The Hunger Games and New Books

Song of the Post: United States Of Eurasia/Collateral Damage by Muse

Book of the Post: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Just like the movie Julie and Julia, my official readers are my mother and her friend. That's fine though, since this is more of an exercise in voice than a popularity contest. Plus my mom shrieks with indignation whenever I say I might delete the account.

I'll start this post with my new feature at the top of this: song and book postings. I love reading. I love music. I think the two go hand in hand, especially when you find a song that fits a book perfectly. Which is why my iPod is full of book playlists. The same goes for writing and music.

I feel like this Muse song matches the tone of The Hunger Games perfectly. I'm sure if I were to investigate it further (which I guarantee I will), most Muse songs would fit this novel beautifully.

I've had The Hunger Games for awhile (stolen from my 14 year old brother...don't tell). Having heard the insane internet hype around this book, I have avoided reading it since I knew it would take up a lot of my time, and mind. Proven correct, I spent my entire day reading it.

Words currently can't describe my love of this book, there is too much obsession. This is how it is for me when I read new books. I can't focus on anything else until I finish the book, which was trying when I was reading Gone with the Wind during a very hard semester at college. This is especially true for when I first read Harry Potter, Twilight, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Lovely Bones, This Lullaby, The Things They Carried, Gone with the Wind, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (my favorite book for those curious). And with the exception of Gone with the Wind, I read all of these books before they were hyped up. Some still aren't, as is the case with The Things They Carried and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

This is primarily why I have a horrible habit of loving books and re-reading them a thousand times before moving onto a new one. I know a new book will take up 85% of my life until I finish it. Even once I finish the blasted thing, simply thinking about it takes up 43% of my life. I will often cancel social plans to read/obsess. Yes, I chose fictional people over real people. More on that in another post.

The other reason for me not starting new books is my impossibility to put a book down halfway through and never finish it. Just like I hate stopping/walking out of movies without finishing them. No matter how bad the book is, I simply have to finish it or it gnaws at me.

I wonder if I am the only one with this problem. I won't have an answer for a while, since I know my mom basically sticks with Stephen King and Stephenie Meyer (a hilarious conundrum for those who know about the Stephen vs Stephenie battle) and her friend doesn't like reading novels. But if anyone ever reads this besides them two, please let me know if you have this problem, and then recommend some books that don't deserve to be put down, along with their probable obsession level (a scale of one to ten would do fine).