Godz

Just read American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It was good I guess. The pacing was kind of weird, it was really slow at parts. I liked the incorporation of mythology and folklore. I guess I'm not that into modern fantasy but it was still pretty cool. I have been having difficulty with enigmatic ideas lately so it was difficult to put a lot together and think critically about it. I don't know what's wrong with me, but only the most basic things make sense to me these days. I'm sure if I were in a different mindset I would have a deeper appreciation of this book.

No legs and trees

So thus far this summer I have read The Wild Trees by Richard Preston and Double Take by Kevin Connolly. I liked the Wild Trees because it made my forest visits so much more intriguing knowing how the study of canopies came about. Learning about the biological components of redwoods and their surrounding ecosystem was really neat, and made me yearn to go to California. I loved that the book was full of passion and romance [a sex scene in a tree?!?] but it all felt a little bit scattered. I didn't find it to be profound or incredibly intriguing, but I did like it alright.
Double Take was pretty cool. I had to read it for my senior capstone [which I am leaving for tomorrow morning!!!] and it was one of the few books read for school that I was wild about. I finished it in like 3 days, partly because I had to, and partly because it was a fun and easy read, offering a perspective I have never been exposed to before. I feel like even if Kevin had legs the story would still be interesting because this guy is my age and has traveled around the world and competed in skiing tournaments and all that. It was a book I would have never picked out at the book store, but I enjoyed it.
I just bought a few fantasy books to bring with me tomorrow, I hope I can complete them!

Into the Wild

There isn't much to say. I started this in spring break and just finished it today. Final fucking ly.

Grace

So yesterday I finished Graceling by Kristin Cashore, wide eyed and gripping my seat at Starbucks. Other than the main character Katsa and the message the book sent about femininity and strength [I'm not going to be too critical here] that I bitched about in my last post, I actually really liked this book. I am starting to wonder if I will ever get to a point in my life where I'm no longer interested in books geared towards teenagers, but in the mean time I'm going to relish the fact that I don't have to worry about people reading over my shoulder during sex scenes.
I really liked that Katsa was a flawed character. She could have very easily been written into a Mary Sue, but her inability to control her grace and her insecurity about her future and her choices gave her dimension. I also really liked that this book offered originality in a genre that has more than its fair share of borrowing. The universe had the familiarity of high fantasy books but the way the magic worked made it unique. It was refreshing to read something new. It was also a very fun book with good pacing that kept me on my toes the whole time. BTW that is what I realized was OFF about Eaters of the Dead: the pacing. All of the action was condensed into like one chapter at the end and it just felt really weird, I dunno.
Anyways, I was looking up pics of different colored eyes online and I found out that Mila Kunis is graced. I wonder what her grace is??

Katniss

Hey so I was just doing more thinking about the Hunger Games even though I read it a year ago. I think I just need to do a Katniss Everdeen appreciation post.

I love Katniss and I am very sad that the HG didn't exist when I was a kid because I think I needed a character like her in my life. I was always drawn to strong female leads in books like Ella Enchanted and Alanna the Lioness, but the thing that bothered me about these characters is that they made me feel like enjoying things that are traditionally perceived as feminine was somehow a bad thing. I wanted to be kickass like the warrior women of books, I wanted to play outside and climb trees and call myself a tomboy, but I felt I couldn't be fully awesome with my long hair and interest in sewing and cooking. I feel like a lot of books shamed girls with domestic pursuits and wrote them off as "weak" or "vain", and the beloved tomboy was always very clumsy at these things, and never had any female friends.
While Katniss falls into the tomboy trope category, she also loves the shit out of her sister Prim, who LIKES wearing dresses and cooking *gasp*. She acknowledges that they are different, and that Prim has her strengths and talents elsewhere. Katniss also wears a braid and doesn't bitch about how her hair is getting in the way of her fighting. To be honest, long hair can be kind of cumbersome for an active person but you can wear it in a braid and you hardly notice it OKAY? You don't need short hair and to act "masculine" to kick ass. She also doesn't need a strong romantic plot to drive her story forward in the first book. I just think that she is a very awesome character and again, I wish that she existed when I was a kid because I needed someone like her to reassure me that it was OKAY to have my interests and be strong at the same time. You don't need to choose one or the other. There doesn't need to be a polarity between "tomboys" and "girly girls".

Vikings and Inequality

Okay, I keep forgetting to do this. Also I don't read nearly as many books as I'd like as usual :''''(

1. The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett I read for a globalization class. I liked it at first but then I wrote a paper tearing it apart. And then I got a bad grade on said paper. So now I hate it. A summary: I liked the overall theme and I liked what they were getting at but I've been reading too many damn scientific papers this year and was honestly just very skeptical about their statistics and the way they were presented.

2. Eaters of the Dead  by Michael Crichton was alright. I've been meaning to read it for years, since I went through my Crichton phase [aka read Jurassic Park and Timeline haha], but this one just didn't do it for me. I don't know what it was, it just wasn't my thing. It was kind of interesting reading about vikings a little bit, and a couple parts felt like I was playing Skyrim but not having fun. I don't know. Ugh.

game of thrones

yeah, long story short [ehhh 8OO pages] i started this on hawaii trip 2k13 and got halfway thru, but the other 4oo pages took over a month to finish bc i started school and i've been lazy. hi Game of Thrones by George RR Martin was very good i enjoyed as much as i enjoy the show [wow!]. cant wait to read the other books [not gonna happen anytime soon i am busssyyyy] maybe catch up w the show [in my dreams] the end

Oh yeah 2O12

I forgot to do an end of the year wrap up. Winter break I was very busy and without my computer. I finished The Doors of Perception/Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley. I liked the DoP, it was an essay I can agree with and relate to in a way, and I'd like to read any post–6O's essays of a similar nature or inspiration to see how that all worked out. I feel thoughts on the matter may have changed, not sure though because I really don't have the research. It strikes me as odd that he might consider himself an authority on the matter after only one experience but w/e. Heaven and Hell just plain didn't have my attention. I read this right as winter break started and after 2.5 months of non stop pressing stress I wanted only to lay around and watch my boyfriend play Zelda. I am still reluctant to turn my brain back on after a full month of heavy duty sleeping. The only other book I was able to finish during break was The Walking Dead Volume 1 by Robert Kirkman which I'm not even sure I can count this as a full book. Whatever. It was cool, but quite honestly the TV show has more of my attention and devotion. I don't really have any interest in resuming the book series, as it was not the most well written and artistically merited graphic novel I've read and if I'm gonna chillax w/ a comic there's others I'd rather be reading. Soooo yeah that was the end of 2O12. I fully intend to read more this year as I do every year, but really school kicked my butt this year more than ever [after I quit Wunderland exactly a year ago, I have been consistently taking far more classes than  I can really handle] Oh and can we just talk about the amount of "wild" posts I had this year?

Final Count: 21

Better than last year though, really!