I know there are going to be some strong thoughts on this topic. I think it’s difficult to say there is too much of something we really like, BUT I obviously think it’s a valid question if I took the time to make a video out of it! Now watch or don’t and just tell me what you think!
Tag: The Hunger Games
Top Five Wednesday: Who’s Coming to my New Year’s Party?
I haven’t done one of these in a LONG time. Mostly because the girl who took over started with crap topics. Bleh. The topic is pretty easy to comprehend. Leggo.
Katniss Everdeen
She’s the Girl on Fire. I mean, come on.
Harry Bosch
I don’t drink alcohol. So I’d sit down with a bottle of water out away from the rest of the party and talk to Harry about everything. He’s insightful and I doubt anyone could match his stories from decades with LAPD. I’d also tell him his daughter would make an excellent detective.
Mark Watney
I just finished The Martian and have LOTS of thoughts on it, but for now I’d just like to tell Mark here that’s he’s hilarious. Stay tuned for a full review in the next day or two!
A
She’s the protagonist from Every Day and it would actually be cool to invite her every year to the New Year’s party just to see her in different bodies.
Guy Montag
This might seem like an odd choice when you consider the fact that I HATE this book. But I’d invite him because every other person invited to this particular party would love books. And this bastard burns them. I’d pretty much just tell him off. And perhaps create a mob in the process.
Those are the five characters I’d invite to my New Year’s party! Who would you invite to yours!?
On Completed Series
Have you ever stopped to think about all the series you’ve read? Especially the ones you’ve finished. Well I just did. And guess how many I came up with? Two.
There’s always a chance I’m missing some, but I think I’m pretty spot on. Merci Rayborn and The Hunger Games. Those are the only book series I’ve read from start to finish. It probably sounds crazy, but it really isn’t.
I’ve written on here before about the length of series you’re willing to read, and I remember several people saying that four or five books is just too many for a series. I thought it was garbage back then and I still think so today.
The majority of the series I read are 10+ books. Spenser. Bosch. Alex Cross. Jesse Stone. Elvis Cole. Alex McKnight. And several I started and never finished. Mystery writers tend to write long series, and I have no issue with that as long as the writing stays top notch.
Do you have any idea how many aeries you’ve completed?
Top Five Wednesday: Fictional Items I Want
Yay for finally doing a Top Five Wednesday video! The truth is that I haven’t liked any of the recent topics and I didn’t want to just do my own because then it’s just “five random things Wednesday”, which doesn’t really have a nice ring to it. Ha!
Anyway, today’s topic is five fictional items I want. I knew I’d do this one as soon as I saw the March topics. But I soon realized that I don’t really read too many stories set in fictional places, which severely limits the number of fictional items I’ve read about. But fear not, in the process of recording the video I was actually able to come up with SIX items! Hehe. But they’re all from two series. Eh.
Two from The Hunger Games because duhh. And four from that series with Hogwarts. But you won’t know what they are unless you watch!
Which five fictional items do YOU want? If you can limit it to five. I couldn’t.
And don’t forget that Top Five Wednesday is hosted by Lainey here. There’s also a Goodreads group.
Popular Movies Don’t Equate to Great Used Book Sales
There are a lot of books adapted into films each year. Most are hardly worth taking note of, but others stand the test of time. Some remain popular long after their theatrical run ends. And others are immensely popular before and after movie adaptatations. But only a few books keep selling well in the used books environment.
Twilight.
You would not believe how many of these books we get in at my store. It’s ridiculous.
The Hunger Games.
There’s a difference between the two series. THG sell, but we get SO many of them.
Marley & Me.
I actually had no idea it was a book before I started working at Half Price Books. It’s one we see A LOT of. It isn’t exactly flying off the shelves.
The Fault in Our Stars.
Similar to THG, these sell okay. But it’s definitely a book we see plenty of.
So that’s my little list of popular books that became popular movies that don’t sell particularly well in a used bookstore environment. At least not in the environment I work in each day. Of course, there are opposites. Books that sell VERY well. It’s all a guessing game. Maybe I’ll have a post about those books in a couple of days.
I Have a new Obsession
And it’s Funko. I usually just call them Pops, but I’m not entirely sure if others call them Pops or Funkos or what. But you know what I’m talking about. Those little 3 inch vinyl figures you’ve seen floating around everywhere. Well it turns out I LOVE them.
My first encounter with them was a few months back. Late last year I wandered into a Hot Topic store one day for no reason. And I was met by a wall of Pops. A literal wall of them. I was drawn to a few classic characters I’ve loved since forever, but I wasn’t ready to buy just yet. And then my brother (who I was with at the time) gave me a JJ Watt Pop! for Christmas last year. But I still wasn’t really into them, although I haven’t taken mine out of the case because that’s what people do, right?
Anyway, fast forward to last week. My store gets a few of these little guys in sometimes. But last week we got a Harry Potter and Hermione in stock. Brand new. They’re now waiting to be purchased on the 19th and 20th by me. Then I started looking online at all the different ones and THERE ARE SO MANY! But I was able to decide that I NEED the Katniss Everdeen and Jack Skellington ones. The regular Katniss and the regular Jack.
But I know I want Ron and Dumbledore and Hagrid and Dobby and Peeta and Effie and Sally and Willy Wonka and the Master and SO MANY MORE. It helps that they aren’t overly expensive and I literally don’t spend money on anything else.
Do you have any of these Funko Pops? I’m still not sure how I’m supposed to say that.
Did you say Bookish Tattoo? I did.
A number of you already know I want a few literary tattoos in the future. I want the deathly hallows symbol. But I REALLY want a mockingjay pin. I’ll get both at some point. Might even throw them together somehow. And some of y’all know I got my first book-related tattoo just a couple days after earning my degree to get me started on my writing journey. I got this in May 2013.
It’s on my left forearm. And I just added another to my right forearm last week! Take a look.
“Books are the only freedom I’ll ever know.” If you love or hate the quote, that’s okay. I’m the one who came up with it. 😁
It’s been a long time since I originally wrote about literary tattoos here, so I’ll ask again. Do you have or want any? Tell me your thoughts on my new one? Everyone at work noticed immediately and seems to like it.
Lionsgate, Please Refrain From Doing This
This week something happened. Something unfortunate. It was hinted that there could be more films set in Panem. And I absolutely hate the idea.
The Hunger Games books and movies, to me, were so good because of Katniss. Just your regular girl trying to do right and protect her family. And now it seems the studio is willing to do without its brightest star. Any prequel would take place long before the day Katniss so courageously volunteered as tribute. I’m not sure I’d be interested in such a film.
The reasoning for these potential prequels is simple. Money. And supposedly some fans have been disappointed by the lack of arena battles. But it’s mostly money. Before the series came along Lionsgate was well outside the big 6 movie studios. And now they’ve just about made it a big 7. The series isn’t wholly responsible for that, but it’s pretty damn close. So now Lionsgate is trying to milk its cash cow for every last penny.
It isn’t surprising. And I won’t even say they can’t make quality movies, but I just hate that no story is ever really complete in today’s movie business.
By the way, nothing is official at this point. But it will be. You watch.
Are you interested in these potential prequels to the four movies already in the series?
Another Month Gone
2015 is rapidly coming to a close. And the bloggity here is going with it. I barely started reading posts on here again within the last two or three days. It isn’t that I’m not interested, it’s that in the mornings I’m either sleeping or getting ready for work. And at night I’m usually watching a TV show or basketball game. But I’m just making excuses. I read a bunch of posts last night. And hopefully I will before bed tonight too. All I can do is try. Anyway, let’s talk about November stats.
Posts: 30
Likes: 458
Comments: 418
Followers: 3255
Books Read: 0
Poems: 0
YouTube Videos: 0
Welp. Lows across the board. Of course. Basically what I’ve come to expect at this point. My girlfriend says it best. I’m still on WordPress quite a bit, but I’m not really into it. *sad face* I’m trying, guys.
The one interesting thing that came out of November is that I’m thinking of doing one of two things. Maybe both. I’m thinking of reviving my sports blog OR turning that into a YouTube channel. Probably doesn’t make much sense, but the reason I don’t make more videos on my current channel is because I need to be reading something in order to make a video. Whereas in sports there is ALWAYS something for me to talk about. Always. I guess we’ll see. Now for some posts.
Top Post
Favorite Post
What I Learned From Katniss Everdeen
Post you may Have Missed
Saturday Selects #21: My problem with football
No surprise about the top post this month. NaNo is something people are always interested in reading about, and I think I wrote a handful of posts against it in November. Yikes. I’m crazy. Hm. What else? The Hunger Games movies ended for me, which means the series is officially over. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a little saddened by this. I love Katniss and that series so much. More than I’ll likely enjoy any series ever again. And it’s over. Maybe one day I’ll go against my rereading rule and reread those three books. Wouldn’t hurt to relive the rebellion with Katniss once again. Wouldn’t hurt at all.
So that’s it. My month in a tiny nutshell. How was your November?
Mockingjay Part 2: A review
Kinda.
First off, I read the book some three and a half years ago. So did I know most of what would happen? Yes. Did I have every detail etched into my head? No.
The movie starts calmly. It has to if you think about what happened at the end of Part 1. We see that Peeta is still in a pretty bad state. And we soon realize that the war is going well for the districts and 13.
What I liked best about this movie over Part 1 and even the first movie in the series is that it played out more like an action movie than the others did. At least in my eyes. It was pretty nonstop from the time Katniss arrived in District 2 until the end of the movie.
When you’re watching it you almost forget that it could ever be adapted from a young adult series. That’s not a shot at the genre, it’s just what I’m thinking.
I thought the cast did quite well in their roles with Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson standing out just above the rest. Peeta was good, bad, and even wildly crazy all in just two hours. Hutcherson did well to convince me of the ongoing turmoil plaguing Peeta.
I have two favorite parts of the movie. There’s a scene in which Katniss and her squad are proceeding toward the presidential mansion through the tunnels beneath the Capitol. They’re resting. But their whereabouts are known and mutts are released to find and kill them. They’re unable to outrun them and are forced to fight. They do. But the space is small and most of the squad is able to escape. Except Finnick. He keeps fighting. But he’s ultimately killed. And Katniss kills as many as she can by detonating the holo. It was one of my favorite moments because once Finnick was alone with a long ladder to climb we all knew he wouldn’t make it. But he fought. And fought. He kind of symbolized the entire rebellion.
The other was the assassination of President Coin. One of my favorite parts of the book and the series. It became apparent once the Capitol surrendered that she’d simply take Snow’s place. And it took Snow to convince Katniss, along with Coin proposing a symbolic Games. Katniss always stood for right, and she wouldn’t just stand by and watch one tyrant be replaced by another.
Guys, I thought the movie was a solid ending to a rather fantastic series. My order of the movies is #2, #4, #1, #3. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll reread the series and rewatch the movies.
Thank you, Suzanne Collins. For giving so many The Girl on Fire.
Johnny Reads 