Thoughts

Perhaps I should have named this post "Reviews," but that sounds too pompous or something. Regardless, I have thoughts to share on a couple of things.

First, there's Diana Peterfreund's For Darkness Shows the Stars. I wanted to read this book since a friend sent me the link to The Atlantic Wire's 2012 YA Book Awards, in which it is described as "a clever dystopian retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion." As I said to the friend who sent me the link, there are so many magic words in that one little sentence fragment. I was so wrapped up in the story that I read it in two days and I found myself worrying over whether or not Elliot and Kai would get together, which is not something I worry about when re-reading Persuasion. It reminded me of a moment in You've Got Mail where Meg Ryan's character says that she always worries that Lizzie and Darcy won't get together when she re-reads Pride and Prejudice, which never made sense to me before. When I started reading the book I was annoyed that several character names were a little too on-the-nose (Elliot North, Captain Malakai Wentforth, and Elliot's neighbors the Groves), but then I realized that that is a dumb thing to be annoyed by. Plus, I always enjoyed that the Mr. Elton character in Clueless is named Elton, so why be annoyed by these names?

The apocalypse of this post-apocalyptic world was interesting (though not explained as fully as I would've liked), the story was true to the original, and Peterfreund even managed to have Kai write his own version of Captain Wentworth's letter. Apparently there's a companion novel that discusses the apocalypse more fully, too, so I'll have to check that out. (Isn't that always the way? You knock one book off your TBR list and immediately replace it with another.)

Second, I finally saw The Host. I'd preordered it from Amazon and received it on the release date. I liked it and I'm glad I bought it, but I didn't love it. Since when is Melanie Southern? Did they just do that since Southern accents are easiest for non-Americans to affect? I actually have a bunch of complaints about changes they made in the movie, but I really need to stop focusing on them. They hit the important parts of the story and Ian was wonderful (even if he didn't look like Ian). I'll probably like the movie more the next time I watch it. At the very least, it inspired me to re-read the book again, which is awesome.

Huh, I just realized that For Darkness Shows the Stars and The Host were the two things I bought myself with the Amazon gift card I got for my birthday. I'd forgotten these things had that connection when I started this post.