Off Griddin'

So last weekend when I was at my parents house, I mysteriously finished the Hunger Games a lot faster than I expected and was left with nothing to read. I thought the best thing would be to grab another book out of my dad's creepy survivalist stack called Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America by Nick Rosen.

Now, I think I've made it pretty clear from my choice of books beyond fantasy and classics that I'm definitely interested in living close to nature. There are more to come (hopefully) later this year with books like Walden and Into the Wild in my "Important seriously read these books quit buying more books" stack. So this book definitely appealed to me in that respect. It presented a lot of options for alternative lifestyles and information about challenges faced by people living "off the grid".
The thing that totally turned me off about this book though, was the author. I definitely don't read a lot of non-fiction, but when I do, I expect a certain amount of objectivity if I'm going to be taking it seriously. I like when the author has voice and an interesting perspective (like Dolly Freed, see previous post), but this guy was plain rude.

He would write people's full names, and whether he liked them or not would determine his description of them. "She was short with pleasant looking laugh lines" might turn into "She was stunted and old, age had not served her well, her face was wrinkled like an old paper bag". He might not outright say that he didn't like them, but his opinions were clear by what he chose to focus on, including the state of their home, ridiculous beliefs, or reluctance to participate in his interviews. And he judges them too quickly, giving them no sympathetic human qualities. It's like he doesn't realize that they're real people, not just characters. It was too personal to be read as "truth", which made me question the entire legitimacy of the book.
He really forces his judgement on the reader, which is really annoying, and leaves no room for you to think freely and create your own opinion.

He's also disrespectful of some people's privacy. I mean, most of the time they've invited him into their home and shared personal information about themselves, and he has the audacity to pass judgement on them alongside their full name in print. It's like come on! They're trusting you! There's literally no reason to write that mean for a book with this sort of content. And sometimes he goes to their property without their permission, or interviews people close to them behind their backs. It's frustrating.

I also question whether he chose people representative of "off gridders", or just went for the most fascinating stories. At one point, he is at a homeless camp that is mostly men, and he makes a beeline for the only young female there, admittedly to get a story. I get that, I get that you want people to find your book interesting, but the fact that people live off grid at all is already super interesting, and I'm sure they have no shortage of fascinating stories.

There's just a lot of things that bother me about this book that I couldn't get past. I'm sure if a more pleasant person with a more open mind were to go interview those same people, they would get very different stories out of them, and a lot more interesting personal information. Whatever. I'm not recommending this book to anyone and it isn't my loss.

More hunger

So I totally forgot to post when I finished Catching Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins last week. They were good, I liked them, but they weren't as strong as the first book. Catching Fire had a somewhat slow start, and the Games felt kind of rushed. Also, about halfway through I started realizing that I was "Team Peeta". Whenever I feel some sort of weird team mentality in reference to fictional teen hotties when the main character, an attractive yet modest young girl is torn between loving both of them, I start to question the book. I would have loved that sort of soap opera romance as a pre-teen, but with the highly shirtless media frenzy over the Jacob/Edward dillema that Twilight posed, this plot device just feels very used and abused.
Also, Mockingjay kind of took a turn for the worst towards the end. Think Bell Jar bat shit crazy kind of worst. It seemed like a realistic way to respond to all of the drama that happened, but at the same time, this sort of thing really weighs me down. The sort of drama it presented was entirely psychologically driven, as opposed to the psychological subtlety seamlessly intertwined with thrilling adventure of the previous books.
Another thing that bothered me about Mockingjay was that literally like every other chapter, Katniss wakes up in a hospital bed. Seriously, she gets horribly wounded like 600 times in that book.
I'm actually starting to feel like I have nothing good to say about the last two books other than that they were interesting, entertaining, and somewhat thought provoking. They just didn't play out as well as the first book did. Oh well.

In other news, I had a dream last night where I was in the Hunger Games, and I basically hid the whole time like the scaredy cat that I am, and made a weapon out of a bone needle attached to a rubber band that I used like a slingshot spear thing. Then I found a bow and was relieved because I guess that was my main weapon or something, go figure.

Survival

Well, I finished three books in one week: I was NOT expecting that. I really should have heeded my friend's warning that once I started The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I would not be able to stop. She was right.

Normally I start reading around midnight so that I can settle down to sleep and get an hour of reading done. That didn't happen last night. Even though I was sleeping in my own bed for the first time in 6 months, I stayed up till 5:30am, at which point I MADE myself put the book down and get some rest. Needless to say I finished it the next afternoon.

This book was just so enthralling and full of excitement, there was literally no good stopping point. I think this is the first book I've ever read where I can honestly say there was never a dull moment. It was a perfect balance of adventure, badassery, survival, politics, romance, and fun. I generally have an aversion to books set in the future, but this one had enough primal awesomeness and nature to keep me interested.

The author is very clever for coming up with this concept. Since it's supposed to be a Most Dangerous Game type reality T.V. show, the narrator is constantly dreading when the producers are going to intervene to make it more dramatic. Of course, this constant barrage of excitement not only pleases the audience in the Capital, but it pleases the reader too. How brilliant is that?

I really fell for the characters too. I almost teared up at parts, and "aww'd" at others. The likeable characters were all so good, I could never choose a favorite.

One weird affect that this book had on me was the realization that I would never last in the Hunger Games. I spent the afternoon thinking of ways I would survive (probably most like Foxface: using my wit and mooching off the people who knew what they were doing, while keeping a low profile), but I would be useless on my own. I go backpacking, but without gear I feel like I'd be pretty retarded. That's why I really admire Katniss, she's awesome. I also tried to think of ways I would kill people, and how I would probably end up being the asshole who slits throats while people are sleeping, when I realized how creepy it was that I was thinking that. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

But yeah..even though I have loads of homework I'm probably going to finish the other two books in the series this week. Starting next month I'm going to be going back to school full time so I'll have a lot less time to read. Oh, and I changed the layout of this whole thing. I think the book background is a little obvious but I love it haha. The end.

Wild

I finally got around to reading Wildwood by Colin Meloy (of The Decemberists). I've been looking forward to this read for a long time, Colin Meloy is one of my favorite songwriters, I love going into the other world of vengeful sailors and class torn lovers and gypsy queens that The Decemberists create. Another plus about this book is that it was illustrated by his wife, Carson Ellis, who is one of my favorite illustrators. She does all of the dreamy cover art for the Decemberists albums and illustrated the Mysterious Benedict Society (which I mysteriously never finished).
So I definitely had high expectations for this book. I liked it, but I think my expectations may have been too high. Maybe if it had been shorter, Meloy could have focused more on the creative wordplay and character development that he's excellent at. (Yeah, character development in songs.) Instead the book was 500+ pages. I don't have patience for long books unless they are totally enthralling. Unfortunately, this book wasn't.
I still liked it though. It was pleasant, I liked the cute characters, I liked the theatrical feel of it all. I liked that it took place in Portland and the wilderness beyond. I loved imagining Prue riding her bike through my neighborhood, I can totally see her going to the weird environmental school by my house. I'm going to love letting my children read this and let them imagine that they're in the story.
Oh and the illustrations? Exceeded expectations. There are color illustrations on nice paper throughout the book, truly lovely.
Anyways, I'm off to start a new book series which I'm kind of scared about: I have a lot of homework to do and word is that they're completely addicting.