WHATCHU READING?

I actually rather like Young Adult books - they usually have some really good fantasy ones, and don't get carried away by sex or gore. I've picked up a lot of recommendations of really good strong women character ones, so if I post in here in the near future, they'll probably be female protagonists.

That said, I'm just at the end of the second book in the series. It's really compelling too, and the twist... good lord was that a twist in the story! It's worth reading the books just for that alone. Unfortunately my usual outlets for books (bookstore, secondhand bookstore, library, cousin) don't have the third and last book of the series so I'm left hanging.

As for the characters in the book - there's a bit on romance (hey, teen drama seems to have to have that shit in there) but there's a lot more stuff covered instead, like a new way the aliens are killing people and making them mistrust each other and the group trying not to split up, but having to deal with schisms inside and outside the group.

The one warning I have (and it's the same with the first book) is that the perspective jumps around every few chapters. So you might get 10 chapters of Zombie and five chapters of Cassie and then one chapter of Poundcake, then back to Zombie again. It's effective, and while I usually hate that kind of thing, it helps that the writer doesn't leave perspective on cliff-hangers like most other writers to use it do.

Yup. It should actually translate well to film, there being a lot of action and an interesting story. I just hope they don't lose the small things that make the story matter. Should be interesting to see how it goes, though.

Finished the second book - it went a place I did not expect it to go, and hey, I'm happy to have been surprised. It'll probably be a long while before I get my hands on the third book, though. Ah well. Mainly because it turns out it's not even out yet. XD

To be fair, when I was a teen we had some pretty shit books available to us (that we were forced to read, which made them even more orz ) but now that I can pick and choose what to read and don't have them shoved at my face, they're a lot better. They're also not as dumbed down as they seemed to be in the past (back then there were specific areas that they'd go to for the sake of shock value - sex and violence make for controversy and part of teaching kids is to give them books that make them think about such things, so shocking us out of our protective bubbles through teen lit was one way.) Nowdays a lot of teen books are aimed at an audience that hasn't been protected from such stuff as much, so they can ignore the whole 'shock factor' and get into actual decent writing.

*Modern... -150 years (well, nearly. Written in 1883-6). A LOT happens in 20 years, let alone 150. Christianity has also come a LONG way since then, too.

Society has changed. There's still some idiotic traditionalists who are holding out, though.

I mean, in comparison to then and now - society says it's wrong to own a black person, or that you can't beat your wife and that women apparently have the relevant faculties to be allowed to actually vote and work in real jobs and hey, no more locking up a man just because he might fancy another man and that person who got their legs crushed while on the job can live a normal life and get looked after thanks to the company they worked for looking out for them and little kids aren't allowed to be working for you any more and don't get me started on the headway we've made when it comes to the fields of science, technology and healthcare... there's some preeeeeetty big changes that have occurred. Idiots back then probably complained about traditional stuff being done away with too, after all.

Shock horror, what is this new witchcraft of going to see a doctor
11!!?
My mother used to feed me goats liver and that is all the cure-all anyone neeeeeds!!!!

I am reading the Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Ratty524

Liberty
*Modern... -150 years (well, nearly. Written in 1883-6). A LOT happens in 20 years, let alone 150. Christianity has also come a LONG way since then, too.

Dunno, Libs. I'm not sure if everyone's changed that much. All I have to do is look at any youtube comment feed regarding a video about paleontology or homosexuality to remind myself that old issues still exist.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. One of the big fallacies in the way we perceive things is thinking that things were "different" or "better" in the "good ole' days". The community trusted the police and they were there for us (a ten second Google search will bring up photos throughout the past century that say otherwise). Women and girls didn't sleep around an men were respectable gentlemen who would never take advantage (So that's why the Supreme Court gave us Roe v. Wade!). There wasn't warfare to the degree that there is today (except across entire continents, decade after decade, since the dawn of recorded history). Yes, this is all stuff we hear about the "good ole' days" but what nobody realizes is that these reminiscences describe examples of the exception, not the rule. To this day, there will always be a small town sheriff who gives a damn and takes the local boys to the fishing hole. There will always be scattered communities of erotophobic prudes across the world. Many such communities are so insular, they don't get news of the outside world.

Nietzsche talks about them too, but much of his tirades are directed at society as a whole and they have never stopped being relevant. "Lo! He who battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not himself become a monster. And when you stare long into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you." How is that not relevant to what's going on in the world right this second, in a world where governments suppress freedom after freedom in the name of fighting faceless terrorists, and where militant groups across nations are speaking out and taking up arms against people for the sin of being foreign (and not just Muslims and Arabs)!?

Ratty's comment on Christianity probably refers to one of Nietzsche's many statements along these lines: "The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad." Is there not an evangelist in California who at this very moment is lobbying for a law to permit the murder of gays? Are there not people in modern times like Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Charles Manson? Is there no Westboro Baptist Church? This isn't such a stretch in modern times, either. Personally, though I would probably expand his comments to include all doctrine based, organized religions.

Lucy_Fox
I never read something from Lovecraft, but I always loved games inspired by him. (like The Secret World)

So atm I'm reading a collection of stories all around the Cthulhu Myth.
I'm really hooked into his writing and begin to understand why his stories influenced so many people.

And somehow I'm glad that I haven't read him before... for me it's the same phenomena as with Steven King. When I was younger I simply couldn't understand what the hell was supposed to be scary with his stories. Now, in some deep level of my mind... I can xD

Well... I'll defiantly (<- I hate this word x_x) read some more books from Lovecraft in the future.

Ooo! I love Lovecraft! (See what I did there?) One of things that really got me about Lovecraft's stories is that no matter what anybody does, they are helpless in the face of these ancient gods, who seem to exist only to torment the world. I was going to make a few suggestions, but then I saw where you said you were reading a collection, so my suggestions are probably definitely in there.