January 4, 2011:
Finished "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. Though highly rated and recommended, I didn't like it. Two forms of deus ex machina; suspension of disbelief suffered from several things I just couldn't buy into even temporarily; lots of time wasted running circles around the main character's insecurities. Also, if I were betting on the games, I'd have good reason to claim fraud on the part of the game controllers.
January 6, 2011:
Finished "Survivor" by Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club). I'm still not sure what to make of this one. While the transformation of the main character was extreme, in some respects I might have better enjoyed the story of the main character's brother. On the other hand, filling in the blanks as the story unfolded was kindof interesting.
January 18, 2011:
Finished "Catching Fire" (The Hunger Games #2) by Suzanne Collins. The writing was better than The Hunger Games (better editor?). I hate when the main character is left to her own thoughts, devolving into irritating worst-case scenario self-loathing. Rarely do her thoughts come to pass, and as such, I tend to dismiss them out of hand. Plot-wise, I can only say, "It's about time."
January 30, 2011:
Finished "Food Rules" by Michael Pollan. This showed up in my mailbox randomly yesterday, sent to me by my employer (also the book's publisher). It was kindof like reading someone's blog posts on food. There were 64 rules, each just less than a page long. What they said made sense, mostly. Most annoying thing: referring to rules by number, particularly to ones that appear later in the book.
