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Hunger Games posters: The Hunger Games - Mockingjay, Part 1

Because I am so lame that I've forgotten, like, all the HTML that I've ever know, just check out the link. It's a line-up of all the different Hunger Games posters and, yes, Katniss was always a rebel!

OK … I totes LOVE this. Katniss is a rebel, was from the beginning. Facing into the light instead of away from it. Standing, implying authority and dominance (agency), rather than sitting. Standing with her back to the camera and her weapons holstered rather than facing it with weapons drawn. And that says everything about Katniss that you ever needed to know. She is running, she is rejecting. She has no wings. She is of Earth, of the people, of peace, but she is willing to do what she has to, but only IF she has to. Notice, she is still carrying the weapons.

Book Review: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Val

"All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one."

Valente's charming and beautiful fairy tale tells the story of a little girl named September who takes off for an adventure in Fairyland only to discover that adventures are scarier than she imagined, lonely, exhausting, difficult, and not all they're cracked up to be. Whisked away from the boredom of washing dishes by the Green Wind, September is dropped into the middle of a fairy story and discovers that there are choices to be made, friends to meet, people to save, hearts to break, and many ways to her way. It's a great adventure evocative of all the best fairy stories written in the past 100 years (Narnia, Oz, Wonderland, Lemony Snicket). There are witches (and Marquesses, who are worse than witches), dragons, golems, talking leopards, and fairies (of course).

Beautifully written, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland would be perfect to share with a child; although I would not recommend that a child read it alone. This is a tale, like the best stories, designed for reading aloud. I loved that September, our plucky, semi-heartless, know-it-all-heroine, faced a lot of tough, deadly, scary and dangerous challenges. I loved that the rules of faerie, rules that September thinks she knows all too well, are turned on their ear and upside down. From changelings to the Ravished, the rules of river crossings and the ways of wyverns and death, Valente recasts our ideas of fairy tale elements. I loved September's compatriots and that September is the hero of her own story. Valente has a beautiful way with language and I found myself studying the language as much as anything else. A fun, whimsical, enchanting read.

TV: Sleepy Hollow 2.1 - Hellfire

Still rollicking good fun and they're going all mind trippy with the first episode, playing up the disconnect between reality and historical accuracy (lol). I was COMPLETELY confused for the first fifteen minutes! But as it turns out, Abbie is still in purgatory and Katrina has been snatched by the Headless Horseman who is super hot from the neck down. The big reveals at the end of Season 1 (the Horseman of War, who the Horseman of Death WAS) are mostly ignored in favor of a basic rescue plot with a side of naked Ben Franklin.

Jenny and Crane team up to save Abbie. Abbie and Crane are on the VERGE of the kiss that will likely be heard round the world when they finally give in to it (but I see how they can't seeing how Katrina is still running around and outside of Purgatory, no less). The ending didn't give us any big reveals, either. Moloch is still in Purgatory along with his zombie army, Nicole Behaire is still gorgeous and she still has mad chemistry with Tom Mison.