Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Teen Menu

It's here, release month for the first part of the movie version of Breaking Dawn. Chances are if you haven't seen some reference to it (trailers, magazine covers, etc.), you've been spelunking in a cave for weeks.

YA News

This isn't particularly YA-related, but it is important to many of us who have been readers for as long as we can remember. This month, Reading is Fundamental (RIF) celebrated its 45th anniversary. I can distinctly remember how excited I was whenever the RIF book fair came to my school each year. All those awesome new books fostered my love of reading which continues today.

Entertainment Weekly's website has some awesome new character posters from the upcoming Hunger Games movie. They're simple, and I think that's what makes them so beautiful. You see Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Rue, Haymitch, Cinna, Cato and Effie in profile.

YA Review

This month I finished reading Fury of the Phoenix, the sequel to Cindy Pon's wonderful Silver Phoenix: Beyond the Kingdom of Xia, which I reviewed here previously. In Fury, the heroine, Ai Ling, leaves Xia (based on ancient China) and stows away on a ship bound for the faraway land of Jiang Dao because she believes the boy she cares deeply about, Chen Yong, who is on board, is in serious danger. When Chen Yong and the ship's crew discover her, she and Chen Yong have to pose as brother and sister. Though that allows her to be close to Chen Yong, it's difficult to hide her true feelings from those around them.

They are on the way to Jiang Dao in search of Chen Yong's birth father, so this book has that same sense of adventure-on-the-road that Silver Phoenix had. It had less overall action and excitement, but it still kept me turning the pages to figure out exactly what was going on with the alternating stories. We had Ai Ling and Chen Yong's present story, but we also got to see the past of Zhong Ye, the ruthless man Ai Ling had been forced to marry and who she sent to the underworld. We see that he wasn't always so, that there was a reason he grew hard and cruel, a reason that Ai Ling has had unexplained powers that have allowed her to look into others' minds and control them.

Along with the unraveling of these mysteries, the relationship between Ai Ling and Chen Yong continues to grow, but not without its bumpy patches.

13 comments:

  1. Trish, HUNGER GAMES was at the school book fair tonight, but I didn't get it. However, I did pick up TRAPPED which you gave a recommendation for a few Teen Menus ago. So far, so good. I enjoy your posts....thanks!

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  2. I finished THE HUNGER GAMES trilogy a short while ago. I enjoyed them immensely. I hope the movies are as good.

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  3. i haven't read Hunger Games until now, poor me, the book has been published so long in my country and i don't know about this great book until i got a recommend from my friend and unfortunately, the book has been sold out and i have to wait the published to publish it again or maybe i will borrowed from my friend

    Fury in phoenix sounds interesting, thanks for the post ;)

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  4. Hi Trish!

    I have seen so many commercials and articles on my Yahoo page about Breaking Dawn Part 1. I will eventually go see it.

    I am really looking forward to see how the Hunger Games movie will turn out. I haven't read the books yet, but I'm sure one day I will!

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  5. Hey, Trish! Thanks for another great YA update!

    I have seen the trailers and such for Breaking Dawn part 1, but haven't watched the two previous movies. One day, I'll watch them...probably with my sister. :)

    I agree with you about the Hunger Games posters. Simple, but beautiful! These movies should break some records at the box office.

    On another note, I'm SUPER EXCITED that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 comes out on DVD tomorrow!!! So, guess what we're watching for Family Movie Night tomorrow night?! :D

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  6. Deb, glad you're enjoying Trapped. It's a fairly quick read compared to some of the longer YA books with lots of world building.

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  7. Marybelle, I'm hoping the Hunger Games movies are good too, and what I've read about them so far gives me hope they will be. I have a friend whose son is an extra in the first movie.

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  8. Eli, hope you can get a copy of The Hunger Games soon.

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  9. Trisha, the books really are great, especially if you like ones that are a bit darker in tone and subject matter.

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  10. Andrea, you two need to have a big movie marathon for the Twilight movies. :)

    I forgot to mention the HP DVD release.

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  11. Thanks for all the info, Trish. My daughter can't wait to see THE HUNGER GAMES. She raced through the books, and she's patiently (well, maybe not so patiently--LOL) waiting for me to read them.

    Andrea, I can't wait for the final HP DVD!! Movie marathon, here we come. *g*

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  12. Gannon, this is what I think is so cool about YA today. Daughters and mothers are both reading and enjoying the same books.

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  13. What fabulous books coming. Cannot wait to get my hands on all of them.

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