Stuff we're reading / watching / listening to

[Giovanni Schwartz]

I only have like a season left of Bones on Netflix before I'm (relatively) caught up!

[thatonemom]

I just finished The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. I think her books are trying to single-handedly convert me to YA fantasy. Very interesting book, if that's your thing. (but maybe a dozen f-words)

[Emiliana]

I know I'm way behind the cool kids on this one, but I'm reading the Hunger Games. I read the first one in just over 24 hours, I couldn't put it down. The other two .. eh.

[bobtheenchantedone]

I saw that Mirror, Mirror was on instant Netflix, so I watched it. I had pretty low expectations but rather enjoyed it. Not a great movie, but a fun one.

[Yog in Neverland]

I know I'm way behind the cool kids on this one, but I'm reading the Hunger Games. I read the first one in just over 24 hours, I couldn't put it down. The other two .. eh.

YES! Emiliana, that's exactly how I felt.

I could write a diatribe about it, but it's not the place for it.... so know that you are not alone! *cue cheesy ballad music*

[Giovanni Schwartz]

I know I'm way behind the cool kids on this one, but I'm reading the Hunger Games. I read the first one in just over 24 hours, I couldn't put it down. The other two .. eh.

I never made it past the second chapter of the second one. I actually just read the summaries of the last two on Wikipedia yesterday. ^_^

[Yarjka]

I know I'm way behind the cool kids on this one, but I'm reading the Hunger Games. I read the first one in just over 24 hours, I couldn't put it down. The other two .. eh.

I never made it past the second chapter of the second one. I actually just read the summaries of the last two on Wikipedia yesterday. ^_^

I made it through all of them. I thought the second one was interesting, but the third was a pitiful, predictable bore.

[Yarjka]

I'm just about finished with Caitlin Moran's How To Be a Woman. I have received insights and laughs. It's also a great conversation starter.

[Marduk]

I thought the third was actually the best book in the series (minus the ending.)

[Laser Jock]

I agree with Yarjka that the third was definitely the weakest. I also agree with Marduk that the ending of the third was just...really, really poorly done, and really kind of inexplicable.

[Imogen]

I loved all three books. The second one is actually my least favorite. *Kanye shrug*

[thatonemom]

I remember reading somewhere (and of course I can't find it right now) that she wanted to finish the last book before anything started with the movies. Maybe there was a time crunch?
I liked the first two - the second more than the first - but I just felt really drained to the point of not caring by the end of the third. It's always sad when a series can't finish as strong as it started.

[C is for]

Back to Maggie Stiefvater, I liked The Scorpio Races a lot. I should check out the book you recommended, tom. TOM. I meant thatonemom, but it turns out the acronym is a traditional name.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

so Tom and bob are both girls? Totally makes sense.

[Portia]

t1m is how I would abbreviate that.

I started reading Shades of Grey, as per the other thread, and I am ashamed to say I'm having a hard time becoming engrossed in it. I mean, all the cool kids - Katya, Laser Jock, Eirene - love this hyperliterary British clever stuff! I will continue, of course, but it's quite different from what I expected. And my obsessive tendencies mean that I will be consulting an RBG chart a lot. He jumps right in with next to no exposition. After Brandon "Tell Don't Show" Sanderson, I can think of few reads where I swung between such polar opposite authors. Updates to follow.

[Katya]

t1m is how I would abbreviate that.

I started reading Shades of Grey, as per the other thread, and I am ashamed to say I'm having a hard time becoming engrossed in it. I mean, all the cool kids - Katya, Laser Jock, Eirene - love this hyperliterary British clever stuff! I will continue, of course, but it's quite different from what I expected. And my obsessive tendencies mean that I will be consulting an RBG chart a lot. He jumps right in with next to no exposition. After Brandon "Tell Don't Show" Sanderson, I can think of few reads where I swung between such polar opposite authors. Updates to follow.

Have you read any of Fforde's other stuff? (That might help a bit with understanding his world building style.)

Also, he does explain more about the world, little by little, as you go through the book. (Shades of Grey was one of the first books I read after learning a lot about different styles of world building and world explaining, so I was hyper-aware of what he was and wasn't doing in the text, which made for an interesting read.)

[Eirene]

Yeah, it took me a while to really understand what was going on in the book, but the story's long enough that it wasn't a huge problem. The weird thing for me was that I've totally tried to read a few others of Fforde's books, and I thought they were all terrible--I didn't even realize that it was the same guy until I went to his website to see when the sequel to Shades of Grey would be published. I don't know why I liked this one so much more than all his others.

And Katya, where did you learn about world building/explaining? It sounds really interesting!

[Katya]

Yeah, it took me a while to really understand what was going on in the book, but the story's long enough that it wasn't a huge problem. The weird thing for me was that I've totally tried to read a few others of Fforde's books, and I thought they were all terrible--I didn't even realize that it was the same guy until I went to his website to see when the sequel to Shades of Grey would be published. I don't know why I liked this one so much more than all his others.

Interesting. I read his other stuff first and didn't like Shades of Grey nearly as much, but I'm not a huge fan of dystopian lit. (I appreciated the book in terms of its literary quality, but I'm not rushing to read the sequel(s).) Did you just find his other work too silly?

And Katya, where did you learn about world building/explaining? It sounds really interesting!

Mainly from listening to episodes of Writing Excuses. They've devoted a few episodes specifically to those topics (maybe more world building than explaining, though), and they also touch on those issues tangentially in many other episodes. Here's a list of their episodes tagged "worldbuilding," for starters: http://www.writingexcuses.com/tag/worldbuilding/

[Digit]

Don't mix economists and contrived fairy tale premises.

[mic0]

Just watched the movie The Elephant in the Living Room, which is a documentary about exotic pet ownership in the U.S. There was only one short mention of an elephant; the movie was mostly about lions. Anyway, it was really interesting, and somewhat sad yet hopeful.