't find a Viria picture of PJ and the Olympians, so I just went with a HoO one. That's my hypocritical moment of the day.
-Sarah
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (the movie)
Okay, so I promised, like, twice in multiple posts that I would make this review once I saw the movie. Here we are.
I saw the movie last night and may I just say...Wow. First of all, it was phenomenal. It was 10x better than the first movie, and the first movie was a amazing. I thought it was better quality, better acting better everything.
But of course, every reader has to look at the stuff they did different from the book. I'm not extremely picky in this area, unless you're a Percy Jackson movie, in which case, I hate you. One of Suzanne Collin's greatest skills is being able to fit A LOT of content into a small book, so it was understandable when they cut out some stuff. Over all, they got the important stuff. The got the Mockingjay and the revolts, President Snow, Seneca Cane, Finnick, and pretty much everything. They cut out a few things, like the Beast, and they switched around the order a little bit, but all in all...very well done.
Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, as always, triple thumbs up. Amazing. To the other actors, I can't think of one actor who was, like, "bad". I really liked the ending and I loved how Katniss gets to say
goodbye to Peeta before (no spoilers) that THING happens in Mockingjay (the book fans know what I'm talking about) It proves that they are really thinking ahead.
I loved Mags and Johanna, and of course, Finnick was perfect, Beetee was awesome, and, as always, I hated Gale. Sorry, but I did. Not his acting, no I love Liam Hemsworth, but I really don't like Gale.
So all in all, the movie was amazing. Surprisingly, I think it was less gory than the first, as is the book as well. Despite the fog scene, it was not that gruesome. Definitely a must see.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (No spoilers:))
So I thought I'd review Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins, as my first review since it was the last book I read.
Here's just a brief summary of the book: For about 200 pages we get to see Katniss and Peeta's strange life after the first Hunger Games, and how they are affected by the Capitol. As they go on their Victory Tour they do a few things that anger the president which leads to them being sent back to The Hunger Games with other victors from previous games.
Catching Fire was very different from The Hunger Games. In the first one, it's very Katniss centered. It's also very Hunger Games centered. In Catching Fire, we see more of the Capitol, the districts, Peeta, etc. I like this because I think, although I haven't read it yet, it will really support Mockingjay, when (slight spoiler) the districts rebel on the Capitol.
So obviously, the story was simply amazing, triple thumbs up. Maybe I should start out by saying that I was close to tears about 36 times in this book. So please, please, with a sugar cube on top, don't make the same mistake I did and get attached to any of these characters. They...will most likely die.
...Moving on. I really liked the new characters.I'm looking at you, Finnick O'dair and Johanna Mason. They especially were fan-tas-ticcccc! I absolutely adored Finnick (and his sugar cubes), and I was really tickled by Johanna ("make him pay for it"). I am super excited to see more of them in Mockingjay. As for the old characters, like Peeta and Katniss, I loved them too. Peeta seems to really be finding his courage and attitude in this book. As for Gale...shame. Just...shame. :P
On to the writing. For those of you who know me, you know that I am pretty picky in this area. And unless you're Jane Austin or Harper Lee, you probably won't get an A+ here. So its true that I think Collins isn't a phenomenal writer, she's more of a story teller.
So all in all, I really enjoyed this book. The story was even more alluring and plot twistey (props for making up that word:P) than the first one. The characters were really funny and sad and just really amusing. There is some small, slightly questionable stuff, only a little bit of gore and some other stuff, so that's just a little warning. I am super excited to see this movie, I've seen the trailer about a million times and am trying to sneak over to movie theater some time!
So happy reading, have a sugar cube, tick-tock, and may the odds ever be in your favor.
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