blairconrad's Reviews (1.12k)

Kinda boring. Cinna's costumes continue to steal the show, but I found the uncertainty in the first book wasn't here. After they set up the love triangle last time, it was pretty clear there'd be no resolution until the last 10 pages of the last book. And, unlike everyone else I talk to, the Games (yes, the series is called "The Hunger Games", there's another game) weren't even exciting. Neither the setup nor the actual setting of the Arena did much for me. Eventually its design worked itself into the story a little, but it was too late for me.
I did like one of the new characters, though. Well, and a second one, but that didn't last long...
Oh, Katniss, who was initially a marginally likable character, did not do anything to ingratiate herself with me.

This book had an entirely different feel from [b:The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time|1618|The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time|Mark Haddon|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327882682s/1618.jpg|4259809], but was as enjoyable. Haddon portrays the workings of a family and hangers-on in an extremely believable fashion. That’s not to say that everything that happens in the book is totally believable – as is almost always necessary for interesting fiction, situations and events are stretched a little torward the fantastic, but once that is accepted, the book has the potential to resonate quite strongly with the reader.

I especially enjoyed how we switched among the different characters’ points of view, and when we were in the heads of the people who were around my age, I thought, “Yeah, that’s how we see the elders,” and likewise when in the elders’ heads it was, “Yeah, that’s how I imagine the elders see people of my generation.”

One detraction was the bewilderingly long list of tertiary characters in the book – I couldn’t keep half of them in my head for more than 10 pages at a time. That being said, maybe it was intentional, because many of the principals couldn’t either.

Well worth a read.

The pace is definitely slowing in this series. I didn't really feel like much happened or we explored the characters' personalities very much. Sigh.

A very interesting premise - I like the various food-related superpowers. There's with a quirky cast of (admittedly not very well-defined) supporting characters. I really enjoyed the humour surrounding the FDA and the bird flu and whatnot.
My only real complaint is the artwork. I think it completely matches the tone of the book, but I just didn't care for it.

More of the same, really, but I found that in this collection there wasn't really enough story to support the wacky powers and characters. Interest waning...

Overall, a mediocre collection of short stories barely saved by the inclusion of the title piece. I didn’t particularly enjoy the writing style in most of the stories, which were mostly of the popular shock/horror genre, like Stephen King writes. I found that there were pretty much two formats – supposedly exciting twist telegraphed at the beginning of the story so there was no surprise, or unusual ending that seemed like it was tacked on from another story.

A beautiful book. The stories were fairly well told, but for some reason I didn't empathize as much with Ehwa as I might've thought. I think because her adventures were only sketched, with larger periods of time in between. I didn't really feel like the connection she felt to the boys came from anywhere, so my emotions weren't tugged like they could be.
Still, I enjoyed her interactions with her mother, and most pages were good eye candy - especially the scenery.

Somewhat disappointing. The artwork didn't do that much for me, and while at first the concept behind the book ("night bookmobile" with a twist) was interesting, I didn't really identify with the main character, and found her ultimate decision to be somewhat distasteful - made with too little consideration (it seemed) and with too much potential to become disastrous. Still, a quick read with lots of books featured. That was kind of fun.
Oh, I said I didn't care for the artwork, but it's clear that Niffenegger paid a lot of attention when rendering the books' covers (and especially spines). I appreciate that.