My Hunger Games ID...What district are you?

So I finally went on to The Hunger Games Capitol Website and found out my district, and got my pass!  And here it is...

District 1- Luxury.  Ahhh.  Like I thought it would be anything else!

But of course I would liked to have been District 12 but what a runner up!

Article 5 by Kristen Simmons

Received ARC for review

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned.

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes.

There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back.

Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren't always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it's hard for her to forget that people weren't always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It's hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different.

Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow.

That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings—the only boy Ember has ever loved.

Waiting on Wednesday

This week on Waiting-on-Wednesday I'm not waiting on books BUT it is still booky related so I'm counting it!


I am eagerly waiting for (and have been for ages now)....

Breaking Dawn Part 1 on dvd.  It was released a month ago in the US but I have had to wait :(

AND

Jane Eyre on dvd.  I desperately wanted to see it at the cinema but no one else wanted to see it, so I have had to wait since September to get to see it!!

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (September 27, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1442421762

Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.It can.She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.There is.She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. She's wrong.








Cover: This has to be one of my all time favourite covers.  I think it's beautifully romantic and intimate, and he's holding her protectively (remember I'm a romantic!) while they're surrounded by that murkiness and danger. *sigh*

I FINALLY got round to reading this.  When it was first released last year there was so much hype around this book, and I read and watched numerous mixed reviews.  People either seemed to love or hate it, so I wanted to wait until the hype died down a little so I wasn't influenced by either positive or negative reviews, and really able to judge it for myself.
And...I loved it!
I was definitely intrigued and the blurb doesn't give too much away.  It's a great cross between a paranormal novel and a psychological thriller, at times you don't know if Mara is really losing it or if something else is at work.  And the paranormal element doesn't really become apparent until late in the book, and as a result sets a lot up for book 2.
I love the dark vibe of this book but the higlight for me was the love interest.  The intelligent and sarcastic relationship between Mara and Noah made me laugh and was a pleasure to read, and felt very different to other YA romances.  I wasn't 100% about Noahs 'man-whore' characters, and I have a few unresolved questions about that but I'm sure these will be answered in the next book.  I also loved that both characters are somehow connected by this paranormal element (so difficult not to spoil here BUT i remain resolute!)
Also I love Mara's family dynamic, a trend in YA at the moment is the protagonists family have been killed etc etc but in this her parents and brothers are all very different and play an important part, which I found refreshing.
Overall I give this book 4/5 stars.  It wasn't perfect but there was so much that I enjoyed and the pacing was amazing, I couldn't put it down.
I can't wait to see what happens next in The Evolution of Mara Dyer, as it ends on a killer cliff-hanger.

Book Haul/In My Mailbox 3.3.12

Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love by Larry Levin

• Hardcover: 214 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Press (20 Jan 2011)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 0593063589
• ISBN-13: 978-0593063583

In 2002, Larry Levin and his twin sons, Dan and Noah, took their terminally ill cat to the Ardmore Animal Hospital outside Philadelphia to have the beloved pet put to sleep. What would begin as a terrible day suddenly got brighter as the ugliest dog they had ever seen--one who was missing an ear and had half his face covered in scar tissue--ran up to them and captured their hearts. The dog had been used as bait for fighting dogs when he was just a few months old. He had been thrown in a cage and left to die until the police rescued him and the staff at Ardmore Animal Hospital saved his life. The Levins, whose sons are themselves adopted, were unable to resist Oogy's charms, and decided to take him home.

Heartwarming and redemptive, OOGY is the story of the people who were determined to rescue this dog against all odds, and of the family who took him home, named him "Oogy" (an affectionate derivative of ugly), and made him one of their own.

Cover: I think the cover is amazingly cute.

This book is wonderful.  It's a book by a dog lover, for dog lovers.  It's a heart warming tale of how a puppy that was treated so cruelly found his way to a family that love him so completely, and that despite how he was treated he miraculously survived and loves and trusts humans.  

I recommend this to everyone.  It's such a beautiful book with a message.  Everyone goes through bad times, sometimes horrific, but on the other side of that, there can be truly great things waiting for you.

I really enjoyed the photos in the book (just made me 'awww' outloud).

5/5 stars!

Booking Through Thursday

Booking Through Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Booking Through Thursday and a different question is posted every week.  




Have you ever fallen in love with a fictional character? Who and what about them did you love?

Ummm....yeah.  I fall in love with a lot of fictional characters.  

There's the usual Mr. Darcy, Frederick Wentworth and Mr. Rochester becayse they're swoon worthy gentleman of days gone by.

I can't help but love the 'prince-like' character, something left over from my childhood of disney princess movies (incidentally my favourite was Eric from The Little Mermaid).  

I tend fall for sarcastic and witty fictional characters.  Maybe it's because I'd like to BE with someone like that but let's face it, guys in books are just better.  I'm lucky if the guys I know talk about anything other that their you-know-what.

Plus I'm naturally quite a sarcastic and cutting person myself and so I'd like someone t really banter with (like I'm currently seeing in my read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer).