OK, I’m just putting this out there, I will be reviewing the prequel that’s coming out this spring. I’ll probably read it in hardcover when my family gets it sort of as my own personal readthrough, and then get my own copy for rereading, including a review readthrough here, but when it comes out in paperback (just because I like paperback copies whenever possible because hardcovers are too clunky for me, and I don’t want the dust jackets to get lost and/or ripped when I take them off to get them out of the way if it’s a hardcover book).
Anyway, back to this book… How long has it been since I’ve actually touched this book?
So, the Justice Building is fancy as fuck, and it’s one of the few not-poor areas in District 12.
Katniss Is Totally Autistic Point Number I’ve Lost Track Already: Katniss loves the feel of velvet, and her petting the velvet armrests of the chair is totally stimming.
Katniss is the breadwinner in the family since Dad’s dead, and now she’s gotta tell Prim how to help Mom survive because of the Huge Possibility Katniss Won’t Survive, Or So She Thinks.
And here’s Madge giving Katniss the OG Mockingjay pin. That’s totally not an important bit of plot to put in something like a movie adaptation, right?
Have I mentioned I don’t like Gale? Have I also mentioned I’ve always thought he was a bit of a dick?
Random Horrifying Backstory From Previous Hunger Games: Apparently, one year, half the Tributes died from cold-related… shit because they couldn’t make fires to keep warm because the Game Makers conveniently “forgot” to add wood to the arena.
Gale Is Totally A Dick Number I’ve Lost Count On This, Too: When he’s giving Katniss advice for survival, he says Katniss is a great hunter already. And then he’s basically like, “Yeah, so? Same difference, right?” when Katniss is like, “But I’ve never actually had to kill, y’know, people.”
I know she Doesn’t Actually Show Up In Person Yet, but can I just say Johanna Mason’s fucking awesome? Just from the whole “being a big softie leading up to the games and then being vicious in the arena” thing?
A 250-mile-an-hour train? Yeah, that’s crazy.
The Capitol is somewhere in the modern-day Rockies (OK, yeah, I’m going with the general consensus that it’s somewhere in Colorado, probably Denver). And District 12 is in the modern-day Appalachians, and given the whole coal production thing, that’s probably somewhere in, like, West Virginia or western Pennsylvania?
So, all the lessons in District 12 schools are coal-related. Plus the regular dose of propaganda from the Capitol.
OK, so jabberjays are basically spy-parrot-jaybirds for the Capitol. And after the people in the districts gave them Way Too Much Bogus Info, they got left to mate with wild mockingbirds, they mockingjay got created.
I never thought I’d have an excuse to say spy parrots, but here we are.
So, Effie has to keep reminding Katniss and Peeta to slow down on eating, because Not Having Enough Food totally Isn’t A Thing in the Capitol.
I’m dying over here because of Katniss eating with her hands out of spite when Effie’s like “at least y’all have better manners than last year’s kids” (also because Effie’s really fucking clueless about kids from District 12 being too poor to have much food and the kids from the year before just devouring everything).
OK, here we go. Here we fucking go. The part where a handful of the reapings are talked about, and a few of the other tributes are introduced. “And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that, she’s very like Prim in size and demeanor.” How the fuck did people complain about Amandla Steinberg being cast as Rue because “they didn’t imagine Rue as black?” Do they not realize that there are ways to describe people as black without outright saying the words “this person is black?”
And Effie’s still over here Not Amused by Haymitch always being drunk. I mean, she’s right about alcoholism not being a healthy coping mechanism, but at this point, I don’t think she gets that surviving the Hunger Games is super-traumatic.
OK, so this Jai kid is a musical prodigy and is awesome at the violin.
Apparently Jesse’s afraid that if she was a musical prodigy, too, being, like, the Biggest Mary Sue Ever will make people not like her, especially since Jai and the missing Rohan are her only two friends.
So, Jesse and Jai are Definitely Not Being Bugged Right Then (Supposedly), and Jai’s trying to get Jesse to tell him what’s freaking her out.
So now the weather’s OK enough for Coraline and her mom to go out back-to-school shopping. And dad’s taking the train into London to meet up with friends.
Adult me is like “maybe the family doesn’t have the money to get Coraline the cool green gloves along with the vaguely school uniform-type outfits.” Kid me is like “let the girl get the gloves so she can have something cool and different for her own self-expression or whatever.” Me in general is like “Yo, my little sister has always been the one to get the green gloves because my parents always have spoiled the crap out of her, whereas 99% of the time, they’ve always given me the ‘LOL no’ answer.”
Oh, fun. Now the mom a) isn’t even paying attention when Coraline wanders off to look at cool rainboots Wellies, and b) isn’t really paying attention to Coraline’s made-up story about what happened.
So, again, the flat on the other side of the bricked-up door on Coraline’s floor of the house is still supposed to be Just An Empty Flat.
Coraline’s mom is going to get groceries because apparently they don’t have any food that isn’t going bad because the dad just used everything else in his Recipe the night before.
Also, apparently the mom is some sort of artist?
So, it’s taking ages for mom to come home from the grocery store, and dad’s still supposed to be out with friends. And Coraline’s bored enough to try to peek through the bricked-over door…
…And now the door leads to a creepy hallway.
Coraline decides she Has To Explore, and she seemingly ends up back in the drawing room with Antique Furniture You Can’t Sit On.
But everything in the house looks the same but is Subtly Different.
Of course that means that there’s something Subtly Creepy And Wrong about the Other Mother already.
Yeah, this Awesomely Amazing Lunch is obviously a trap. Hasn’t Coraline read any fairy tales?
The Other Old Man Upstairs has rats instead of mice. That’s Totally Not Suspicious At All.
Coraline’s Other Room sounds cool.
Yeah, those rats totally aren’t suspicious at all, with their ominous song.
If the inside of the Other House is Better™, how nice is outside?
So Gemma’s dad is freaking out because her (much) older sister just got engaged… and he’d… prefer Debbie’s ex who stole his tennis trophies? OK, what?
Also, Brian proposed to Debbie in the middle of a grocery store. What the fuck?
And that sounds even more ridiculous given the fact that it’s apparently one of those tiny local grocery stores.
Apparently, Debbie had this one really weird ex called Birkett, whose random, passionate love poem recital led to Gemma’s family having a running joke where a passionate emotional breakdown is “chucking a Birkett.”
And the original Australian title of the book being called My Big Birkett… actually makes more sense, especially later on in the book, than what it got changed to here in the US. The American publishers being like “we’re changing it to The Sweet, Terrible, Glorious Year I Truly Completely Lost It because reasons” just sounds hilariously like chucking a Birkett.
So, when Brian shows up to talk to the family about the engagement, shit gets really awkward because Embarrassing Parents.
And now Gemma and Brian’s sister are about to be roped into being flower girls against their will.
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