The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Did you know Panem was pronounced "PAN-EM?" I sure didn't. You emphasize both syllables apparently. That's a benefit of listening to the audio book. But you know what might not be a benefit of an audiobook? Hearing a man trying to do female voices. 

Now, I'll admit that I listen to audio books at a fast pace, which obviously affects the vibe. But I couldn't help think that the females in this book sounded like female South Park characters. And it gets worse when some of those characters sing. To be fair, the narrator doesn't actually sing but listening to him quote the lyrics of songs while doing a female South Park impersonation is...strange. Suffice to say, I wasn't moved by any of the lyrics and I wonder if the experience would have been different if I were just reading them myself. 

I don't know, I feel like the lyrics to a lot of the songs sounded...basic. But honestly that's probably true of a lot of great songs. If you want to judge for yourself, you can hear all the songs on The Hunger Games website. I'm going to have to check that out as well as the movie.

Things I liked: There was a hunger games, but that wasn't what the whole book was about. We get an understanding of how the Hunger Games got to where they are once the Trilogy starts. I also hated Dr. Gaul, but in the way you love hating something. I also liked the lore about the Jabberjays and Mockingjays.

Things I didn't like: Pretty much any scene with a song. It seemed strange that Lucy Gray would perform on stage after being selected for the reaping. I get it in terms of her character and the plot and blah blah blah. But it just didn't resonate with me. It was not a realistic reaction or one that really solicited sympathy for her situation. But maybe I'm missing the point.

I also didn't like the idea of the Covey - a nomadic group without a real district to call home. That diluted the impact of the reaping for me. It seemed like Collins was trying to distance the Covey from the districts, almost to the point of saying they didn't deserve to be a part of the reaping. But is that to then say that people from the districts did?

And while the book is mostly about Cornelius Snow, I don't feel we really got to know him as a person. Sure, we learn about his family history and his actions and thoughts about things, but he still seemed two dimensional to me. I'm not sure if I was supposed to like him or not, but I was kind of ambivalent. There weren't many characters I liked, not even Lucy Gray. 

It's interesting in terms of getting background on the hunger games and Panem. But it's probably my least favorite of the series. And I would suggest reading the book, not listening to it. 

The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey

This is a book best discovered blind, without knowing the plot or even genre. But if you already know, or don't mind mild spoilers, read ahead. 

"That's Pandora...she was a really amazing woman. All the gods had blessed her and given her gifts. that's what her name means, the girl with all the gifts. So she was clever and brave and beautiful and funny, and everything else you'd want to be. But she just had the one tiny fault, which was that she was very, and I mean very, curious."

This is a book that, on its face, is about an apocalypse. But it's also about well-meaning people who make mistakes. Is there a pandemic? Yeah. Is there a quest to find a cure? Of course. Are there great explanations for its cause and future prognosis? Yup.  

But what I like are the characters, and the fact that there aren't really good guys or bad guys. While there are those who seem like they fit one category or the other, Carey blurs those lines and gives her characters more dimension as you get further in. 

"The infection was bad...so were the things that the important decision people did to control the infection, And so was catching little children and cutting 'em into pieces. Even if you're doing it to try to make medicine that stops people being hungries. It's not just Pandora who had that inescapable flaw. It seems like everyone has been built in a way that sometimes makes them do wrong and stupid things."

Much like Pandora, whose legacy is really maligned, Carey describes her as a gifted, wonderful person, with just a tiny flaw. But aren't we all like that? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized Carey isn't just making this comparison to one character. I saw Pandora in a lot of her characters. She has many who are gifted in their own way with their own flaws that, some would argue, are worse than others. How will each be remembered? What is their legacy? And I think whether the legacy is good or bad depends on who survives the apocolypse that has unfolded.

It's a thought provoking read and also just a really great story. There is also a movie that is pretty good as well, but barely scratches the surface when it comes to covering what is in the book. There is also a prequel, The Boy on the Bridge that came later. Might be worth checking out.

1984 by George Orwell

Despite being 75 years old, this novel holds up remarkably well.

I think people can relate 1984 to a variety of things in their lives - an abusive family life, an impossible workplace, or even the society in which they live. But the book is actually about a dystopian future society (which was 1984 according to Orwell, who wrote this novel in 1949). After an atomic war in the 50's, the world condensed itself into three nation states: Eurasia, Oceania, and East Asia.

Airstrip One, formerly Britain, is a province of Oceania, which is run by the Brotherhood - a nebulous entity without a visible, known leader, but only the mysterious Big Brother who is constantly watching you. The society has four main branches - the Ministry of Truth, which deals with news, education, entertainment and fine arts, the Ministry of Plenty, which deals with economic affairs, the Ministry of Peace, which deals with war, and the ministry of Love, which maintained law and order - and was the really frightening one.

If you can't tell already, Big Brother is a study in contradictions. It's the tormenting sibling who declares  it's opposite day or the annoying co-worker who takes contrarian views just to be a troll. Take the party's slogans, for instance: War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. 

As an employee of the Ministry of Truth, for instance, Winston edits newspapers, inserting the "truth" as the Ministry sees it and destroying older, contradictory copies of news reports. Down into the memory hole they go (sadly, I'm not talking about a good night out on the town). Winston might be instructed to declare that Oceania is now at war with East Asia, and has always been, which requires a lot of rewriting and editing to remove any reference to the previous war with Eurasia.  

"All others accepted the lie which the party imposed, if all records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past, ran the party slogan, controls the future, who controls the present controls the past." 

This was known as "reality control" or "double think" and is one of the most infuriating concepts I've heard. I was also surprised to learn it wasn't something invented by my boss.

The Brotherhood not only sought to control society's behavior, but every aspect of life, including  language, adopting a language called "newspeak" that slowly and systematically eroded standard English. Each revision of the dictionary involved removing "extraneous" words and simplifying language: 

"Take good for instance, if you have a word like good, what need is there for a word like bad? Ungood would do just as well. Better because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again if you want a stronger version of good, what sense is there in having a whole string of vague, useless words like excellent or splendid and all the rest of them. 'plus good' covers the meaning, or 'double plus good' if you want something stronger still."

The society's prevailing ideology is EngSoc, or English Socialism. It is a society in which private life came to a halt, private money didn't exist, people called each other comrade, were constantly surveilled, and gathered for monthly hangings - so it may surprise you to hear there are no laws - in fact nothing was illegal. But somehow the Brotherhood still manage to punish people for things like face crime (not having the right expressions in response to something) or thought crime (which can lead to future crimes). Any disobedience resulted in correction, which could include forced labor camps and even vaporization.

This brings me to the great words of Princess Leia, who warned Tarkin, "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." And while Oceania is a lot smaller than a star system, you get the point. Not everyone will fall in line.

And we find one of those falling stars in Winston, who, in a subtle act of rebellion bought a diary and started recording his misgivings about Big Brother. Worse yet, he found himself falling in love. Marriage had to be approved and was less likely to be approved if the couple were attracted to each other, which didn't bode well for Winston and Julia. And working in the Ministry of Truth, he knew the outright lies that the Brotherhood espoused, but didn't understand the reasoning behind it all - until he reads a manifesto written by the Brotherhood's greatest enemy, a man named Goldstein.

In his book, Goldstein breaks down the rationale behind EngSoc - the division of classes, the constant need for war, and how the inner party manages to stay on top. The mental gymnastics are so complex, they make Simone Biles look like an amateur. And although this book within a book put Julia to sleep, I found it fascinating.

1984 is a heavy read, and sadly a relevant one. There are elements of the Brotherhood in societies today. And while Winston's story is interesting, I feel like it is more a subplot compared with the overarching ideas of the Brotherhood and EngSoc. Winston's story is a small piece of what a society as a whole faces when the wrong people take power. And while I could quit my job and run for the hills if things got too bad, when bad people get numerous and high enough in a government, there may be nowhere to run. 1984 is a cautionary tale that we would be wise to heed, in 1949, 1984, and today.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Don't get me wrong, I like me a dystopian mind blow every now and again to make me feel good about my current situation, but guh-damn. I've got to read about a lot of unicorns and rainbows to cleanse my palette after this cluster of darkness.

The Handmaid's Tale is an American version of oppressive societies like North Korea, Saudi Arabia, or anywhere ISIS is in charge. With fundamentalist religious imagery, creepy sex scenes, and people displayed on hooks, I noped my way through this book as fast as I could.

A part of my discomfort lies in the setting. It wasn't in some unnamed distant future. It was now. Offred (our narrator) grew up in the 80's, like me. She lived before everything went to hell, after a totalitarian regime took over the United States. She didn't wonder what things were like before. She knew. And that makes her reality more relatable to me and harder to accept.

And her kid? Don't get me started. All I have to say is Margaret Atwood owes me an apology for bringing children into her nightmare society the way she did. It's like watching effing Walking Dead after stupid Judith was born and all I could think about was how the baby wasn't going to get eaten by zombies every freaking minute of the show. Not that Offred's daughter is a big part of the book, and her life isn't in danger, but STILL.

And if you're wondering what happens, well, nothing in particular. We just hear about Offred's life - with snippets of her before. We learn basically what daily life is like for someone in her position, basically living as a concubine in a patriarchal society that suppresses women's rights (among others). No bigge.

Is it interesting? I guess. But so is a car accident, or a jerusalem cricket. Doesn't mean I need to linger any longer than necessary in their presence. And with that, I am over this book. It's thought-provoking, but too severe for my taste. Any society where people greet each other with "blessed be the fruit" or "under his eye," is one I'll only see in my rear view mirror. Real or fictional.

Just got word that the Hulu series is even worse than the book. Will I watch it? Of course! I can't NOT!

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Here's the next big YA trilogy, the first book of which has already been released to the big screen.  It has all the sexy elements a YA dystopian thriller needs to be successful...hot teenagers (going off of the movie trailer a bit on this one)...Ok, wait.  Did I just say "hot teenagers"?!?  Creepy.  I'm way too old to be saying things like that. (I was going to put "waaaaaaaay too old" but no, I'm just "way" too old).

Which brings me to my next point, maybe I'm not the target audience for this genre.  Or maybe the genre is being diluted...I don't know.  Whatever it is, I wasn't totally sold on Divergent.

Okay, back to the "hot teenagers" comment.  This is bothering me.  When a book about 16 year olds is made into a movie that is marketed to adults and teens alike, what the hell am I supposed to think when "Four" is played by a chiseled 30 year old?  I guess technically his character is 18 so I'm in the clear.  Okay, glad we hashed that out.

Back to the book.  Basically everyone in...Chicago (from what I can gather) decided that the ills that plagued them could be boiled down to one thing.  What is that thing?  Well, depends on who you ask.  Some people say it's ignorance.  Others say it's selfishness, or dishonesty, or cowardess, or just plain being mean.  So society split into 5 factions, each trying to embody the opposite of what they believed was the root evil of mankind.  When an individual reached the age of 16, he or she could choose which faction they wanted to become a part of.

So Beatrice grew up in Abnegation, which is a fancy term for self-sacrifice.  But she doesn't quite feel like she fits in.  She isn't down with wearing gray clothes, and not having mirrors, and always being stuck at parties cleaning up.  She's intrigued by the Dauntless (or fearless), who don't just ride the train to and from school, they riiiiiide the train to and from school (the extra i's in that word mean the train doesn't ever stop, it just rolls by while all the Dauntless kids jump in and out of the cars, because they're Dauntless.  And they don't need no stinking train stops).  I could see why that might be appealing enough to make me leave my family too.

So before "The Choosing," Beatrice undergoes evaluation to determine which faction best suits her.  Her test results are abnormal...Divergent, if you will.  Which, apparently is a bad thing.  But really, the fact that people fit cleanly into just one category had me scratching my head.  But okay.

Despite the results, Beatrice ultimately has the choice of which faction to join.  She makes her decision, and most of the book deals with the initiation process that entails.  Then there's some evil plot to take over Chicago (I don't think Chicago is ever mentioned but that's what wikipedia says), and hilarity ensues.

Okay, the book is better than I'm letting on, but it's not the greatest YA novel I've read.  I think my biggest problem was that I couldn't sign on with the premise that people fit into just one category.  Not only does Roth create these clean lines and divisions, but she goes overboard with the stereotyping.  Really?  NO ONE besides Abnegation can help out after an event?  ONLY Amity can be caretakers?  How the hell do children survive in the other factions?  "But that's the point!" you're probably screaming at me.  Yeah, well, if it's that glaringly obvious from the get-go, then what the hell am I doing for the next 400 pages?  And I think we already know that being "divergent" really is the rule, not the exception.

So what's the payoff here?  I'm not sure.  Maybe a great story? Maybe a chance to live in another world for a brief period?  Those are the optimistic options.  The realistic one?  For me?  To skip the rest of the series and diverge to something else.

Blindness by Jose Saramago

I was in Portland on business and heard that one of Portland's treasures is Powell's books. So I checked it out. If you haven't been there or heard of it, Powell's is a new and used bookstore that literally takes up an entire city block. Each room has a genre, labeled by a certain color (Want a mystery book? Head to the gold room. Children's? That's rose). There's also the rare book room, whose hours, if you're only visiting for a few days, seem just as rare as the books inside. And there are other little treasures hidden within as well. If you want to take a book and read for awhile, you're welcome to go to the coffee shop and relax. And I discovered my new favorite book "Go the Fuck to Sleep." (If you are one of the last people, like me, to hear about this little treasure, I'll review it next.)

I say all that to say this...there was a Nobel Prize section that featured several books by Portuguese author Jose Saramago. I had read his book, Death with Interruptions, last year, and selected it as one of my top five. So I was excited to see what else I could pick up. I saw what appeared to be several histories, like The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, and The History of the Siege of Lisbon. I figured Saramago had a boring side to him, but I should have known better. Apparently the former is a highly controversial book about the fictional retelling of the life of Jesus. It won him critical acclaim but also instant disapproval with the Roman Catholic Church (among others). But hey, cut the guy some slack. How many atheists do you know that would even give JC another thought?

And the latter is a book about "Raimundo Silva, assigned to correct a book entitled The History of the Siege of Lisbon by his publishing house. Silva decides to alter the meaning of a crucial sentence by inserting the word 'not' in the text, so that the book now claims that the Crusaders did not come to the aid of the Portuguese king in taking Lisbon from the Moors." (thank you wikipedia).

What I like about Saramago is his out of the box, creative, and some would say, dangerous thinking. Each one of his books has some strange twist. If you really want to dig deep, you can talk about modern parables and allegories and whatever other literary devices people who KNOW throw out. But it's simple for me. He's interesting. You just have to get past his style...

Saramago has a thing about punctuation, especially commas and quotation marks. His characters engage in dialogue, but besides using a capital letter with each new speaker, he doesn't differentiate between speakers. He also writes from a third person, narrative perspective. So I feel disconnected from the characters. But I have to say this book was loads easier to read than Death with Interruptions. I don't think that's because it's actually written in an easier to read style, it's because you can get used to Saramago's style. And it was easier for my mind to adjust, having been conditioned by his first novel. I guess.

So on to the actual review...Blindness is about a country that is struck with a mysterious disease, only described as the white blindness, where (surprise surprise) people are instantly and seemingly randomly struck blind. Saramago begins with patient zero and those who shortly follow. The government decides to quarantine the blind and those who have been exposed to the blind. The first half of the book is about the quarantine. At first dozens, and then hundreds of people occupy a hospital, which is guarded by the military. Unable to organize, and with no one to guide them, the living conditions in the hospital degrade exponentially. To make matters worse, a group of internees withhold food from the rest of the wards. It's almost like Lord of the Flies meets World War Z.

SLIGHT SPOILER AHEAD...

The second half of the book involves the release of the quarantined after the sickness strikes the entire country. Here's where comparisons to a zombie apocalypse really become evident. Saramago follows a small group from the hospital as they try to survive, looking for food, housing, and their families.

END SPOILER

It took me awhile to get into the book, probably because I was stumbling through it at first. But as I got used to the writing style, and the story developed, I became more interested.

In comparison to Death with Interruptions, I felt Blindness was a heavier book. Death with Interruptions, despite the subject matter, had a playful, light feel to it. Blindness, on the other hand, had a couple of disturbing scenes and emphasized the worst in humanity during the quarantine. But that's part of what makes the book interesting. And without telling you the title of the next book (possible spoiler as well)...there is a short snippet from Saramago's sequel to Blindness at the end.

So a solid recommend if you're up to the challenge!