, the last book of the Hunger Games series, this weekend. And I just finished book two, The Girl Who Played With Fire
, of Stieg Larsson's trilogy. The two couldn't be more different - post-apolyptic YA versus tightly plotted thriller - but they have their similarities: they're both brilliantly written, and almost impossible to put down.
There's another difference for me personally. I read the first two Hunger Games books before Mockingjay came out, and I waited for months and months to read it (serious anticipation!). In that time, I began to develop my own thoughts on how the story could end well. Team Gale? Team Peeta? Forget it... I was Team Let's Have Katniss Grow Up and Make An Emotionally Healthy Adult Decision On Who She Loves. But then, I'm a killjoy like that; I would be okay with the books ending without Katniss making a decision, but how many other people would be? (For the record, I totally support Suzanne Collin's right as the artist to tell the story she had to tell, and I think she did so brilliantly!)I loved Mockingjay
, but it was weird to come to the end of a tale we were so heavily invested in and have it end... differently... than what I imagined. There were areas where I was fully satisfied and a few where I wasn't, althogh I'm not going into details to avoid spoilers (If you'd like to talk Mockingjay with me, there's a spoilers-allowed conversation in BlogFrog, because I'm dying to talk about it!). 
Stieg Larsson's series, although just as addictive for me (I read all 724 pages of The Girl Who Played With Fire between yesterday and... now), is a different story sequel wise. I have no ideas where I want the books to end up, except that I want to see a happy ending for both Lisbeth Salander and 
Blomkvist. I think that's because I started the books after all three had been released, and there's no waiting - and wondering - and daydreaming up my own ending.Do you have a preference, fellow book lovers? Do you like to be among the first to discover a great new author even though it means waiting forever for the next installment of a story, or do you prefer to read all the books in a series one after another?
. As usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short reading the books everyone's talking about, but this book was brilliant. Painful to read at times (I don't like graphic scenes of violence), but tightly plotted with intriguing characters. Sometimes Larrson's writing style is a little different (of course, it's also a translation, so I don't know how much of a factor that is). He goes into much detail about the characters - what kind of software products they use, what kinds of sandwiches they eat, what anti-establishment slogan is on Lisabeth Salander's t-shirt. I sort of enjoyed all those details, though, since the books are set in Sweden and it made me feel more a part of that world. I like knowing that they eat veal cutlets in a cream sauce and lots of open-face sandwiches on rye... usually, my only involvement with Swedish food involves dragging MJ to the cafeteria in Ikea.
for a system I can live with. Each payday, money goes to bills, retirement accounts, and into savings automatically, what Bach calls "pay yourself first". Then the rest of the money? Mine to blow on whatever suits my fancy. If I have the sudden desire to splurge on a new bag or to spend $100 on random crap in Target (not that this happens on a regular basis, cough cough) and the money's in my account... I can. Less discipline required than a budget, but the end result is the same as long as you a) pay yourself first faithfully, as automatically as possible, and b) only spend what you have!
. Yes, I'm not quite a full-on Gleek, but I like Glee. Enough to possibly own all the soundtracks. Anyway...
was my childhood heroine (although I also loved the 
books, also by Astrid Lindgren). In fact, if I were to ever get a tattoo? It might be of the girl with the iconic upturned braids. The New York Times highlights an interesting Pippi Longstocking/tattoo connection - 
, and I love this excerpt:
. This is a story set around the massacre at Columbine, so I was certainly prepared for a rough ride. It's a story about how victims respond and cope with trauma - as well as the people who love them, who form collateral damage. Lamb is a masterful fiction writer who creates utterly believable characters - even more painful than his description of the damage done at Columbine is the story of the damage that people do to themselves in the aftermath. But it's also a story about love and redemption, and it's just so beautifully told. I have some issues with the book's portrayal of military vets, but that's a post for another day, if ever - I still recommend it.
, which is a beautiful portrait of a mother and wife in a lovely, but imperfect, family. 
The main character, Mary Beth, worries about her teenage children - daughter Ruby and her fraternal-twin sons. Quindlen spends the first half of the novel building up their family life before a terrible act of violence wrenches her world apart. What I loved about this book, too, was Quindlen's quietly masterful use of tension - even though nothing exactly is happening in the first half of this book, about the family's life leading up to that destructive day, it's never dull. I really liked this book, which is a detailed and loving portrait of both family and the grief that we risk by having those families. Well worth the tears.
by William P. Young, continuing my (proud?) tradition of reading uber-popular books at least two years behind the crowds (I think the only one I've ever read promptly was The DaVinci Code, which was fun to discuss, and also someone gave me a copy for free). For those of you who somehow missed all the fuss about The Shack, it's the story of a man who returns to the place where his young daughter was murdered years before
to meet God. So, I was very interested in the theology behind the story, and there were some very moving moments in the book. For me, the writing style was a little irritating at times - the prologue, in my opinion, is the epitome of the Unnecessary Prologue we writers are often warned against. And, while I was sometimes in tears as I read, I also laughed - perhaps not quite as Young intended - at the utterly bizarre scene where God talks about too many greens giving you the runs. It's an interesting book, but it's not one that will find a lasting place on my bookshelf. I'd rather have a straight theology book, to be honest. But the idea - man meets God face-to-face - is an intriguing one, and the end is satisfying without being easy.
, Meg Rosoff's YA 
, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's beautiful 
. Inevitably, expect to see 
as a kid - one of my favorite books, as brother and sister run off to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, which I always thought was a good idea if you can pull it off (Still do, in fact). 
is a very different book - more mature, dark and sad, but again with the great voice and humor that had me entranced as a child.
in one Sunday afternoon. It was hard to pull away from.
Great stuff going on around the rest of the web:
, and dark chocolate. You had me at 70% cacoa dark.
) that is now a must-read for me. Go check it out!
