The New Kids On the Block

So Nina and Bethaney have both decided to start blogs and show me up by writing in them all the time. Booo! The way I've been conducting my blog so far is that I write when I feel like I have something important and meaningful to say, or some masterpiece thoughts that I want to get down in writing. However, Nina and Bethaney just write whatever. Like Bet has been posting recipes of foods she makes and pictures of the farm and the kids, and Nina writes email-style blog posts to pass the time at work. This has lead me to believe that perhaps I think too much. I mean, there are things I want to say, right? All the time. Maybe they're not mind-blowing or incredibly important. But they're opinions I want to express. Or whatever. That's valid, right?

Heck, yeah, it is!

However, I don't really feel inspired today. Again, boooo! So I figure I'll just write about some of the books I've been reading lately. Super exciting, I know. Anyway, I've been reading a surprising amount of young adult fiction, which is weird. As I am not a young adult (I'm a grown and fierce woman!), nor do I have much interest in children's literature. But whatever. It started with the Hunger Games trilogy, which I recommend. I'll tell you why. They're decently written books. The author has a plan and the characters are well-developed and multi-dimensional. Though about 2/3rds of the way through the 3rd book I became suddenly and violently angry with the turn the storyline took. (Poor Jess at work had to hear me rant about how upset I was the one day I came in and she had no idea what I was talking about.) I thought that the author was going to make things turn out entirely differently than she had been setting them up so far, and that the ending was going to make no sense whatsoever. But I was wrong and she restored my faith in the end. Otherwise I would be currently whistling a different tune. The other interesting thing I found about those books was that they were about the affect of war on children, which I think is an interesting and hitherto unexplored subject in literature. We don't really think about this much in America, but imagine what it would have been like to worry that every time you went to school, it was very possible that the building would blow up. I mean, it's one thing to worry about that as a parent (I imagine) but to worry about it as a child? How awful. And beyond that, you'd have to learn about politics at a very young age. You'd have to choose a side, it would be in your face every day. Think of all the terrible things you'd see. What do you learn from this? How does it affect you as you grow older? Do you become more fair and moderate and learn to love all nature and human beings the same because you see all the terrible things humans do to each other happening all around you and you don't want them to ever be repeated? Or do you take the other side of that, become an extremist, someone who was repressed and now craves freedom so badly you're willing to do whatever it takes, including killing and subjugating others to bend them to your will? When I was a child, I didn't have to think about that. Some children do.

Now I am reading the City of Ember series. They're okay. They're about this underground city called Ember (duh) and how it was created like 250 years before so that the human race would survive the next giant disaster (which in the books, is referred to as The Disaster. Basically it was just a bunch of wars and diseases and humans ended up killing most of nature and themselves. But don't worry, nature restores itself and some humans on the surface still survive). The first one was pretty good. Interesting, the character flaws that the author chose for each character. The male child has a terrible temper. You see him struggle over and over with "unintentional consequences" when he lets his anger get the best of him. Really, you don't see that as a character flaw very often. I mean sometimes I guess, but usually it isn't presented as a flaw of sorts. It's like, oh, he's just headstrong, and people are afraid of him, but that's manly, and he gets the job done! When in reality, it's actually a really bad thing to struggle with. Take it from someone who knows. And the girl is quite impulsive. Seriously, that's her flaw. She doesn't really think ahead and just kind of goes out and does rash things, like run away from home, and doesn't think to tell anyone or anything. So basically she's just a normal child. But that one was an interesting choice too, I thought. The second book was better than the first, and the third book has kind of come out of the blue. It's a prequel to the first book, written about modern America, and it's kind of strange. It seems to be making some kind of commentary on religion and how it gets out of hand when you have one or two people who are interpreting God's will for a larger number of people. Or at least what they believe to be God's will. Judgments get passed and the whole "one bad apple ruins the whole bunch" mentality comes forth. Repression and restraint ensues. Punishment for not following God's will. Again, with the war and children. I guess the 4th book goes back to the City of Ember kids. I like them better anyway.

I will write more next time on the other book I recently read, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.