Book Nerd Out!

This post is my entry in the Book Nerd Out giveaway hosted by Book Riot: Reviews, Recommendations, and Commentary about books and reading (but, you know, fun).

Book Riot forced my hand to post on a non-posting day. My mild OCD is having a fit! But I wasn’t about to pass up a $100 gift card!

So they wanted to know when I was at my crazy nerdiest for a book. My first reaction was Captain Blood. And then I remembered the two months of my life that were literally out of my control and in the hands of George R.R. Martin as I read the first three books of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. It's not fair to choose just one when I geeked out over four!

First we have Captain Peter Blood, the Captain Jack Sparrow/Dr. Doug Ross of the high seas! Oh Peter, weren’t you just so charismatic, smart and boy, can you swoon over a woman! I really just wanted to slap you and say, well, I only know one person who can do what I wanted to do much better. Cher, you have the honor...

And you did, Peter! You washed and curled your hair, buckled your sword to your hip (hee) and oh my goodness don’t even get me started on the cannon scene! There is a sinister side to Captain Blood that makes him such a great complicated character! And there's swashbuckling, sailing the Caribbean, hidden pirate hang outs, running from the Royal Navy and the Spaniards and there's RUM!

Yeah, Captain Blood goes everywhere with me now thanks to the Kindle App on my phone.

Then there was the drama of A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. Books I read in a ROW! Seriously, I wasn’t joking. I had no life for two months. I was living and breathing Westeros.

With A Storm of Swords I had serious issues. I would got angry, giddy... I was reading a hundred pages a night! Then the way it ends! Tyrion, you little, sinister, snarky, smarty pants you! And Jon Snow: if the theories on the internet turn out to be true, I approve. Arya Stark: Girl, you frighten me. But in a “I swear it wasn’t me who killed half your family don’t kill me” kind of way! Ser Jorah: Getting a little too swooney but still your handy with a sword. Ugh, dragon girl, how could you... why... I don’t care... ugh, I’m still angry at what you did to him! Characters got what they deserved. Others got what they DIDN'T deserve. I was rendered incoherent after one particular scene from A Storm of Swords. Oh George, you terrible terrible man, but oh, how I loved handing over those two months of my life to your world.

Yeah, I still haven't recovered. Book Nerd, over and out.

To Be Read: The Hunger Games

I wrote earlier I was hesitant about reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It has the same idea of Battle Royale and The Running Man: futuristic society, games used to entertain/exert government control, yada yada yada…

The Hunger Games takes place in what was once known as North America, in the nation of Panem. Panem is separated into districts, each one specializing in a certain industry that basically supports the Capitol, where the government of Panem is located. Every year each district must send a tribute, one boy and girl, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, to the Hunger Games, where they will be thrown into an arena to battle to the death until one emerges as the victor. Our heroine, Katniss Everdeen, is only sixteen and has been struggling to survive in District 12, being the sole provider of her family. When it’s time for District 12 to send their Tributes, it’s Katniss’ little sister who has been chosen but Katniss volunteers to go in her place.

I’ve only see the movie versions of Battle Royale and The Running Man, and it’s been years since I’ve seen them. I don’t know if I can watch Battle Royale again. The scene with the girls who turn on each other still haunts me. While The Hunger Games describes how some of the children – who have been forced to participate in the games – were killed, it is quite graphic but it didn’t really hit me. It is a YA novel, written in a certain style that didn’t make me cringe compared to the type of cringing I did while reading the first three books of A Song of Ice and Fire series, by George R.R. Martin. Although, it was written from the point of view of Katniss, and it could be that she herself had shut herself off in order to survive the Hunger Games.

The book is definitely a page turner though. I got through it in a week and I recommend it. Oh, just a warning, the names are horrible and don’t work well when read aloud. As a book it did its job; I was entertained. Though being entertained by the death of children may not be something I should be admitting…