Alex Ambrose Ambrose itibaren Monheim am Rhein, Almanya itibaren Monheim am Rhein, Almanya

Of all of the books that I’ve read recently this was definitely the best. This thriller has an interesting set of characters and is full of exciting plot twists. The main character, Katniss, is a teenage girl who lives in District 12 of Panem (what becomes of North America in the future) with her mother and younger sister Prim. Every year the capital of Panem hosts the hunger games. For these games 2 tributes from each district, a boy and a girl, are chosen at random to compete on behalf of their district. All of the tributes are taken to the capital for training and then dropped in an arena to fight to the death until there is only one left. When it is time to find out who will be the tributes of District 12 that year, Peeta, the son of a local baker, and Prim are chosen. Unable to fathom the thought of watching her younger sister be killed or possibly starve to death, Katniss volunteers to take Prim’s place. When the tributes arrive in the capital, they go through training in order to find their fighting talents. After Katniss impresses everyone with her training score of 11 out of 12 (the highest score that anyone has ever received), the tributes are interviewed. In Peeta’s interview he reveals a secret that will change the games forever!

A good take on the War of the Worlds story. Miles Walker is a survivor of the first wave of alien invaders (although his wife was not). Turns out that after the death of the aliens (like in the original War of the Worlds) a second wave occurs. The facts that Miles figures out that the original aliens weren't killed by Earth's microbes, but were already dying when they came here and that Miles may have some past connection to the alien invaders makes this much more interesting than the average post apoco/alien invader story. Well written and the art is good. I'm excited to read the upcoming volumes (I guess I could just collect the rest of the series).

I just reread this. Not his best, but I think the slow back-and-forth way Lester comes to do the truly horrible things he does is deft. Lester's never a 'good' person, but he covers quite a bit of an ethical downward slope in this short book, reminding us our own potential closeness to being awful ("a child of God much like yourself perhaps"). The idiot chewing the legs from a live robin has to be near the top of unexpected gross things McCarthy has written.

I wasn't too excited about the first book in this series because I felt that the back cover description was misleading. This one was a bit, as well, but now I just know better than to pay attention to those descriptions! The author does a great job bringing the reader into the circle of the Seaside Knitters, and making you care about what the characters care about. The mystery was good...I guessed the killer early, but for the wrong reasons so it was still a really satisfying ending. Recommended for those who love a good cozy!