This Makes Us All Cranks

Still cold, so so so cold, was at the station running calls in the cold and ice, so so so so so cold. I usually don't mind the cold, but this is excessive and it is making me cranky...you might even say I'm a Crank...which by the way happens to be what the crazy people are called in the Maze Runner series by James Dashner of which I just happened to finish the last book The Death Cure...which also made me a cranky Crank (do you like my babbling segues today?). Anyways  lets get to it, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

When we last left our tortured her Thomas he had just been "rescued" by WICKED a group that is supposedly working on a cure for a deadly disease by torturing teenagers.  Thomas is finally released from his padded cell and reunited with his fellow torturees.  The apparent head Doc whom the group calls Ratface informs them that they are almost to the last step of the cure and that they will now give them there memories back (remember part of the whole maze deal was that there memories got swiped).  Thomas along with his fellow Gladers Minho and Newt decide that they don't trust WICKED to put back their original memories and decide to stay clueless about there past.  This leads to a confrontation with Ratman who has decided that they don't get a choice in the matter. He tells them that one of the reasons that they were all chosen for this torture experiment is that most of them are immune to the Flare and that they are trying to map their brains to see why they are immune.  We also find out that Newt is one of the non immune, he gives Thomas a letter and tells him not to open it until the time is right.  Thomas is restrained and taken to get his memories back when he spots Brenda (a friend he made while slogging through the scorch) who with the help of Jorge (another Scorch friend) helps the boys escape.  They end up in Denver where a Flare outbreak is decimating the city.  They also learn that Immunes have been disappearing all over the place and that WICKED is going to start the Trials over again as they did not seem to get the information they were looking for. As they are running around the city they find out about a group called the Right Arm, a quasi-military group who is very anti WICKED and join them.  Meanwhile Newt has started to go crazy because of the Flare and sends Minho and Thomas away.  Later Thomas remembers the note and reads it, the contents essentially ask Thomas to kill Newt when he starts going crazy. Next time he encounters Newt, Thomas does as he wishes and kills him. The group eventually hooks up with the rest of their friends and plans an attack on WICKED.  Thomas goes in alone as Ratman has told him that he is the final candidate and that his brain holds the last piece of the puzzle for the cure for Flare.  The point is for Thomas to get in and plant a device that renders all weapons useless and then be rescued by the Right Arm.  Unfortunately Ratman has other plans, turns out that the final piece of the puzzle is literally Thomas's brain, that they in fact have to cut it out and dissect it, meaning Thomas would die. Thomas is put under and he wakes up in an empty room with nothing but an envelope with his name on it containing instructions on how to get the captive Immunes and escape with them to a preprepared place.  Explosions, fighting and death occur, but in the end Thomas, Minho, Brenda, Jorge, Teresa, and all the rest of the Immunes are transported to a peaceful meadow like area where they can start a new life and eventually repopulate the world with other little Immunes.  In a final epilogue memo we find out that the government purposely released the Flare virus as a means of population control after the devastating sun flare.  The memo also goes on to state that while the attempt to find a cure was noble, a second try was not worth it and that the author of the memo was sending the Immunes somewhere safe.  And so ends our long and torturous journey of pointlessness.

I actually found this book to be a tad less problematic then the previous two. Some of the decisions and reactions were actually plausible and the action tended to have some kind of point to it.  That being said, it was still way to...I don't know how to put it, I just wanted it to be done.  I found myself wanting to skip all the angsty pages and move on to the next sparse tidbit of storyline which does not make for an enjoyable read.  Ok things I did not hate.  I liked that they made one of the core friends sick and that he did not survive, but was reduced to the "enemy" that they all feared so much.  I liked that Thomas and at least some of his friends decided to quit being the puppets of WICKED (no matter how much Teresa insisted that they were good) and finally fought back.  I also appreciated how so many people finally came to the realization that the resources, time, and angst that were being poured into the Trials to find a cure would have been better spent containing and treating the symptoms of the Flare, instead the whole world went to hell while they were waiting for this nebulous possible cure.  Thomas having to question what a cure was worth in terms of both personal, and the groups well-being.  Was it ok to torture a couple hundred people if it could potentially save millions?  At what point is torturing and killing people for a cure going to inflict a damage that out weighs the benefits of a cure?  All good ethical questions.  Things I did not love.  The whole, non explained (not really) reason that torturing Immune teenagers would result in a cure was not sound in any way shape or form.  I work in the medical field and I have never ever remotely heard of a virus infecting somebody because of the way they think...or at least not in the way the book tried to present it.  While positive or negative thinking can have an effect on your health...it won't "cure" anything.  I hated that their was absolutely no mention of them even trying to find a cure or vaccine from more traditional virus killing methods that actually work in real life.  Nope it was all about the killzone (which is the stupid name they gave the brain 'cause the virus makes you go crazy).  So obviously since it is a brain infection...only a thought pattern can cure it, hm I'll have to tell that to my next viral encephalitis patient.  I also thought that the fact that the Flare was released on purpose was pretty non-plausible, I mean what government purposely releases a horrible, non-lethal (it's not the virus, but the going crazy and not being able to take care of yourself part that kills you), uncontrollable, uncurable, unvaccinable virus into the world, seriously who does that...oh right only crazy people.  This was annoying  cause it made an already implausible story pretty much as unpossible as possible (and that is totally a word, Lewis Carrol says so).  I hated that the government did not think to isolate at least some of the immunes, heck or even healthy people once they saw the scale of destruction that was happening.  They obviously had a place prepped, they new the Trials may fail...so why not save as much as humanity as possible?  You could even still run the pointless trials while preserving the human race?!? This book made more sense then any of them, but it was still a very frustrating read.  Questions were still not answered (what the hell were the Trials for?  How were they gonna use the patterns?  What was Teresa, Thomas and Aries role in the beginning?) which may be answered in the prequel...which I will read 'cause why not.  Also a lot of stuff that got set up in earlier books was completely pointless by the end of this book, again a case of the second book of a trilogy being beyond completely pointless, in fact all three books could have probably been combined into one semi-decent book.  In case you haven't figured it out, this is not my favorite series.  I keep hearing people comparing it to the Hunger Games trilogy which while not perfect, at least had a point.  Just because a book is about a bunch of tortured teenagers does not put it on the same level as a set of well written books that also happen to be (among other things) tortured teenagers. I will read the prequal The Kill Order because one I already have it and two just in case it gives me any more information.  I give this book 3 out of 10 Death Cures.

What did you think of this trilogy?  Was it comparable to the Hunger Games?  Will you watch the movie when it comes out and tell me what you think so I don't have to?

Sins Of The Father

Time to review Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore.  It has taken me a while to put the review for this one together, because I am still trying to figure out the best way to review it.  I don't think I will go overboard with the synopsis in this one, because there is so much to it that I would just muddle it all up.  So let's start with a bare bones summation.

As always some Spoilers for all three books ahead.
Bitterblue has been the official Queen of Monsea one of the Seven Kingdoms for 8 years now.  At present her biggest struggle is to find a way to break free from the oppressive council of her advisers.  Bitterblue was thrust into the ruling of her country at the tender age of 10, when her mother was murdered by her father Leck, who had been using his Graceling power of mind control to keep a horrifying grip on the country.  Leck was killed during events in Graceling and Bitterblue assumed leadership of the broken country. While the people helping her run her country while she was still a child mean well, they have forgotten that children grow up, and Bitterblue is now an adult.  To try and learn more about her own kingdom, Bitterblue decides to go out at night in disguise among the people of her city.  Here she meets up with a clever thief, a Graceling with unknown talents and his printer friend.  Through these two Bitterblue learns that the reports she has been getting from her advisers have been falsified for some reason.  Bitterblue also starts to learn just how much havoc her father wrought upon the country.  The majority of the book is a mix of Bitterblue trying to find out who is trying to squash information from the past from being reveled, trying to become an

independent ruler, juggling her feelings for her Graceling thief, and missing her friends.  After much searching, Bitterblue finally discovers some truths about her fathers past. At some point in time Leck and his father had lost their way in the mountains that cut off Monsea from an unknown country and ended up in the Dells (which is the setting for Fire) which is more advanced then the Seven Kingdoms.  Leck spent most of his childhood in this country of Monsters and medical advancement, honing his Grace of mind control.  In a fight with Fire, the human monster, he was sent tumbling back down the mountain into Monsea where he used his powers to get adopted into the royal family.  Missing the Dells, Leck tried to recreate what he could, building his castle in the glass roofed style of the Dells, commissioning sculptures and artwork incorporating the landscape and Monsters, and terribly trying to bring about scientific advancement through experimentation on humans.  It is this last thing in particular that made Leck so horrifying and perverse.  He would use his mind powers to not only torture and kill his people, but he would compel his own advisers to do the actual harm to people.  It is the memory of what they were forced to do under the kingship of Leck that has made Bitterblues advisers (who were all around when Leck was king) to try and bury any breath of what happened during his reign. Rembering what they had done, drove most of them mad.  This cover-up was wide spread and included arson, and even murder as a way to keep the heinous past hidden.  Eventually Bitterblues friends find a tunnel that leads from Monsea to the Dells and Fire from the previous novel comes to visit Bitterblue.  The young Queen realizes what it was her father was doing and decides to spend the rest of her reign trying to heal her country through revealing the history and then addressing the problems.  There are side plots, and love stories, and all that good stuff scattered throughout the novel as well, but this is essentially the gist of it.

This is not a happy, fun-filled story by any means.  It is fairly dark and I have heard many people complain about the brutality featured in certain parts.  I understand that some people are more affected by this then others, and certain experiences may make this a painful book to read.  I did not find any of the descriptions gratuitous  I thought any mention of violence, rape and torture where done only when the story needed it to point out certain aspects of Leck's mentality.  There is also the after effects to deal with, and Bitterblue herself is border line depressive on occasion.  All this together makes it a bit of a difficult book to get through.  This book is also much less action packed then the other two book were.  The whole of the story takes place in one city, and most of it is driven by discovery and conversation   There is a heavy dose of politics and enough hemming and hawing to drive a person crazy. It seemed that most of the characters had forgotten to take their happy pills and were constantly snipping at each other in very childish ways.  The level of the arguments usually amounted to "nyah nyah nyah" which did get a tad tedious after a while.  All this being said it is not a bad book.  I actually liked that the author was willing to take us to a bit of a darker place.  The realistic after math of such a twisted leader would be pretty bleak.  The idea that some people

would just like to bury the past and try to move on, versus the people who need to have answers before any healing can properly take place is one that rings true.  The notion that people would go very far, even to the extent of murder to try and cover up a shameful past is also something we know happens in real life.  I also really enjoyed getting some insight into Leck's head.  He was a monster of epic proportions  he used his powers to hurt everybody else, and even worse took great pleasure in it.  His true talant lay not so much in mind control, but in his ability to know what would utterly break a person.  You see where even with this power Leck was unhappy, you see glimpses of a person trying desperately to get back to a time and place where he thought he was happy.  This does not give even the slightest excuse to the atrocities he perpetrated, but it makes his character that much better and gives him a motive for his cruelty.  Bitterblue herself was a decent character.  I wanted to shake her sometimes and say "You are the Queen you dummy, just do what needs to be done, you don't have to ask permission!", but when you have had guardians watching over you your whole life, it is not as easy as that.  She retained some of her sassyness from previous books, and is of a different cloth then either Katsa or Fire, so it is nice to see an author not reusing the same hero mold.  The author tries to bring in a lot of politics from the real world into the books (gay rights, education, ruling styles, etc.) to varying
degrees of success  a few of them seemed forced into the plot.  Some of the plot got muddled and confusing, I'm not 100% sure I actually understood everything I was supposed to, and the ending came on fast and disjointed. Over all I would say it was a decent book and fit into the world the author created in the previous two books very well.  It was a nice link between Graceling and Fire, which when first read do not seem to have a lot in common. This book also has some cool illustrations and maps, and a fun tongue in cheek type of glossary included, which I really enjoyed.  I give the book 6 out of 10 monster statues.
What did you think of this book?  Did it help tie the first two together?  Do you prefer action or intrigue?  Do these darker books make you think, or just cringe? How awesome was the cover of this book!?!

Are You Hungry for the Hunger Games Part 3

Hey folks, I had an amazing holiday weekend, saw family, Christmas lights AND I learned how to make authentic tamales from my Mom and Dad in law (Thanks guys!)  Hope you all enjoyed yours as well.  Well time to jump back into it.  I'm gonna finish up my epically long Hunger Games post today, so here we go.

Mockingjay is the third and final book in The Hunger Games trilogy.  It starts right were the last book Catching Fire left off.  Katniss awakes to find herself in the hospital wing of the long thought destroyed District 13.  Turns out to avoid mutual destruction due to both District 13 and the Capital having access to nuclear weapons, they agreed that District 13 would be left alone as long as the rest of the world thought that it was destroyed to keep it from becoming a rally point for any future rebellion.  Eventually a woman known as President Coin from District 13 becomes the leader for a rebellion against the Capitol.  She wants Katniss to become the visible human symbol for the rebellion, at the urging of her friend Gale, who survived the destruction of District 12 Katniss agrees on two conditions.  One that all of the Hunger Games survivors be pardoned, and two she be the one allowed to kill President Snow.  Coin reluctantly agrees to both conditions.  Katniss also learns that while her mother and beloved sister Prim have survived the destruction of their home thanks to Gale and Peeta has been captured by the Capital after the last Hunger Games.  Peeta is eventually rescued and taken to District 13, but has been reconditioned to hate Katniss to the point of murder(ah the classic I love you and now I'm going to kill you bit).

 As the book progresses the horror of war in all the districts really comes into focus, the whole time Katniss keeping the goal of killing President Snow, which she blames for all the problems firmly in mind.  As the war continues the upper echelon of the rebellion, especially President Coin and Gale seem to be capable of just as many atrocities (what a great word) as the enemy to win the war.  Finally Katniss and her team enter the Capital losing members one by one until only Katniss is left pushing toward President Snow.  As she finally reaches the mansion, which President Snow has declared as a shelter for the children of the Capital, but is really using them as a shield, Katniss realizes her sister Prim is there trying to bring medical supplies to the children.  While Prim is trying to help the children a helicopter drops emergency supplies, as the children and Prim reach for the supplies, they blow up killing everybody.  The supplies/bombs have the stamp of the Capital, ending any last resistance to the rebellion.  Still reeling from her sisters death, Katniss is summoned to a meeting of the rebel leadership, they are trying to consolidate there control, and as one way to do so suggest that they continue the Hunger Games, but instead of district children as Tributes, for the people of the Capital to send theres instead.  A vote is called and Katniss finally votes in favor of continuing the Games.  She goes and speaks with the captive President Snow, remembering an earlier vow they made to never lie to each other, he tells her that President Coin was the one who really ordered the attack that killed her sister Prim.  Realizing the truth, she also speculates that her friend Gale probably had a hand in the plan as well, and she will never be able to go back to a friendship with him.  Later she is summoned to perform the execution of President Snow as promised.  As she lines up her bow and arrow to take the shot, she thinks of everything President Coin has done to gain power and realizes she is just as bad, if not worse then President Snow, having lived through the horrors and still choosing to use the same tactics to gain power for herself.  Katniss then proceeds to kill President Coin.  In all the ensuing confusion President Snow is killed as well.  Katniss is "pardoned" on account of supposed insanity and sent to live in the rebuilt District 12.  Peeta eventually recovers enough to come home and marry Katniss.  The book ends 15 years later, with Katniss wondering if there children can ever forgive them for there parts in the Games and the ensuing violent rebellion.

Whew!  Now that we are all caught up with the story let us discuss .  I liked this book better then book 2 but not as much as book 1.  I again thought there was a lot of repetitive introspective (another awesome word) doldrums.  I understand the author was trying to show the internal personal struggle of Katniss, but on occasion it just came off as whining.  Overall I really liked the ending, showing that just because you are the rebel doesn't always make you right, another case of the winner writing history.  I liked how the author showed how easy it was to fall right back into known patterns, even ones you hate. I like how she showed how everybody suffered, not just the good guys or the bad guys, and in some cases you couldn't even tell who was who, just like in real life. I thought it was a good conclusion to the trilogy and am glad it ended the way it did.  The first movie is coming out soon and it will be interesting to see how Hollywood decides to portray the wholesale slaughter of children on the big screen.
What did you all think of the trilogy?  Is this post or series of posts way too long?  What are your thoughts on the themes of the book, and how they correlate to modern times? (wow that sounds like a college essay question :-)  )

Are You Hungry for the Hunger Games Part 2

Ok I am back for the next part of my unreasonably long post, but since this is kind of the whole reason I started this blog ( to talk incessantly and endless and at length, redundantly about books) I figure we're all good.  Let jump right into book two shall we
Catching Fire is the second book in the HungerGames trilogy.  It is probably my least favorite of the three, as I said before.  It felt a little repetitive and seemed to not have a lot of new insights.  In my humble opinion they could have put most of the vital information in the other two books and called it a day.  So here is a quick summation of book two.

We start with Katniss at here new home with her mother, and sister Prim.  This is one of the prizes Peeta and her received for winning the Hunger Games.  As a winner she is obligated to go on a Winner's Tour to all of the districts, where they are forced to have a party in the winners honor.  This is cruel as it throws in the districts and families faces the fact that two of there children were killed so that the winner could live.  Right before they leave she is visited by President Snow, the leader of Panem.  He tells her that a lot of the districts have seen her threat to commit suicide with Peeta to have no winners in the Game was construed as an act of defiance and has led to talk of rebellion among the lesser districts.  He reminds Katniss that this was the reason the Hunger Games were instituted in the first place, to remind people the consequences of insubordination.  He tells her that as she travels she had better convince the districts that it was her mad love of Peeta and not rebellion that led to her rash and foolhardy move.  He then proceeds to make a subtle threat on her loved ones if she does not accomplish this goal.  Katniss relay's all of this to Peeta and their mentor Haymitch to try and sort out what they can do. Peeta is hurt that Katniss does not "really" love him, claiming that he has loved her for years.  They come up with a plan for Peeta to propose to Katniss to prove that they are just a couple in love, not rebels.  The first stop on there tour is District 11, which Rue the girl Katniss befriended during the Games came from.  During the games Katniss showed much kindness and respect to Rue both before and after she died.  District 11 acknowledges this and someone starts to whistle the simple song Rue taught to Katniss.  The act is one that results in brutal force being brought against the "instigator" who first whistled the tune, being accused of sedition.  Shaken  Katniss and Peeta see signs of a rebellion that is not fully suppressed in many of the districts they visit.  They themselves, especially Katniss seem to be unintentional symbols of this movement (one of the things I did like about this book is the fact that Katniss never had any intention of starting a rebellion, she is made into a symbol initially completely against her will). 

After the tour ends, it is time to pick this years Tributes, but as this is the 75th year of the games a "Quarter Quell" an extra twist is added.  This year the Tributes will be selected from previous winners of the game from each district.  As there have only been 3 winners out of district 12  (Haymitch, Peeta, and Katniss) it is soon apparent that Katniss and Peeta (after volunteering in Haymitches place) are headed back to the arena.
They pretty much go through the whole process again, this time though Katniss tells Haymitch that they are going to do everything possible to keep Peeta alive, even at the expense of her life (awww).  They meet Tributes from former Games, and find out that the Capital pretty much uses and abuses them for the rest of their lives, and if they don't comply there loved tend to die in "accidents".   The games play out similarly to the first book, with the addition of some allies this time around.  The book climaxes with one of the Tributes coming up with a way to electrocute the other teams.  Turns out his real goal was to disable the force field to allow the allies to escape.  Katniss is injured and wakes up in an unfamiliar place.  She is informed that she is in District 13, which was not completely destroyed because of the nuclear weapons stored there.  Instead they made a deal with the Capital to keep the story alive that the District was destroyed.  They live in tight quarters underground, keeping to a strict regime to survive.  Her friend Gale comes in to inform her that as punishment for her escape District 12 has been bombed to oblivion, with most of the population being killed.  Gale has however managed to help her family escape and they are there in District 13 as well.  The other bad news is that Peeta has been captured by the Capital.  This is where the book ends.
As long as this synopsis is :-)  I still feel the book was very repetitive, the Quarter Quell felt like a gimmick to get Katniss back in the Games which was a big draw in the first book.  A lot of the information and actual getting of Katniss to District 13 could have been done quit well in 2 or 3 chapters and not lost anything.  The hopelessness was still very much in the forefront, but with a little less hope then the first book.  Again this wasn't a bad book, just unnecessary.  Okay another long post, will put up another installment later.  Let me know your thoughts up to this point!