The Hunger Games Movie

It’s been kind of a struggle for me to read much these past couple of weeks.  I’ve been pretty busy with school, preparing for midterms and presentations, and I’ve also been helping my husband edit a book he’s written.

And I went to the opening of The Hunger Games, so I’ve been trying to catch up on sleep.  I guess my body thinks it’s too old for midnight showings.

Words cannot express how much I loved The Hunger Games trilogy, so I was extremely excited, and nervous, about seeing the movie.  The only book adaptations that I’ve actually liked have been The Help, Julie & Julia, The Devil Wears Prada and Eat, Pray, Love (the Harry Potter movies were okay, but the Twilight movies were pretty bad…of course, look at the books – the writing isn’t great).  I really didn’t want The Hunger Games to disappoint me.

Like the Harry Potter movies, The Hunger Games was good, but not great.  They had to leave out a lot in order to make it 140 minutes.  They also made a few changes, but they didn’t really bother me.

They did a great job with casting (Elizabeth Banks and Woody Harrelson were perfect for their roles) and extra little details that aren’t really shown in the books.  The scenes with Seneca Crane added a mysterious element to the movie.  Also, showing how the Capitol was able to manipulate the games was pretty cool.

I don’t know if I’ll see it in theatre again, the camera work was a little shaky and gave this girl a little motion sickness.  However, I did like it enough that I’ll probably end up buying it when it comes out on DVD.

First memoir, about Mennonites (book 1 of ? in book hoarding purge)

Let me start off by saying that I’m not exactly sure how to review non-fiction.  It’s a little daunting to express my opinion about real events or stories about someone’s life.  Doing this kind of review scares the crap out of me, but I’ll give it a go.

I also want to add that I wasn’t expecting this book, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home, to be about a real person’s life.  I know it says “Memoir” in the title, but sometimes memoirs can be fictitious, right?

I was expecting this book to be about a woman who was banished from the Mennonite culture because she left for the big city.  That’s not the case.  I was also expecting the book to explain what the Mennonite culture is about.  While the author, Rhoda Janzen, does discuss cuisine and the fact dancing is not allowed, she doesn’t really go into much detail about the Mennonite way of life.

The book was a good read though.  It was very entertaining and funny, even though I felt a little ashamed laughing about Janzen’s botched surgery, how her husband left her for a man he met on Gay.com, and the embarrassing experiences she had growing up (she recalls these experiences during an extended stay with her parents).

To me, this book read more like a chick lit novel than a memoir.  If you liked Julie & Julia or Eat, Pray, Love, you’ll probably like Mennonite in a Little Black Dress.  While this book doesn’t really give the reader deep ideas to reflect on like EPL does, it does make you think about the relationships you have with your own friends and family.