Adaptation Alert: Hunger Games

by Rachael Nisenkier

Oh hey, new images of Peeta and Gale from the upcoming Hunger Games adaptation. I, personally, love them. I stand by my (cautious) belief that the seemingly look-blind casting approach that led to a naturally blond Katniss, dark haired Peeta, and Viking God-related Gale will lead to a movie cast with actors who actually can behave like their parts. What do you think?

More at Ew.com

The Help

by Rachael Nisenkier

I am happy to admit I indulge in the time-honored tradition of hurrying to read a book before a movie comes out. I’d like to think that I DON’T do this just so I can sound smart and say things like, “Well, yes the movie portrays her angst in a very visual way, but it loses the book's subtlety in representing her ennui” (which, is, for the record, what I imagine to be a stupid thing to say about a book-turned-movie). I’d like to think that I do this because I love stories, and prefer to visualize them in my own head before I see them on screen. But it’s possible I’m just kind of a tool.

Anyway, in anticipation of the new Emma Stone vehicle that had me tearing up every time I saw the trailer, I decided to read The Help. I’m a sucker for southern-fried racism stories, and enjoy a good "plucky women overcome stereotypes" yarn. So, in my summer-induced boredom, I plunked my behind down in the middle of Barnes and Noble and started reading.

Six hours later (yes, I sat on the floor of a Barnes and Noble for six hours, I don’t have a real job-screw you), I closed the book. In a summer filled with epic fantasy, this simple tale of three different women figuring out the central thesis that underneath our skin color we’re all just people had me epically gripped.

A Dance with Dragons, Interrupted

This picture represents how I feel right now about the newest 

Song of Ice and Fire book: burnt, terrified, 

and kind of excited that there’s a dragon on my shoulder. 

by Rachael Nisenkier

Rachael, you say, after post after post in breathless anticipation of A Dance With Dragons, how is it possible that you’ve yet to say anything about the latest in George R. R. Martin's saga?

Well, hypothetical internet reader, I am ashamed to report that my radio silence comes from a rather pathetic place: I haven’t finished it yet. I was the girl who prided herself on finishing Harry Potter first in a house full of speed readers. And yet now here I sit, almost two weeks out from the release of A Dance With Dragons, and I’m on page 370?

City of the Ick Factor

by Rachael Nisenkier

One of the unfortunate side effects to being addicted to young adult literature, particularly of the Sci Fi-Fantasy variety is you occasionally get sucked into a story that the whole time makes you feel like a fool. Lots of YA Lit is great, well-written stuff. But a lot of it (like any genre) is boring, or derivative, or weird. Or all of the above. Facing 16 hours in the car, I chose the audio book City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. This is one of those YA books with a really cool cover that normally shares a table with The Hunger Games and Twilight, so you can assume it’s pretty popular. Plus, it seemed like a pretty cool premise: otherwise ordinary-seeming Clary discovers a vast world of shadow hunters (basically, people with the same job as Sam and Dean on Supernatural), demons, underworlders, and deception and realizes, to her surprise, that she is an intricate part of this world. Okay, I’m with you. Add to that a nerdish best friend named Simon and a tantalizing bad boy demon hunter named Jace, and I was pretty much sold. And the issue with the book is not the plot (with one VERY large exception, which I’ll get to in the SPOILERS section).

Quick Hits: Memoir Edition

by Rachael Nisenkier

I have a passion for both memoirs and religious stories, so it seemed like Mennonite in a Little Black Dress was written for me. Yet the overall narrative left me cold.

The author, Rhoda Janzen, has had an interesting and occasionally tragic life. And she chronicles it all with a humor and good cheer that really helps to pull the reader in. But the book loses steam as she goes off on tangents and random anecdotes while living back in her parents' Mennonite community.

Janzen is at her best when chronicling the absurd or the melodramatic moments in her life, yet without a clear through-line in her narrative, the book left me feeling unfulfilled.

Top 10 Game of Thrones Characters

by Rachael Nisenkier

This little Game of Thrones thing sure is exploding, isn't it? I did a piece a little while ago on Event Books, and next Tuesday's (ONE WEEK!) release of the fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, A Dance With Dragons, has me in a tizzy unseen since at least the last Hunger Games book. In anticipation, and since, as previously stated, I feel underqualified to judge the series as a whole, I thought I'd just share my love with a list of my top 10 favorite characters. Minor spoilers ahead. Feel free to disagree wtih me in the comments!

Books, Music and Love Stories...sigh

We've been trying to find the most fitting way of introducing My Bookshelf readers to our newest site, My Music. Lo and behold, the perfect answer fell into our laps. Here, in a joint-feature with My Music, is the best song ever written! (okay, slight exaggeration, but it's fantastic and wonderfully literarily dorky).