Reading trendy.

I did it. I read the The Hunger Games trilogy. I started it a week and a half ago, reading only a page and a half on Sunday, as you know, and really getting started on Monday. I finished the third book yesterday. I have to tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The first book had me totally enthralled and I enjoyed the ending. It was obvious that it was written to be more than a standalone and I appreciate that. So many books that lead into more feel like they're made to potentially stand alone until the author gets that incentive to keep going. I didn't feel like that with The Hunger Games. I liked the ending of the first book but I would have been seriously disappointed if that had been it.

The second book, Catching Fire was, I think, even better than the first. I never think that. I had absolutely no notion as to what to expect now that the hunger games had come and gone and it was just twist after twist that never ceased to surprise me. The twists were good ones, too. No one was anyone's father and no one developed magical powers. I never got frustrated with the characters, as generally happens in books with emotional turmoil, and found myself actually liking them; it's been a while since I've read a book where I've gotten attached to the characters enough to care whether they win or lose. I was so into the books that I even got a little emotional during the third book, Mockingjay. Just a little, though.

The thing is, it's still a YA book. The sentences and written in fragments and once I noticed that it took me a little while to stop focusing on it. I was just being nitpicky. I'll be honest with you, if I ever wrote a book I can pretty much guarantee that sentence fragments would be in abundance. I did, after all, grow up reading and adoring The Princess Diaries books. Everyone knows teenagers can't communicate in proper sentences. And why would you want them to? I've always thought that a properly placed poorly formed sentence is a good thing. Except, of course, in an academic paper.

Finishing The Hunger Games left me feeling a little lost. It's so hard to find a series or even standalone novel that is engaging and entertaining enough to make me really happy. I hit up the public library last night and took out three books, hoping that they would fill the hole in my life left by a lack of epic literature. Naturally, the first one I picked up is disappointing but my hopes are high for at least one of the others.

This didn't turn out as witty and well written as I'd hoped. That's mornings for you.