Book Review #12 - The Hunger Games - Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

Reason of the choice

Not taking into account the fact that I have already seen the movie adaption of this book and the fact that I really liked it, I loved the first book of this trilogy and it made me see this series in a completely different way. Therefore, I felt I had to read this book and that I needed to know how the series would keep going.

Reaction to the first pages

Since I was used to Suzanne Collins’s writing style, I wasn’t caught by surprise with the beginning of this book but she managed to make me want to keep reading the book since the very beginning, because, despite knowing the story, the way she tells it can give us a bigger insight.

Summary

After winning the Hunger Games, along with Peeta, they return to District 12, where they stay for a while before departing to the Victor’s Tour, throughout all the Districts and the Capitol. However, before leaving, Katniss is visited by President Snow, who tells her that she must convince everyone that her last decision in the Games was made due to love and not to defy the Capitol, or her family would suffer or even be killed, like Seneca Crane, the Head Gamemaker, who was murdered after letting Katniss and Peeta live.

During the Tour, Katniss did the best she could to do what the President asked but it wasn’t enough to convince him. After, they returned to District 12 and Katniss saw Gale being whipped because he went to the house of the Head Peacekeeper with some game he had hunt to sell him, which was illegal but the previous Head Peacekeeper allowed them to do it, but he didn’t know that the Head Peacekeeper had been changed. As soon as she saw it, she put herself between the Head Peacekeeper and Gale and the whipping only stopped when Haymitch and Peeta appeared too.

Then, it was announced the rules for the next edition of the Hunger Games, which were special, since it would be the 75th anniversary of the Hunger Games. The tributes would be chosen from the poll of the living victors, which meant that Katniss had to go again into the arena, since she was the only living female victor of District 12. Until the Reaping Day, the three victors from 12 prepared themselves for the Games to be able to face whoever they had to. In the Reaping Day, it was no surprise that Katniss was picked but Peeta volunteered to go to the Games as well, not to save Haymitch but to protect Katniss.

After that, they went to the Training Center in the Capitol, where they met most of the other tributes. Haymitch, who knew most of them, told Katniss and Peeta that many of them, like Beetee and Wiress, from District 3; Finnick Odair and Maggs, from 4; or Johanna Mason, from 7, wanted to be their allies.

In the interview that they had to give, Cinna, Katniss’s stylist, made a change in her wedding dress, since she and Peeta were fiancés by imposition of President Snow, which she showed everyone: when she spun, the fabric turned to Mockingjay’s feathers. Before going to the arena, Cinna was spanked in front of Katniss by his act of defiance against the Capitol, as she was unable to do anything to protect him.

Then, they went to the arena, where, soon, Katniss made an alliance with Finnick and Maggs. After some time and some people have died, Katniss’s group found Johanna, Beetee and Wiress, who helped Katniss to understand that the arena was like a clock, meaning that, depending on which time it was, there was a different way to hurt/kill the tributes. When there were just a few tributes left, Beetee made a plan to use the electricity from a thunderbolt to electrify the water to try to kill the tributes from District 2.

The plan didn’t go as it was supposed to and Katniss, who was in charge of taking a wire into the lake, returned to the tree where they were expecting the bolt to fall. In there, there was only Beetee in bad shape and it was hard for her to understand what he wanted to do but, as soon as she understood, she shot an arrow, with part of the wire knotted in it, against the force field, which was destroyed as soon as the thunderbolt hit the tree.

The book ends when a hovercraft picks Katniss, Finnick and Beetee but leaving behind Peeta, Johanna and Enobaria, from 2. With that new act of defiance against the Capitol, Katniss triggered the revolution in all Panem’s Districts and, only a few days after being picked, she was able to understand that she was going to District 13, where the rebels were gathered and that Peeta wasn’t with them.

Highlights

As it was already mentioned in the review of the previous book of the trilogy, the author’s writing style is very light, which is very helpful to engage us in the story but, once again, the political criticism must be the main highlight, because Suzanne Collins keeps showing us how could be the things in a country where there is a dictator ruling and it could be seen in several parts of the book:

For example, even though Katniss had won the Games and had a higher social position, President Snow was able to turn things against her by putting her back in the Games, although the “rules” said that, once a person is a victor, he is safe from going into the Games, which, in this case, didn’t happen.

Naturally, that wasn’t the only case when the Capitol forces were set against her: Katniss was whipped by the new Head Peacekeeper. Before entering the arena, Katniss was forced to see Cinna being beaten as she couldn’t do nothing to protect him. It also happened when some birds created by the Capitol were reproducing the sounds of screams of people Katniss knew. Since those birds were designed to copy the sounds they heard, Katniss understood that those people were forced to make them, which devastated her.

However, despite all these things, Katniss and most of the other tributes fought against the Capitol the better they could, showing that the people should fight for what they believe, having that culminated in a general uprising across the Districts after she destroyed the arena’s force field.

Recommendation

Although I really appreciated the first book, I liked this one even more because it is very clear what Suzanne Collins wants us to understand. I think this is brilliant because this book is targeted for young adults, but the truth is that everyone would be able to read this book and understand it. After stating this and pointing out the previous highlights, I definitely recommend this book.

Além dos Livros #1 - Jardins Zoológicos

Como eu não consigo ler um livro por semana, mas quero continuar a criar e a postar conteúdo regularmente no blog, fui tentar encontrar uma forma de resolver este problema. Desse modo, tive a seguinte ideia: escrever acerca do mundo real, acerca de um problema, de uma certa situação ou de outra coisa qualquer que eu achasse importante. Tendo em conta que as coisas sobre as quais poderei escrever podem ser muito diferentes umas das outras, é importante, para mim, clarificar o objetivo deste projeto: o que eu pretendo não é meramente a criação de conteúdo, mas sim isso aliado ao facto de me fazer pensar a mim, e a todos os leitores, acerca das situações apresentadas. Após esta breve introdução ao projeto, vamos começar!

Ao navegar pela Internet, achei que esta proposta de escrita era bastante interessante e que daria um bom primeiro artigo: “Os Jardins Zoológicos são vistos como necessários, mas, apesar disso, são uma alternativa fraca perante o habitat natural”.

Hoje em dia, apesar das tentativas que existem para proteger os animais e os seus habitats, a verdade é que a grande maioria não passa, justamente, de tentativas e intenções. Por esse motivo, os Jardins Zoológicos são uma boa forma de proteger os animais, tendo em conta que não se conseguem proteger os habitats da mesma forma que os animais.

Não esquecendo que os interesses económicos que dominam o mundo, por norma, não têm em conta a necessidade de proteger os animais e os seus habitats, os Jardins Zoológicos são uma ótima forma de proteger os animais que se encontram em vias de extinção, visto que a probabilidade de os animais acolhidos serem atacados é muito menor do que se estivessem nos seus habitats naturais, onde, muitas vezes, os caçadores furtivos os matam, mesmo estes estando em zonas protegidas e onde a caça é proibida.

Além disso, nos Jardins Zoológicos, os animais são vistos como atrações e os gestores desses espaços têm como objetivo atrair o maior número de visitantes possíveis para que os Zoos tenham dinheiro, não só para continuarem a existir, mas também para proteger mais animais e, se possível, os seus habitats.

É verdade que os interesses económicos dominam o mundo, mas, hoje em dia, a melhor forma de os combater é com o dinheiro, pois, tal como já referi acima, os Jardins Zoológicos conseguem também angariar dinheiro por si. Apesar de ser impossível proteger todos os animais e todos os habitats apenas com esse dinheiro, esse não deixa de ser um bom começo. Contudo, o dinheiro é incapaz de fazer isso por si só, é necessário que nós, os Humanos, queiramos protegê-los, pois o dinheiro não é tudo na nossa vida. A nossa própria vontade é muito importante e muito mais valiosa do que qualquer quantia monetária, dado que o dinheiro não pode comprar tudo, mas a nossa vontade pode tornar o impossível possível.

Retomando uma ideia acima, os Zoos são um ótimo local para mostrar animais que não vivem num dado local, sendo um bom exemplo pinguins em Lisboa, podendo isso ser visto como um ponto de partida para que algumas pessoas comecem a importar-se com esses animais e a agirem de modo a protegê-los e aos locais de onde são endógenos.

Para terminar esta pequena lista de razões a favor dos Zoos, não devemos esquecer que estes são locais onde os animais, mesmo aqueles em vias de extinção, se podem reproduzir, para evitarem a sua extinção, mas também são locais onde se podem estudar alguns dos seus comportamentos.

Porém, tudo tem as suas vantagens e desvantagens e, por isso, devemos também analisar as desvantagens dos Jardins Zoológicos. Apesar de ser verdade que são espaços que providenciam segurança aos animais, esse não é o seu verdadeiro habitat e, em algumas circunstâncias, o seu comportamento é diferente por não estarem verdadeiramente em liberdade. Em alguns casos, isso provocar-lhes-á stress, sendo isso uma das razões apontadas para alguns animais não se reproduzirem nos Zoos.

Também não podemos esquecer que os Jardins Zoológicos são visitados por pessoas, que, por vezes, não obedecem às regras, podendo isso constituir perigo para os animais, no sentido em que podem causar-lhes stress ou de lhes darem alimentos que eles não deveriam comer.

Em suma, para mim, os Jardins Zoológicos são uma ótima forma de proteger os animais, tendo também potencial para protegerem os seus habitats, apesar de não serem a melhor resposta nem para as necessidades dos animais nem dos seus habitats. Apesar de tudo isso, ao colocar numa balança as razões a favor e contra os Zoos, eu penso que as vantagens são muito mais fortes que as desvantagens, e, por isso, devemos apoiar os Zoos até conseguirmos encontrar uma forma mais eficaz de proteção tanto dos animais como dos seus habitats.

Book Review #11 - The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Reason of the choice

One friend of mine, a long time ago, presented this book in class and I really liked the story back then. Then, the movie adaptation was made and I loved it so much that all I wanted was to buy the books that inspired such a good movie. These were the two main reasons why I have decided to pick and read this book.

Reaction to the first pages

Since the beginning of the book, it was impossible to keep the movie apart and I was a little surprised by the early characterization that was made by the author in the first pages, which didn’t appear in the movie. Although I knew the story beforehand, these first pages were able to engage me into the following pages and made me read it in a completely different way than the one I was expecting to.

Summary

There is an early characterization of Katniss, the main character of this book, who was living in District 12, a poor State of Panem, who had to guarantee her and her family’s survival after her father’s death, since her mother was completely devastated and depressed.

In the Reaping Day, the day that two young people, aging 12 to 18, from each District of Panem are chosen to fight for his/her life against all the remaining tributes in the Hunger Games, which is the way the Capitol reminds every citizen in the Districts, that once had rebelled, that they are the ones who rule the country, Primrose, the younger sister of Katniss was the chosen female tribute from District 12. However, Katniss volunteered to take her place. The other tribute chosen was Peeta, the baker’s son and the one who once fed Katniss when she was starving, when she was younger.

Then, they went to the Capitol by train, in which they met Haymitch, a previous victor of the Hunger Games, who would be their mentor. When they reached the Capitol, both Katniss and Peeta were stunned by the richness and by the strangeness that characterized all people, including Effie Trinket, the woman who picked their names back in District 12, since they were used to the extreme poverty.

After arriving in the Capitol, they were presented to every citizen of Panem and, due to Cinna, Katniss stylist, she was noticed by everyone. Later, in a private session with the Gamemakers, Katniss was given a punctuation of 11, in a scale of 1 to 12, because she shot an arrow in the direction of the Gamemakers into an apple in the mouth of a pig. Before departing to the arena where the Games were supposed to take place, the tributes were interviewed and Peeta made a huge statement by telling everyone that he was in love with Katniss.

Then, they went to the arena, and the Games started. In the first hours, most of the tributes were dead and Katniss found out that Peeta was allied with the Careers, the tributes from District 1, 2 and 4. After some troubles, Katniss made an alliance with Rue, a little girl from District 11 which reminded Katniss of her sister, and together they destroyed the supplies of the Careers. However, when Katniss went back to meet Rue, she killed the boy from District 1, but only after he had thrown a spear into Rue, killing her.

After Rue’s death, it was announced that two tributes from the same District could be crowned winners and, as soon as Katniss heard it, she went looking for Peeta, who was camouflaged and badly hurt. To help him recover, Katniss had to go to the place where the remaining Careers were to gather a medicine to treat him. However, in there, she was ambushed by the girl from District 2 and Katniss was only able to get out of there alive because Thresh, a boy from District 11, killed the girl and spared the life of Katniss, since he felt all the pain she felt when Rue died.

After a some days, Cato, the boy from District 2, killed Thresh and the other tribute that was still alive was killed by Peeta’s ignorance of what berries to eat. When there were only just the three of them, Katniss and Peeta went after Cato to kill him, being successful in that mission.

In the end, there was only Peeta and Katniss alive but they weren’t declared as the victors and it was announced that, once more, there could only be one victor. However, Katniss decided that they should eat the poisonous berries, leaving the Gamemakers with an option of having two victors or no one at all and they chose to let them live.

Highlights

There were many good points about this book but the main one is surely the criticism that is made to the dictatorship, which was present throughout the book.

It could be seen in the way that only the people from the Districts had to fight between themselves just to entertain the people from the Capitol, and nobody from there had to worry about it. Moreover, the people from most of the Districts had to live in very poor conditions, while, in the Capitol, there was food in abundance. Besides, it could also be seen when the Capitol censored some footage from the Games, where Katniss “defied” the Capitol, both when she covered Rue’s body with flowers and when she and Peeta decided to eat those berries.

Recommendation

In my opinion, this is a very good book. The author’s writing style is very light, which helps to go through all the book, not to mention the amazing plot which gives body to this book.

Moreover, as I already highlighted above, I definitely have to recommend this book due to the message the author wants to share with everyone: a dictatorship is a very serious issue, which must be faced by all of us, being the first step to identify it as soon as it appears to avoid the bad consequences it always carries.

Crítica Literária #29 - As Naus, de António Lobo Antunes

Razão da escolha

António Lobo Antunes é um grande nome da literatura Portuguesa e, como ainda não tinha lido nenhuma obra sua, estava curioso em relação a como seria o seu estilo de escrita. Dado ter este livro cá em casa, associado ao fator atrás referido, decidi dar-lhe uma oportunidade.

Reação às primeiras páginas

As melhores palavras para descrever a minha reação perante as primeiras páginas da obra são “choque” e “confusão”. Choque porque a mancha gráfica com que me deparei é a mesma de Saramago, que acabei por ultrapassar sem grandes dificuldades após me habituar ao seu estilo de escrita. Confusão porque o autor começa imediatamente a sua história sem nos dar tempo para entendermos o que está a acontecer, bombardeando-nos com personagens e com os seus atos, aparentemente sem ligação.

Resumo

A história na base deste livro é o contraste existente entre o passado glorioso de Portugal, onde figuraram inúmeras personagens que todos conhecemos, como Vasco da Gama, Diogo Cão, Sepúlveda, Francisco Xavier, e o presente decadente que Portugal vivia em 1988, ano em que esta obra foi publicada.

A concretização do contraste é conseguida quando António Lobo Antunes dá uma nova vida às grandiosas personagens portuguesas, após os seus feitos, descrevendo a sua vida mundana em Lisboa, após terem regressado de África, corrompendo uns, com dinheiro, com o álcool, com as prostitutas, com as doenças, entre outras formas, mas todos eles acabam como sendo meras pessoas que conseguiram alcançar feitos heroicos, mas que se perderam.

Aspetos a destacar

Este livro, apesar de não possuir um enredo que eu gostasse e que seguisse com avidez, possui outros pontos fortes. Entre eles, há que salientar a habilidade que o autor tem para misturar e para nos mostrar a decadência de Portugal no final dos anos 80, usando, para isso, figuras incontornáveis da História de Portugal que ajudaram o nosso País a atingir a glória.

António Lobo Antunes mostra-nos como era a Lisboa pós-revolução, com os retornados das colónias africanas, com a prostituição que existia em toda a parte, com as doenças que se iam alastrando, sendo o seu combate feito com a reunião de todos os doentes nos sanatórios, com os retornados que se tornavam alcoólicos, provavelmente devido à guerra, entre outros fatores.

Porém, o mais notório é a falta de grandiosidade de Portugal, pois Lobo Antunes, ao inserir estas personagens na sociedade portuguesa do final dos anos 80, banaliza-as após os seus gloriosos feitos, o que lhes retira todo o seu prestígio, até porque são poucos os que, na obra, se recordam, mesmo que vagamente, desses feitos.

Merece ainda destaque algumas características de Portugal evidenciadas pelo autor, pois, apesar de muitas situações já não acontecerem com a frequência que aconteciam há 30 anos, existem, porém, outras que continuam a ser bem atuais.

Recomendação

Na minha opinião, esta obra peca no sentido do seu enredo, mas, em contrapartida, marca muitos pontos devido à habilidade que o autor tem para nos mostrar a diferença entre o Portugal glorioso dos Descobrimentos e o Portugal decadente do final dos anos 80. Esse, para mim, é o fator mais importante que me leva a recomendar este livro, pois, apesar da dificuldade inicial que senti para me enquadrar no rumo da obra, no final, o sentimento de estranheza que a mesma me causou foi recompensador, visto que senti que consegui captar a mensagem por trás de uma obra tão densa e que nos faz pensar no que era e no que é o nosso País

Book Review #10 - The Last Olympian, by Rick Riordan

Reason of the choice

This is the final book of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and I was eager to finish this series because the previous four books were amazing and I really wanted to know how it would end.

Reaction to the first pages

The beginning of this book is slightly different from the others but I still liked it because I just wanted to know how the series would end, so I didn’t need to be very impressed with the first pages to decide if I wanted to keep reading it or not, because the previous books had made that decision for me. However, even with a different start, it hasn’t disappointed me because this final book had to be different from the previous ones or it would leave us with the feeling that we would need more books to finish the story properly.

Summary

The book starts when Percy and Rachel were hanging out but Charles Beckendorf, one of Percy’s friends at Camp, appears and tells Percy it was time to destroy a ship were part of Kronos’s army were. However, it didn’t go as they planned: they exploded the ship but Beckendorf died and Percy was able to get away from there with his life because he was son of Poseidon, or he would have died too.

After the explosion, Percy was carried by the waters to Poseidon’s palace which was being attacked but the Sea God said he would be able to hold it without Percy’s help and he also said that Percy should went back to Camp because that was the palace where he was needed the most.

As he arrived at Camp, he told the bad news and asked his teacher, Chiron, to tell him the Big Prophecy related to him. Then, Percy was taken to the attic, where the Oracle lived, and she told him the prophecy. While he was at Camp, he was told that almost all the Gods were fighting Typhon, the “father” of all the other monsters, which Percy had freed from his prison and he was also told that nobody was guarding Olympus, so they decided that they had to guard it themselves.

Before leaving the Camp, Percy found Nico, who taught him how to shadow travel with his pet, a hellhound he had inherited from Daedalus to go to Luke’s mother’s house because they needed to know more about Luke’s past if they wanted to defeat him because he was the one who had given his body to Kronos. When they left Luke’s mother’s house, they haven’t understood much of what she said, so they felt it was a little useless but with the development of the story, it all made sense. After that, they went to the Underworld, the realm of Hades, to keep going with Nico’s plan to defeat Kronos.

As soon as they arrived, Hades imprisoned Percy but Nico freed him and convinced Percy to have a bath on River Styx, to be as strong as Achilles, because Luke had also done that before him and that was the only way that they would stand a chance to defeat Kronos. When Hades noticed Percy had escaped, he led an army to jail him again but Percy annihilated them and he left the Underworld.

As soon as Percy arrived in New York, he made a plan to defend the city with the help of the other Half-Bloods, of the nature spirits gathered by Grover, a satyr and his best friend, and by Artemis’s Hunters. They were able to hold Kronos’s attacks but they suffered many losses. In the following day, Prometheus met Percy, offering them their lives if they gave up, but he refused. He had predicted Percy would say something like that, so he gave Percy Pandora’s box and he said that if he changed his mind to open it, so their lives would be spared.

In the next days, they were able to keep holding Olympus away from the Titan’s army but they were losing ground, despite the help given by the centaurs, led by Chiron, by Hades’s army, which was convinced by Nico to help defend Olympus, and by the Ares’s cabin, led by Clarisse, which wasn’t in the battle since the beginning.

When Typhon was near Olympus, the Gods were able to imprison it again because Poseidon came to help. By that time, Kronos was already in Olympus and Percy fought him until Annabeth understood the prophecy and told Percy to give a blade to Kronos while she was trying to bring back Luke’s consciousness. Their plan went well and they were able to defeat Kronos because Luke’s had stabbed himself in his “Achilles spot”, which killed him and the Titan.

Highlights

Once again, the author was able to adapt the old Greek Mythology into the modern times so successfully that all we want to do is to keep reading.

In my opinion, this was an amazing series finale book but I have to admit that I liked more the previous books because the final battle between Percy and Kronos seemed just so little when we compare it to the other stories which contributed to make this series so great.

Nevertheless, after four amazing books, Rick Riordan was still able to bring back even more creatures from the Greek Mythology but I think this was not the best book of this series because its plot was almost only about Percy’s battle against Kronos’s army, while the remaining books had stories with more action and more creatures, creating a very engaging plot which culminated in this last book.