Laura's 'Adventuring' Again!!

Check this out on AMZN: Laura Marlin Mysteries 3: Kentucky Thriller http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1444000225/ref=cm_sw_r_an_am_ap_am_gb?ie=UTF8

Out on 6th August

Twitter for Worms!!

Worm has just arrived on Twitter!! YEY! He will be tweeting about new posts and will have quotes at the ready! :

https://twitter.com/#!/ReadingwithWorm

May You Be Ever Hungry For More

Suzanne Collins has a way of writing that really captivates the imaginations of readers across the globe. I found out about her Hunger Games books through a friend of mine and was immediately hooked on the entire plot. Collins has a habit of keeping the reader right on the edge and gives away no secrets.

Her first book 'The Hunger Games', had a real underlying message which was easy to pick up on. The characters, Katniss and Peeta, were very well developed and Collins has a wonderful way of creating empathy. The contrast between Gale and Peeta makes the reader sub consciously choose between them and this has a great impact on how they view the rest of the book. For example, my friend Sophie chose Gale and she felt that the 1/2 of the book with Katniss and Peeta being together wasn't as good as the parts where Gale was mentioned.

The storyline of the second book 'Catching Fire' came as quite a surprise to me as I didn't expect Katniss and Peeta to enter the games again. Collins still continues to develop the characters in the second book and with Katniss especially, different sides of the characters are found. The introduction of President Snow as a more primary character added to the drama of the heck and I liked that a lot.

The ending of the set of the third book, 'Mockingjay', came as quite a surprise to me but a pleasant one which I thought suited the rest of the triology. Collins particularly impressed in this book with the true character of Gale which I thought she brought out from his shell. The death of the president slightly confused me and I was talking to the librarian of my local library and she thought the same.

Collins has created a series of books with a message to mankind that tyranny never results in good fortune. I thoroughly recommend them

Film vs Book? Any competition?

In my opinion, yes, because many books are better than their film versions and many films are better than their books.









For example back in August, I did a review on 'Beastly' by Alex Flinn, subsequently I watched the film and I was not particularly impressed. The film did the book no justice whatsoever, it missed out some of the most important scenes from the book and cast Vanessa Hudgens as Lindy, which completely ruined the whole concept of the book because Lindy isn't supposed to be overly pretty. Although after saying that, Alex Pettyfer played Kyle very well and all his arrogance from the book came across.








On the other hand, the film of 'Fantastic Mr Fox'  based on the book by Roald Dahl, went into a lot more detail and focused more on the civilisation aspect of the life of the animals underground. The film was an animation but overall the emotion and pain of the animals still came through as though it was an acted production. I read the book by Roald Dahl when I was younger and I very much enjoyed it. The director of the film added to story by adding new characters and changing the storyline slightly. The new characters was very different and added a new level of drama to the production. In particular the character of Kristofferson, who was Mr Fox's brother.
In conclusion, I think I would have to say that books are better based on the fact that I have only ever watched a few films which are actually better than the books they are based on.

Please feel free to comment with your own opinion.

Apologies x

I'm SO sorry that I haven't posted recently but I've been really busy lately (I went to the USA!). I've got loads of new material so I'll be posting soon!!!

New Material!!

'Heroes of Olympus: Son of Neptune' by Rick Riordan has just arrived yesterday on my doorstep, so I will review it very soon!  I used Amazon, and the service was great. The book came nicely packaged, well protected and was easy to open. I also didn't have to pay a penny in postage, so that was brilliant! I would recommend them for book deliveries.

Just in Case You Don't Know

Just in Case was a real-eye opener for me as far as powerful and haunting books are concerned.  I had read Meg Rosoff's first book, 'How I Live Now' and really enjoyed it since it was a new type of genre that I hadn't explored before. Because it was so good I decided to ask PageWorm Book Club whether we could read Rosoff's next book, 'Just in Case'. It was accepted and became our reader.

'Just in Case', 'odded' me out in many ways. I can't say I particularly liked it either but there were some parts that just completely mystified me. One was the charcters, Peter was very well thought out but I think he lacked personality and structure as far as feelings. The character of Agnes seemed very random to me and her personally morphed as the book went on. The concept of the dog, 'Boy', confused me as I was not sure what his purpose in the book was. After critizing the characters, I felt that Justin's feelings of insecurity were described to the extent that you could feel his pain which I thought was very clever.

The choice of words for the setting of Peter's bedroom were very descriptive and made the room very real in my mind's eye. On a different note, Justin's parents didn't seem to particularly mind about his change of style etc. and turned rather a blind eye.

Overall, I don't think that this book was for me and it made me feel strange whilst reading. I liked the concept of the book but Rosoff did not deliver it in a way that suited me.