My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Just finished reading and still a little overwhelmed… I actually shed a few tears while on the last few pages, while reading them on a treadmill at the public gym *a little embarrassed* The story in Hunger Games Trilogy is extremely intense, intelligent and unpredictable. The atrocities that are happening to the young characters are downright awful and would be gruesome, if Suzanne Collins would handle them even slightly differently. There’s quite a bit of violence going on throughout all 3 books, and at times, it feels like we’re getting conditioned to overlook it, to preserve our sanity, just like the main protagonist Katniss does.

With brutal honesty and never-ending twists and turns in the narration, Suzanne tells us a story of struggle for freedom, power and survival. All three are connected, intertwined and dependent on each other. The kids, forced to grow up at the age of 13, are tough and resourceful, and besides the skills and talents they need to possess, they also need to figure out the finer politics of alliances, trust and lack of whereof.

The Mockingjay is as fast paced and keeps you on the edge of your seat up until the very last page, just like it’s predecessors. The love triangle of Katniss, her childhood friend Gale and her Games ally Peeta comes to a logical solution… maybe even too logical, for my taste. The story of uprising against the powerful President Snow and his Capitol also comes to a conclusion which is again, quite brutal in it’s honesty. As one of the characters tells Katniss “We’re fickle stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction”. But at the end, there’s always hope. Hope, glimpse of the future, and a bitter sweet taste of a story so intriguing and powerful that it makes you rush to finish it asap, yet you don’t want it to end. Add to that a guilty feeling of watching the story unfold almost as if it were… the Hunger Games, on our own tv…

View all my reviews

Right, and don’t get me wrong, I do, but for stupid personal superstitious reasons I haven’t bought one in a few years. Now, I think the time has come that I can give it another try Bought a two-pack of the smaller plain black books & already pimped one up for myself (using hand-painted and doodled upon cutouts from an old discarded book), and even filled in the first two pages. *insert a round of cheering-on here, please!*

Now that I showed you mine, show me yours! Especially if you’d like to win a (similarly) decorated “little black book” that came with mine! So… You have until midnight on Monday, Sept. 6th to leave a comment with either a scan of your own sketch book/notepad or just write about your “on-the-go” scribbling habits. Either way it will earn you an entry to receive a small plain Moleskine decorated by yours truly (I’ll send it anywhere USPS ships). Subscribing to the blog (and mentioning it in another comment) is another extra entry. Spreading the word about this giveaway (via Twitter, your blog or any other venue) is highly encouraged and appreciated. Ready, set… GO!

Some of my favorite Moleskine Links:

• Another anti-hero is Tara’s “how-shall-we-call-him” self-proclaimed and enforced lover. Franklin in the book was just some older (in human years), nondescript and unattractive vampire, who at the end almost kills Tara, but only after being a legitimate and attentive Sugar Daddy-type boyfriend to her for a while. On HBO, Franklin turns into a total psycho, so unpredictable and dangerous, that just following his and Tara’s ups and downs makes your head spin. Yes, we understand pretty early in the game that he’s missing a few screws in his head, but still, he seems to be somewhat caring and Tara certainly has some hots for him. Then all of a sudden, we see the creepy sadistic cuckoo Franklin peering through the outer layer more and more with each episode, until he kidnaps her with an intention of making her his “eternal vampire bride”. How he met his “true death” didn’t sit well with me, but, I suppose Allan Ball really-really wanted to tie the still loose Eggs story line.

• A few other “goodies” – Excessively and annoyingly “sunny” Summer is hilarious as Hoyt’s persistent groupie. Jesus & Lafayette are adorable together. I didn’t understand 80% of their “trip” down the memory lane on V, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The BAD:

• Not following the book in a way that makes sense. I can go on and on and on about it, but theoretically, this is one of the things that I used to admire tv version for – not following the book to the letter and only enhancing the story as a result. So, I will grudgingly give them benefit of a doubt and wait till the end of the season to see if they can still make sense of all these messed up storylines. Who saves Sookie and Bill from the King’s Mansion?
  Who kills Franklin and how. (tie with Eggs, but still…)
  The whole Sam’s family business… plus gruesome flashbacks? And a rage syndrome on top of everything?  What happened to Sam’s “wholesomeness” and reliability?

Not nearly enough of Alcide. They had a real “spark” in the books! Spent a lot of quality time, risked their lives together, he was the one to make her start questioning her future if she sticks with the undead boyfriends. Alcide, sort of like Jacob in Twilight, represents “life”, daylight, sunshine, children, all those good things. And the fact that he IS a supernatural as well and hot as hell doesn’t hurt either… What did we get in here? A few scenes with Alcide pining for his horrendous ex, a few scenes of him and Sookie having screaming matches and a scene or two with some kind of mumbled “attraction” which felt more like “oh, it’s not happening anyway, so why bother”. Grrr…

• I’m not a huge Bill fan neither in the books nor on TV, but where did the brooding and mysterious guy go? You know, the one periodically hissing his famous animalistic “Ssssoookie” so even my Eric-devoted heart melts a little? How come he’s looking at her with puppy eyes, wears linen pants and interacts with fairies on her behalf? WTF?

Last but not least The BLOODY HORRIBLE:

• Fuzzy FAIRY LAND in the cemetery? In Sookies own words – “How f*king lame!” Really? Claudine who, who is supposed to be striking, tall and gorgeous, looks like a wet rat in fluffy clothes? Where the heck did this come from? Why did Bill get to visit this “special” place? The whole thing makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit…

• Erik! Where’s Eric?! Why is he so weird, distant and not cool-as-a-cucumber sexy this season? Where are his ironic smirks and sarcastic remarks?

• Sookie had exactly one (above-mentioned) good line this season. That’s it. I like her witty monologues in the book, how she uses the big fancy words that she learns from the calendar, how she unwillingly hears stray thoughts of people around her… Now she’s just constantly whiny and moody damsel in distress who doesn’t shut up about how she can “stand up for herself” Blah…

And finally… I know it’s all about blood… I get it. It’s in the name, in big crooked capital letters… But was it really necessary to have Bill and Sookie look like they’re having a joined period in the shower? The amounts of guts and glory in this season waaaaaaay overpower clever dialog, local quirks and smart story lines this year. And it makes me so, so sad

The results are in the pudding, so to speak:

Yesterday, I settled in front of tv, with re-runs of Harry Potter movies with my girls, and lazily, instead of doing a creative project with them, grabbed the papers, trusty x-acto knife and started cutting. The size and shape of the papers suggested that they could become perfect bookmarks, especially if I overlay 2 colors and glue them together. What do you think?

I also put together a really neat new Etsy Treasury – with beautiful prints and illustrations literally “Jumping Off the Pages” of old books.

Apparently quite a few Etsy sellers enjoy messing with the yellowish papers as much as I do.

Also, as much as Orange is not my favorite color when it comes to fashion, in other applications, it’s warm and sunny and full of positive emotions for me. So, why not create an orange Treasury, I thought…

One more orange-related thing is a blog that I frequent, Orange You Lucky!. Ukrainian-born Canadian illustrator and pattern designer, Helen Dardik will surely make you smile every time you visit her cheerful and bright online home

That’s it, folks. Orange you glad I didn’t pick banana for today’s post? (sorry, couldn’t resist repeating one of my kids’ favorite jokes). Enjoy!

First one is Doodle Diary, Art Journaling for Girls by Dawn DeVries Sokol It’s wonderful little (perfect size to carry around in the bag or a backpack) gem, meant to inspire artistic journaling in girls of any age. Short, fun prompts on every spread will give the much needed jolt of creativity to anybody who is willing to try their hand in this exciting contemporary art form. Some pages come with beautiful colorful backgrounds, and a few even have the drawings already started for you, but it doesn’t feel stuffy or intimidating, on contrary, it makes you wanna grab your favorite pen and start doodling right along Great job, Dawn, my girls and I will have a great time using it!
The second book is the one I got yesterday’s project idea from.  Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun by Carla Sonheim Beautiful collection of fresh, creative ideas to make drawing more fun. Wonderful, simple exercises that don’t require any fancy art supplies or equipment but will surely lit your imagination on fire and get your creative juices flowing! Gorgeous colorful illustrations/samples by themselves would inspire anybody with even the slightest artistic inclination. Also, every chapter has a “featured artist” section with a short interview and work samples of some amazing illustrators and artists. Now, that is exactly how I found this book, Geninne Zlatkis is one of the featured artists and she mentioned it on her blog, which I check out with religious regularity. I highly recommend this book to anybody who wants to get into the habit of drawing and have fun in the process. I am also planning to check out other books in the Lab series.
So, the project I chose is called Scribble Drawings, and it’s a quite common creative activity which was perfect for my girls this quiet summer evening. Ok, so it was quiet for about 10 minutes after they stopped arguing who’s got the best scribbles and before they fought about who did the best drawing, but still…
I made 6 random scribbles on separate scraps of paper, turned them face down and distributed evenly between the two of them (you see, I was trying hard to avoid the “fairness” debate…) Armed with a large pack of markers, they had to figure out what they “see” in the scribble, add to it if needed and color it in.

The results were very creative and fun, especially combined with lengthy explanations that accompanied them If you do this activity with your kids one day, I’d love to see the results (just send me a link!). Enjoy!