OK, so the builders of the city of Ember was planned to be lived in for at least 200 years.
And the lead architect left instructions for how to leave the city after the 200 years to reenter… whatever civilization is left after the apocalypse the architects are preparing for.
The box with the instructions apparently is time-locked, and the mayors of Ember are supposed to pass the Instructions Box to the next mayor.
And then there’s this corrupt mayor who lived during the plague in Ember, and he kept the Instructions Box for himself. And he thought the Instructions had a cure for the plague.
Joke’s on him. The Instructions box got forgotten and chilled in the back of a closet until the time-lock ran out.
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.
Mary making so many random excuses about why she’s searching Jesse’s bed is definitely suspicious. Either she was looking for dirt on Jesse to give to Director Granger or she was trying to bug Jesse.
Oh, fun. The whole “child prodigy spy” thing even means that Jesse’s got a crapton of security measures she set up on her laptop. I mean, sure, I’ve seen that kids take to technology better than adults a lot, but this is ridiculous (even given a generic spy situation).
OK, Jai is… one of Jesse’s other friends in the spy program?
OK, apparently the C2 building is disguised as, like, a regular office building or something, given how Jesse’s able to look out onto the street and wish she was like one of the normal kids she sees out the window? And only the labs and Director Granger’s office are in the secret underground lair?
So, Jesse’s worried about her first mission being a way for C2 to get rid of her like Rohan? Yeah, that… seems like a possibility already.
So, Director’s giving Jesse her first real mission, Liam is her totally-not-a-chaperone-spy-partner, and he’s still pissed about the whole Spy Kids thing.
Oh, fun. The hobo she ran into while tracking Liam worked for C2, too, and she’dve been dead for getting caught if it wasn’t a training mission.
Of course the guy Jesse was tracking works for C2 too and was part of her test. (And apparently she knocked him out hard enough to give him a huge goose egg on his head.)
And of course Liam doesn’t believe a kid could’ve been the one to track him. Because apparently (based on a huge implication here) he wasn’t told exactly who was being tested. And because ageism and not believing child prodigies are a thing. Or something.
Also, apparently Spy Kids Operation IQ is supposed to be a huge step in science, according to Director Granger? So, like, are these kids supposed to be genetically engineered to be superhero super spies or something?
Oh, fun. I’m getting “Jesse got tortured” vibes about the implication of what happened when she tried to run away from C2 to be a normal kid.
OK, so, apparently it’s late fall? And it’s in Venice.
And we’ve got Victor Getz the private detective.
Esther and Max are Prosper and Bo’s aunt and uncle, and I don’t like them already. Way too stiff personalities.
Of course the two boys ran away. I can already tell their aunt and uncle are the type to not let kids be kids. And the type to only want to adopt Bo because they think taking in an orphaned relative is a status symbol or something.
So the two boys ran away from Germany to Venice because their recently deceased single mother told them stories about how pretty Venice is.
Have I mentioned how much I don’t like Esther and Max for being stuck-up pricks?
OK, Victor’s got two pet tortoises called Lando and Paula. Is Lando named after Lando Calrissian? Also, if Paula’s a pop culture reference, whatever it is went right over my head.
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