The Beginning in the End

Kudos to you if you got the Bones reference. Have a tiny granola bar.

I've been absent blogging the past few weeks because my fingers have been otherwise occupied with yarn. The tablecloth, as you saw, is finished. The afghan still isn't but that's okay. We can still use it while I'm working on it.

I've given up the resolution thing, because I never keep them anyway, so why bother? We're staying in and watching movies, eating food and drinking in the spirit of a tradition that I actually like and intend to keep. I feel no need to be out in the cold with all the drunks- that just doesn't sound fun.

Tomorrow is The Mummer's Parade in Philadelphia, which we will attend. There will be pictures to kick off the next segment of the blog that I am officially and uncreatively titling The Philly Chronicles.

In the interest of the books part of the books and yarn thing, I just finished last book in the Hunger Games trilogy.
Overall, they are great. A really interesting concept, good characters for the most part, engaging and different. Think post-apocalypse reality tv. Go get yourself a copy.

The things that I take issue with though, which I think might have played out better if they'd been marketed toward adults are plot and character development. Characters were developed as much as they needed to be, but no further. Also, plot was always rushed at the end. I feel like more complicated subplots could have been introduced to develop secondary, but very interesting, characters if the books were longer and the language a little more adult. Collins writes some very beautiful lines at times, but for the most part the language is basic, and I don't believe that it was done in an intentional Cormac McCarthy kind of way.

The other thing that I would have changed is I would have added a second narrator. Katniss is a great character, but she's not as on the ball as the reader would sometimes like. Personally, I got frustrated with her being the last to figure things out, and I think there might have been more insight if she had traded off the narration with another character.

Negative things aside, The Hunger Games are a refreshingly different angle on adolescence, and if you're into the post-apocalypse thing (which I kind of am. Yeah, morbid, I know) they're excellent. So go forth and read.

Oh yeah, and it's New Year's Eve. Eat, drink, drink, eat, watch the ball drop, drink.
Have a Happy New Year.