Reading Envy 010: Death and Mayhem

In this episode, our first in double digits, Scott hits the road with his daughter Alex. Together with her cousin Carissa, they discuss their favorite YA books and other related topics.

Scott got to travel down memory lane with these two picks:

Dolphin Island by Arthur C. Clarke
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman


Carissa brought two books to discuss:
 
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Between #1) by April Genevieve Tucholke
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak


Alex had some favorites too:

Mr. Monster (John Cleaver #2) by Dan Wells
The 5th Wave (The Fifth Wave #1) by Rick Yancey

The conversation also mentioned these titles:
I Am Not a Serial Killer (John Cleaver #1) by Dan Wells
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Paper Towns by John Green
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green



Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy Ep. 10

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Review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I don't normally review movies here; I don't really see many movies.  I thought it would make sense to review The Hobbit in the middle of posting about reading it, so I copied my thoughts that I posted to the Sword and Laser forum.  This will contain spoilers. 

Things I loved:
-How Smaug was portrayed in the back story at the beginning. A horrific presence too large too fit on the screen. Not a copout since you see the eye at the end and know he's coming, but a great exercise in scale.

-The landscapes. The inside of the Lonely Mountain, the high rock where the eagles left them, Rivendell. Just gorgeous.

-Perfect casting for Bilbo and Thorin. I hadn't paid attention to who had been cast, so it was a perfect surprise.

-The songs. Lighthearted in some instances, mournful in others. I wish they'd included more.

-Riddling scene, yeah, that was great.

Things I feel confused about, wonder if I missed in the novel or if they were changed/added and want to check on:
-Everything at Rivendell. I know Tolkien glosses over scenes by saying people have a conversation but it isn't central, but I don't remember it at all. And oh hey, that's the Cloud Atlas guy!

-The other wizards... I suspected they'd add more Necromancer bits in, and I'm curious about these other story lines.

-Stone giants. Was this in the book? How did I miss it?

-I remember thinking the dwarves in the trees bit was funny in the book, not scary, and to part of a personal revenge story. Maybe I missed it.

Things I wasn't partial to:
- The length of time at Rivendell... Although I suspect this has to do with setting up for the Necromancer/Gandalf storyline that they've clearly decided to tell

-The battle scenes. I never like them, and that is what stops me from rewatch img LotR too. It also is the pacing that is effected, without one overall battle climax it starts to feel tedious. That's the issue with spreading it out over multiple movies.

-You only really know Bilbo misses home from what the dwarves say. I wish we could have seen more of his internal conflict, but this was more of an action movie. He is heroic but not very tortured.