Book Review: Catching Fire

Rarely does a sequel capture the energy and excitement of the first novel. Everything in a first novel is new and fresh and sometimes authors seem to struggle to maintain the same intensity and freshness to the reader.

Collins did not seem to have any of those problems here. Like her last novel, just when you think you know what's going to happen, she throws you a curve ball, but a curve ball that makes sense. For me, that's the gem of this series. I've read novels where the author will say something and I'll be left wondering where did that come from, or how did we get to this point and never figure it out.

Whereas the first novel, The Hunger Games, took three pages for me to get into it (and then I couldn't set it down after that), Catching Fire, had me from the get go. Although, unlike the first novel, somewhere in the middle of Catching Fire, it did slow down and I was able to set the book down and go to bed at a decent hour two nights in a row. Then the book took off again, and I was up into the wee hours of the third night finishing it off.

An excellent sequel to The Hunger Games.

Book Review: The Bourne Legacy

I loved the Bourne movies. In looking for a quick read, I picked up The Bourne Legacy by Erin Van Lustbader. It was a quick read and the opening chapter in Chechnya was really well written. However, there was quite a disconnect from who Bourne was in this book and the three movies. I never quite got used to it.

I don't know if the three books the movies were based on were quite as different as this book was from the character in the movies, if so then I'm comparing apples to oranges. But if not, There were a couple of story developments that put me off. First, Bourne was always getting his butt kicked. He never lost a fight in the movies. Second, I was surprised that there was such an emphasis in the last two movies of him not killing people whereas it wasn't even mentioned in this book. I also didn't buy Bourne and Khan's history. It seemed to come out of the blue (again based on the movies). Their flashbacks really put me off.

If you've only seen the Bourne movies, I would not recommend this novel.

Book Review: Wicked

I found Wicked to be a very interesting book. It's definitely not a light read. The first thing I had to do was get rid of all of my candy-coated ideas about the land of Oz from the movie The Wizard of Oz. I should have known a book based on the life story of the Wicked Witch of the West would've been darker than a story about a girl and her dog lost in a mystical land. However, I was not prepared for both the sophisticated writing and complex topics that Maguire dove into. Once I adjusted my mindset, I was pleasantly surprised.

I never read the original story, The Wizard of Oz, or any other novels based on Oz, but based on this book, I think Maguire did a good job fleshing out the land of Oz. I loved the story of the witch's upbringing, childhood, school and early adult life.

However, I didn't quite buy where Elphaba goes from being an extremely smart, but angry woman to wanting to become and be perceived as an evil, wicked person when her whole life she has been looking for a way to save Oz from the evil, wicked wizard.

Still, I really enjoyed the novel and recommend it.