Vampires: Reloaded

The Hunt by Andrew Fukuda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Andrew Fukuda has returned vampires to their rightful spot at the top of the food chain.

***Plot Summary***

Boy is human (or heper, as they are called in this book). Boy doesn't want vampires to know that he is heper, or they will eat him. Boy is very good at hiding the fact that he is heper. Humans have been basically hunted to extinction, except for the few that are kept in a breeding program by the government. People are unhappy with government (good to know some things never change . . . even vamps are anti-government) so government announces that there will be a Hunt to catch and eat those last hepers. Lucky vampires want to be chosen by lottery to participate in the Hunt. Unlucky Boy gets chosen instead. Disaster ensues.

***Review***

This is a very fast read, which I consumed, like a vampire consumes a heper, in about two and a half hours. By the end of the book, I was flipping screens frantically to get to the resolution.

Pros: it's pacey. The vampires are bloodthirsty, and not even remotely emo. Yay for non-emo vamps! They also do not sparkle in any way, shape or form. There are no heper/vamp romances, mostly because the vamps are so overcome by bloodlust at the scent of a human that they simply tear into any heper they happen to find. The book is also interesting, because it really reimagines a society of vampires, who have become just as rulebound and civilized as the humans they replaced. There are some interesting twists, one of which is pretty obvious, the other one took me by surprise.

Cons: the book is somewhat predictable. There are some minor issues with the believability of the world building, especially the attitude of the MC toward the captive hepers. It also felt a little incomplete, although this leaves plenty of room for the sequels to fill in the gaps.

I really did enjoy this book, though, and look forward to the next installment in the series. The issues with the book were relatively minor and did not interfere with my enjoyment of the story. And, again, yay for non-sparkly, non-emo vamps.

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The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins

As I posted in the sidebar on "The Streak" we listened to the audiobook of The Hunger Games coming and going on our vacation. It is very well done, and I highly recommend it.

Nonetheless, there comes a time when one is completely riveted by a book, that the audiobook just can't keep up with a reading speed of 150 pages an hour. I managed to hit that point at midnight, our first night home from the vacation. I have occasional insomnia, which is often inconvenient, but also provides a fabulous opportunity for undisturbed reading if work is not scheduled for the following day. My insomnia roared to life at midnight, and didn't relent until 4:30 a.m. By that time, I had finished book 1,




and read all of book 2, Catching Fire:




and 1/2 of the third book, Mockingjay:



Doing a series review is risky, because plot spoilers are almost inevitable, and I can't fully air my thoughts about this series without providing major spoilers. So, if you haven't read the trilogy, let me start by saying the following:

These books are worth reading. I am a huge fan of YA literature. It is my opinion that some of the best books being written today are in the YA genre. It is true that much trash is published in that genre as well, but someone who is looking for big themes and risk-taking in fiction shouldn't turn up their noses at YA. I previously gave John Green's A Fault In Our Stars a five-star review, and I genuinely loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone. The Hunger Games is an example of this phenomenon. These are brave books, that take a serious look at humanity, and don't shy away from bleakness. They define the reason that people read dystopian lit. Because when we look into the heart of darkness, we learn something about ourselves.

So, if you haven't read the trilogy, stop reading here. Go and buy the books. Read them. Then come back, if you are interested in what I thought.

***Spoilers . . . . Spoilers . . . . Spoilers . . . . Spoilers . . . . Spoilers ***

For purposes of this section of the post, I am going to assume that everyone reading has already read the entire trilogy. Therefore, I'm not bothering with a plot summary.

I really loved the first book. I loved the author's voice. I have read very few books written in the first person present, and even fewer that could actually pull it off. Suzanne Collins did this masterfully, and through the use of the first person present tense, drew the reader into Katniss Everdeen with devastating thoroughness. Because this is not an easy book to read in any respect. We start with the drama of The Reaping, and the slow, horrifying unfolding of the purpose of The Hunger Games, and then the volunteering of Katniss to take the place of her younger sister, Prim. This entire process is deeply affecting, in a nightmarish way. Panem is the stuff that nightmares of made of, where children are forced to become brutal assassins, to commit murder for public entertainment. Even the seemingly idyllic sections of the book -- Katniss and Gale hunting in the forest -- are based in a horror story where children become criminals if they ensure that families don't die of starvation.

Once Katniss gets to the Capitol the book becomes even more compelling. In the third book, Ms. Collins uses a phrase from Roman history to describe the people of The Capitol: Panem et Circuses, which is also where she gets the name of her fictional dystopian world. The reason behind that name becomes clear as the series develops. Because the people of The Capitol are utterly corrupt in their uselessness. Their absurd styles, their gluttony, their abject exploitation of the Districts, detail the most shallow and worthless humanity. The Hunger Games -- child murder as entertainment -- are merely the most obvious examples of their corruption. In reality, they have created a constant version of The Hunger Games in the lives in the citizens of the Districts, where people die of starvation, while surrounded by forests and fields teeming with food and life.

Book two of the series, Catching Fire is equally compelling. Katniss and Peeta have both survived The Hunger Games. Katniss's brilliant emotional manipulation at the end of the games both ensured their survival and has served as a rallying point for a rebellion in the Districts. The power structure of The Capitol, and particularly the reptilian and evil President Snow, is deeply angry with Katniss and intends to have their revenge. It is difficult, in this book, to remember that Katniss is really still a child of 17. She has been providing for her family, surviving under the worst of circumstances for half a decade at this point, and things are about to get even uglier in District 12.

Catching Fire, as the middle book of the trilogy, does a remarkable job of sustaining interest in the series. It doesn't fall victim to many of the middle book issues, and, while it doesn't stand on it's own, significantly advances the story. New characters are introduced, including one of my favorite characters in the trilogy, Finnick.

Katniss continues to serve as a rallying point for a rebellion against the excesses of The Capitol. Even some of those within the Capitol's power structure itself have come to recognize the inhumanity and emptiness that is the government of Panem, and a rebellion is empowered.

It is the final book, though, that gives the series it's genuine power. Mockingjay is not nearly as popular with readers, because it is a hard book to read. We see our favorite characters broken and, in many cases, outright killed. Because, as it turns out, the leader of the rebellion, and much of the movement itself is nothing more, or less, than The Capitol 2.0. Just as corrupt, just as inhumane, just as horrifying. And the rebels use Katniss as their symbol, with her willing participation, while entirely stripping her of any meaning or personhood. Mockingjay is a bleak indictment of humanity.

And, in the end, Katniss saves the world. Unsung, in an act of criminal rebellion for which she, were the book real, would have been executed. This is deeply symmetrical. Katniss has been forced to murder for her survival through her participation in not one, but two, versions of the Hunger Games. She is the perfect assassin -- able to execute someone in cold blood, simply because the ends can justify the means. She is what the Capitol has created, and what was exploited, and, in the end, her inherent understanding of what will happen should President Coin rise to power results in a decision to commit one more act of cold-blooded and premeditated murder where she saves, not herself, but the soul of her world.

Thankfully, Collins spares us the final horror that would be her execution. Her life is spared, and she ends the book sinking into relative obscurity with the one character who is just as broken as she is, and between the two of them, they try to find some way to live out their lives not entirely in darkness.

Finally, a word about the ubiquitous YA love triangle. Yes, I, too, am completely tired of the need to install a love triangle, with a single exceptional female being fought over by two extremely compelling males, into every single goddamned YA series being written. However, do not make the mistake of thinking that the love triangle in this series is the point. That is the least compelling aspect of the book to my mind, and it is easy to get sidetracked by the question of "who will she choose." Peeta is her rock, her friend and her protector, and he would be all of those things regardless of whether he ended the series as her husband. Gale is her best friend, but he is in love with fire and justice, and with the idea of Katniss -- the symbol, the survivor, the warrior -- much more than he is in love with Katniss the person.

Among the most touching moments in the book occurs at the end, when Peeta asks Katniss:

"You love me. Real or not real?" And Katniss responds. "Real." By that time, neither of them truly know what is real and what is not.

This was an incredibly brave series, and I appreciate the author not ending it easily. Lives are lost, including some very important and beloved characters, and the toll of war is acknowledged. Because, as Collins puts it: "something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its childrens lives to settle its difference."

There is much more that I could say about these books. The use of propaganda, the impact of dehumanization on a culture, the importance of symbols, and the toll of war. But this post is already incredibly long and I'm drained, thinking back through the experience that is the reading of this trilogy over the course of about a day. So, I'll simply end with a definition of Collin's beautiful metaphor:

Panem and Circuses: the abdication of political and civic responsibility in return for a life of frivolous irresponsibility. A message for our time, perhaps.

Review: Wither

I just finished this one:



which falls into the general category of YA dystopian, same as Ashes, Ashes.

Wither is set in the unidentified future, and starts from the premise that, approximately 70 years earlier or thereabouts, humanity learned how to genetically engineer children who would be in perfect physical condition their whole lives. This eradicated cancer and other childhood diseases, as well as congenital defects. These people, called "First Generation" are genetically perfect and extremely long-lived. The experiment was a resounding success.

Except, of course, it wasn't. Because as the First Generation went on to procreate, their own children turned out to be victims of an inalterable, and mysterious, ailment that kills them in their youth. Females live to be 20. Males live to 25. And in this world, the wealthy live behind gates, and they steal brides for their boys to make babies that are born to, probably, die, and the geneticists continue to seek a cure for the disease that is killing their children. Add to this a post-apocalyptic world where all but North America is gone (or at least believed to be gone) and you have the violent, misogynistic world of Wither.

The MC, Rhine, was kidnapped out of New York, separated from her twin brother Rowan, and shipped to Florida as a bride for Linden, 20 year old son of Housemaster Vaughn. Linden's first wife, Rose, is on her deathbed from the disease when Rose, Cecily and Jenna arrive at the house, having been abducted and bought by the Gatherers.

What comes next is told from the perspective of Rhine. It is a limited narrative, and we only learn what Rhine learns as she learns it, but what we do learn is enough to horrify us. Cecily, the youngest bride, is a mere 13 years old when her marriage to Linden is consummated, and she becomes pregnant. Rhine, 16 years old, rapidly develops into Linden's favorite. And Jenna, 18 years old and only 2 years away from death, hates Linden but has decided that this place that she is in is as good a place to die as any. There is precious little warmth and almost zero hope for any of these girls.

Wither is well-written, and at times the horror of the book is hidden beneath beautiful prose. The mansion, where the brides are kept captive, is a gilded cage, with hologram games and a pool, and an orange grove. Linden is a remarkably weak and oblivious young man. Even at the end of the book, the reader is left with more questions than answers, particularly about Linden's father, Housemaster Vaughn.

There are some things that don't make sense, and this book does require a willing suspension of disbelief. There is no real explanation of how, and why, people universally stopped reproducing naturally, and the reader is led to believe that there are no naturally-procreated human beings left. I suspect that the reader will find, in Fever, that this is not true, and that there are enclaves of "real," and by real I mean, of course, naturally conceived, human beings that are living secretly, away from the population of the First Generation and their doomed offspring.

I anxiously await Fever:



scheduled for publication on February 21. One burning question does present itself -- who on earth thought that cover was a good idea? That ugly ass cover gets my "WTF" award for the week.

Review: Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari

I finished reading this:



Although it was a bit of a struggle. Just not very good.

REVIEW (2 stars):

Dystopian is where it is at with Young Adult fiction these days, and this book attempts, without much success, to jump on that bandwagon.

This book is deeply, deeply flawed. That's actually too nice. It is really bad. Let me count the ways.

First off, I do not have any problem willingly suspending disbelief when it comes to fiction. However, if I am going to suspend my disbelief, then the author has an obligation not to insult my intelligence. This book insults my intelligence. There is a massive, monumental, devastating climate change that goes literally unexplained for all three-hundred-odd pages. Weather patterns have changed. In a mere five years, summer has stopped being summer and has become "The Big Wet." Things are submerged. Parts of the U.S. have apparently simply disappeared into the ocean.

Yet, all of this climactic activity has, apparently, no explanation at all. I guess that the polar ice caps have melted. Unfortunately, this is an event that takes half a millenium (or at least a couple of decades) to impact the climate. And we are to believe that all of this happened in less than five years? For this reader, at least, by page 70, I was done (the final straw came at the point that the author had Mt. St. Helen's erupting and burying my hometown of Portland, Oregon, in ash and molten rock. Portland is 70 miles from Mt. St. Helen's, it has erupted in my lifetime, and there was no burying of Portland in ash & molten rock. Part of writing a book is researching it, and part of researching would involve looking at a map, or reading about the actual eruption that occurred in 1980.) There is no reason that melting polar ice caps would cause volcanic eruptions. No scientific reason at all.

This, however, is a small thing when the real problem is the ridiculous story of the virus that ate humanity, which is apparently a version of smallpox. And yet, the author kills off the precise population that would have been immune to smallpox from their childhood vaccinations and has the teenagers survive. It is fine for an author to take some creative license. But when an author uses an actual disease for which people were actually vaccinated 50 years ago, but aren't today, having some of the teens live and pretty much all of the middle-aged ones die is ridiculous. Just wanting to write about remarkably attractive teens living in a devastated world with no parents is no excuse for sloppy plotting. Since I don't want to post spoilers, I'm not even going to get started on the enormous, gaping, quantum-mechanic-esque black hole that is at the center of the whole conflict/villain aspect of the book.

In the end, I'm giving this book 2-stars only because it has obviously been professionally edited, which at this point in history is something that a reader can't take for granted. However, in all other respects, it was an altogether unpleasant stew. I am left wondering what Scholastic was thinking in publishing this one, when there are so many others out there that are better.