DragonFlight -- Final Thoughts (Part 2)

Walle:
I enjoyed the book a lot, because it was very interesting. Even though it used stuff like dragons, and mythological creatures that we know about, I think she gave it her own twist. It was pretty unique. I liked the entire idea of the threads. The way she used the little details.

Dande:
This time around reading it, I didn't like it as much, but I still liked it and I still like so many things about it. I have such a soft spot in my heart for Pern, the world, and all the stories there. I obviously enjoyed it and it's obvious—I obviously—

Newhope:
It's obvious.

[laughs]

Newhope:
You don't have to say anything.

Dande:
I would recommend this book, and obviously I have—[she cracks up]

Smiley:
No, no, don't be self-conscious.

Dande:
No, I'm freaking out about the obvious thing. Wvskier: said "obviously."

Newhope:
What? No, she didn't.

[laughs]

Wvskier:
You're trying to put the blame on me?

Newhope:
Obviously!

[laughs]

Dande:
Okay! I love the world, and it's one of my favorite series. I mean, I have a lot of favorites, but it's definitely up there, and I think that's it's just really good fantasy.

Wvskier:
Even though it's old.

Dande:
Even though it's old, yeah. Well, it's forty years old.

Newhope:
It's really, really old.

Walle:
Oh, wow, I didn't realize.

Dande:
So . . . are we done?

Wvskier:
The only thing I have to say is that as soon as you get through the first book it gets a lot better.

Jolly:
Well, I would hope so.

Dande:
Keep reading.

DragonFlight -- The Rest of the Series (Part 2)

Dande:
Overall, I liked it. I mean, there were problems with it, but there are so many books that have problems like that and it is so boring it is not worth it. But I think this book was worth it, especially since it is the start of such a great series.

Newhope:
I really like the whole time thing. I did not know that the plot would revolve around time travel like that.

Walle:
Sometimes it felt like the book is not really supposed to be a book. It's just a set up for books to follow.

Smiley:
Like a prologue-book.

Walle:
And then every time we would talk about something it's like, "It's explained in a later book! It's explained in a later book!"

Dande:
I just made this up in my head, but I could imagine that the author knew about this whole world, and this is just the introduction.

Smiley:
Maybe she wanted it to go slow. Compared to The Hunger Games, this went by really slow. Like Newhope said, in the middle it was really dull. Maybe that's just because she wanted it to be slow.

Dande:
I think that certain things about the book would have been lost if she—

Smiley:
Went faster?

Dande:
Yeah, you definitely did feel that it was a world.

DragonFlight -- The Rest of the Series (Part 1)

Dande:
I encourage anyone who liked this book to go read the rest of the series, because they just get better from here.

Wvskier:
Definitely. Dragonflight is not the greatest book in the series.

Dande:
Well, I didn't know which one to start with, except for the first one, you know?

Wvskier:
Dragonflight is just information. Basically, they are introducing you to the characters, they are introducing you to the plot.

Newhope:
Well every last paragraph basically sets it up for a sequel. It totally does.

Lasagna:
Are all of the other ones good?

Wvskier:
Oh, yeah. They're a lot better.

Dande:
They're really different. She doesn't get stuck in a series thing where she is writing the same books over and over again. She writes them in the same world, but they're really different books.

Wvskier:
Because there's also this Harper trilogy where it goes on mainly in the Harper Hall—it's corresponding with this timeline, but it's a completely different point of view.

Walle:
So are there other books that include these characters from their point of views? Or do they keep switching?

Wvskier:
They are actually minor characters in other books. It's pretty interesting.

Walle:
But does it still stick to Lessa's and F'lar's perspectives sometimes?

Dande:
I don't think so . . .

Wvskier:
Lessa and F'lar are important characters, but you're not following their plotline specifically anymore.

DragonFlight -- Politics (Part 2) & Population Control

Walle:
They said that there are records that show the path of the red planet, so why couldn't they need to determine their breeding on that? Once the Thread has passed, let the dragons decline a bit, but not let them die out? And then once the Threads start coming back, or when there's imminent danger, they could always start breeding.

Wvskier:
Well, during a Threadfall, dragons do start breeding more, and after a Threadfall they don't lay as many eggs, so that is one of the factors.

Newhope:
Speed up right before it.

Dande:
But they didn't do that this time, because the Queen was so bad.

Wvskier:
I think the reason why people were so resentful was there was only one Weyr left and they were so pitiful at that point. There were hardly any supplies going to the Weyr because the four other Weyrs came to the future. I think that is the turning point. Yes, they are that strong. They have more than one Queen; they have multiple Queens now. They can basically hold their own planet as long as they get the supplies and stuff.

Dande:
Yeah, the little Weyr wasn't as impressive anymore, it didn't inspire any awe anymore. So people didn't care. But definitely you see in other books, books that go to the past where the dragons are in their prime, and you see how the dragonriders are like, "Ahhh! Dragonriders!" In earlier times, that was the way it was.

Wvskier:
In earlier times people always wanted to be dragonriders, it was their dream. Now that they're back, it's probably going to start happing again. "They're the saviors of our world!"

DragonFlight -- Politics (Part 1)

Dande:
Something I really liked, and I just want to know if anybody is thinking about this too, is the way she described the political systems of Pern, how they interact and stuff. It really made sense to me. If for four hundred years, people had to support these dragons who did nothing, I could really understand how they could end up not caring about them anymore. They used to care about them so much they would die for them and they had these rules to help them, but over time they could grow to resent them. It really made sense to me, and I loved that, because it's such an interesting idea, because you never see anything like that in real life. It was totally unique, out of her head, but it makes sense.

Wvskier:
I think that's also really cool because they actually lasted four hundred years with these people believing they are something, even though two hundred years have already gone by, no Thread has fallen. There's this huge break, Long Interval I think it's called? But what's really cool about this Thread is that in the first book, it's like a cliffhanger, what is going to happen now? And it's just interesting how the plot progresses and how Thread is always in the background, but more important things always seem to come up.

* * *

Walle:
You mentioned about the politcal system? There was a part of that that I didn't get. Technically, the job of the dragonriders was to protect the land from Thread, but the Thread came every two hundred years, so in the middle, the Weyrpeople demanded food from the Holds to sustain themselves, yet they did nothing? I don't get it.

Dande:
I think they were more happy to do that when it was just two hundred years and they remembered how bad the Thread was. The dragons had to be kept alive, and the generations had to be kept going, between that, and they kept having to have that many dragons or else when the Thread would come they wouldn't have enough dragons. So they probably didn't have to give every scrap and morsel they could to the Weyr, because the Weyr didn't need to be at such high capacity and deal with injuries and all that stuff, but they needed to keep feeding the dragons, and keep people living in the Weyr, and keep the knowledge and the skills up or else they would be lost for the next time. So they had to give the food, even though they'd never see anything good out of it, but so their great-grandchildren could live through the Pass.

DragonFlight -- Colors & Eggs

Dande:
So anything else people wanted to talk about with the book?

Walle:
I wanted to talk about the entire dragon heirarchy, where green is the lowest, and then blue, and then brown, then bronze, and then gold. So there were no gold males, or something?

Dande:
No, golds were just queens.

Wvskier:
Golds are always female, bronzes are always male, blues and browns are always male, and greens are female. Though greens don't normally mate, and they can't if they breathe firestone.

Lasagna:
So they're color-coded?

Newhope:
Color-coded for your convenience, yes.

* * *

Walle:
So it takes two years for a queen dragon to mature?

Dande:
I think she was growing even faster than usual because she's so awesome.

Walle:
But then why did they send them back ten years—or Turns—if it only takes two years?

Dande:
I think that they weren't supposed to be there the whole ten years. I think they were supposed to be there for a couple years, and then come back.

Newhope:
No, no no no. It wasn't that they just wanted her to mature. They wanted to keep pumping out the eggs.

Dande:
Pumping?

[laughs]

Dande:
Yeah, okay.

Newhope:
They needed to be fully mature enough to fly, the hatchlings.

DragonFlight -- Thread & Title

Dande:
When you read about the world in the rest of the series, it definitely seems like a good place. You get to care about Pern as a world.

Wvskier:
You understand more. You understand why they're there, how they deal with their problems, and how other people, the antagonists, try to stop them, but the protagonists always pull through.

Dande:
Mm-hmm. And I like the idea—the Threads were really so dangerous. If one little Thread got in the ground it would destroy a whole area. And so everything was so important, they really had to work together so well. During that fifty years when it was a Pass, every single day, every single time they went out, was so important.

Wvskier:
Yeah, but it's just a daily job, just like a firefighter or something. They go out to fire's all the time, and it is really dangerous.

* * *

Newhope:
What do you think about the title? DragonFlight? Why do you think she chose it?

Dande:
I don't know. Because there are dragons?

Lasagna:
And they're flying?

Newhope:
It's a pretty bad title.

Walle:
I think the idea of flying between was so important, it comes to do with the main plot of what happens and allows them to save their land, so that's why I think she chose the flight part of DragonFlight.

DragonFlight -- Lessa and F’lar & Power

Dande:
When you're talking about Lessa and F'lar—I remember when I first read it, I was totally into it and everything. But when I was rereading it, I just didn't get their relationship at all.

Smiley:
Yeah, it was somewhat weird. There was this part in the middle of the novel when they were having dinner together or whatever, and—I kind of didn't get it, in the beginning. Are they together, or are they not? Do they like each other?

Walle:
It felt like they were forced together because of their dragons.

Dande:
It's amazing, because I remembered it making so much sense— laughs

Dande:
—but as I was reading it, it was like, what in the world is going on here? The characters, I got them as individual characters, but how they related to each other followed no logic whatsoever. No development at all.

Wvskier:
Their relationship is sort of tough in the beginning, because they both obviously have a station of power, and they both want to control each other. That's sort of how they come together, because they understand that with each other they can become more powerful than when they're separate.

Dande:
I mean, she's riding the golden dragon, the most important dragon in the Weyr, but the person that her dragon mates with is the leader of the Weyr? How does that make any sense? It was written in 1968, so I guess feminism wasn't important then? Maybe that was part of it. There were just a lot of things that seemed strange to me.

Walle:
I didn't understand whether Weyrwoman or Weyrleader was the higher post.

Dande:
Exactly!

Wvskier:
Weyrleader is the highest. It's sort of like, not dictator—

[laughs]

Wvskier:
—but he basically is the president.

Newhope:
It's a monarchy.

Dande:
Well, if you put it in that way, it makes more sense to me. I guess I can't really compare it to this world and what makes sense here.

DragonFlight -- Middle Muddle (Part 2)

Newhope:
I actually have some questions about the lapses in the storyline, where the action stopped and it felt like nothing would happen. It was after Fax died, and that little track right there, with the impression. After that, it kinda fell flat, there was nothing really to do.

Walle:
I think they skipped two years.

Newhope:
It was just a description of daily life, and I was like, "What am I reading?" After that, it started to pick up with the Threads, but it didn't really start until the battle of Nerat. It was flat for the entire middle of the book. I was kinda depressed.

Dande:
When I was first reading the book, I think you're right that there was no real conflict in that little bit, but I was so interested in the world and the life of this character that I just kept going through it. I wanted to find out what happened next.

Newhope:
The one conflict that you could argue would be the Hold army coming up, but that was resolved in seconds, literally. It was almost thrown in there just to have something to keep your attention. I thought that that was kind of shady story writing.

DragonFlight -- Middle Muddle (Part 1)

Walle:
I think also that who the antagonist was was sort of unclear in the middle of the book.

Newhope:
Yeah, because in the beginning it was Fax, so I thought, "Oh, he's probably the antagonist. Oh, he's dead!"

Walle:
Yeah!

[laughs]

Walle:
And then the Threads. So I was kind of confused about who the antagonist was. Who are they fighting against?

Newhope:
The entire intro of the book with Fax seemed like it could be left out.

Wvskier:
Well the point of an antagonist in this book, it's really different than most books we've probably read, because the point of antagonist always changes. First Fax, then the Lords of the Holds who don't believe in Thread, then it's not really anything after that because Thread is falling and it's just a point of emergency.

Dande:
I know we're probably going to learn this year in English about this stuff, but I think it ends up being Man vs. Nature as a theme. And not all the books are about that. This trilogy is mostly about fighting the Thread, but other books have people as the antagonists, or even disease. But even in that one, I think there were people that were the problem too. Her writing style changed, and is more what we think of as normal in the later books.

DragonFlight -- Firestone & Games

Dande:
But what things did people like about the book?

Smiley:
I liked the plot. The storyline was definitely good. I know dragons are very repetitive in fantasy, but I thought the storyline was somewhat unique.

Dande:
Yeah, and she definitely was pioneering a lot of those dragon things that we think of as so cliché now, but she was the first.

Walle:
I liked the fact that her dragons weren't usual mythological dragons. Like, with the entire eye thing, she tried to go for something different, so I liked that a lot.

Dande:
I remember when first read it being so interested by the fact that they couldn't just breathe fire, they had to eat rock and belch out fire.

Newhope:
I'm wondering how they learned that.

Dande:
Well, it's explained in later books.

Newhope:
That's what I would expect.

Wvskier:
It was genetically engineered.

* * *

Dande:
I did like the fact that she explained—there are little things in the book that explain questions I hadn't even asked yet. Like the thing about how they do the games. They never really even focus on it or talk about it, but then you get it. "Oh, they must do those game things every year to keep the dragons in shape between two Passes!"

Newhope:
Practice.

Dande:
Yeah, keep them practicing, keep them still able to fly and do maneuvers and stuff. They must have invented that just to keep them doing stuff. And then people got into it, I guess, and made it important.

Walle:
It said that some dragon died because of firestone. Does that mean that they feed them firestone in the games?

Newhope:
Yes.

Walle:
But isn't that dangerous?

Newhope:
Yes.

[laughs]

Wvskier:
It is, but it keeps them trained, even though they don't understand it at this point.

Newhope:
During a Thread attack shouldn't be the first time they try it out.

Walle:
But breathing flame at each other?

Wvskier:
That was an accident.

Walle:
Oh, okay. I was scared. I was like, "Do they want to kill each other?"

DragonFlight -- Thrown In & Style (Part 2) & Threadfall

Walle:
It said that the Thread eats or whatever, burns up, any organic thing it finds, so if there was a Threadfall in the beginning, how did anything survive at all?

Newhope:

That's what I want to know. How did this whole thing start?

Wvskier:
When humans came, they were in the middle of an Interval.

Dande:

The reason there was an ecosystem at all was because they thought it was a planet that was mostly barren, but had a few good spots. They didn't realize that there was Thread.

Walle:
But if it kills everything that's organic then the humans should have died out too.

Wvskier:

Well, they almost did. They managed to find shelter under stone. That's what the holds are made of, they're made of stone in cliff faces in the north. Thread does not go through stone.

Lasagna:
Oh, that's what they were talking about in the beginning of the book! I get it now. She's like, "They don't even make their things out of stone anymore." I'm like, "So? Why does that matter?"

Walle:

Yeah, in the beginning they spent so much time focusing on how there was so much greenery growing everywhere, and I wasn't sure what that meant because it seemed so random to notice weeds.

Dande:
I kind of like that. I didn't like that because it was confusing, but at the end of the book, once you understand it, it makes sense. She just threw you into the world, and she didn't try to talk down to you. So it's confusing but once you get it, everything falls into place, and all their little pieces of conversation have a place. 

Lasagna:

But I just don't think it's good for a book to just start out throwing you into it, all these weird names, stuff you don't get.

Wvskier:
That's what's unique about her style.

DragonFlight -- First Impressions & Terms (Part 2)

Dande:

Also, it was supposed to be a medieval culture—how were they so advanced to figure out a year is a Turn [and call it that]? We didn't figure that out until a couple hundred years ago.

Smiley:

Maybe they were smart.

Lasagna:

Didn't they come from Earth, or something? But they didn't know [it]?

Wvskier:

Well, they lost their technology over the years. Right now, there's no electricity or anything. They lost it because they don't have a fuel source.

Dande:

If you read the rest of the series, they were colonists that—

Lasagna:

It says that in the beginning of the book.

Dande:

It does?

Lasagna:

Yeah, it says something about how they came from Earth but they don't remember it.

Wvskier:

Now it's two thousand years later.

Walle:

They came here? Oh—I thought this was a completely different planet which developed humanity.

Dande:

No. Well, it's supposed to like that, in this book. This book is a fantasy book, and that's what fantasy books are: humans in a different world where they never were anywhere else. The series starts out as fantasy, and then it morphs into science fiction at the end.

* * *

Newhope:

What did you think about the different terms that meant the same thing, such as "Turn" and "year."

Smiley:

Yeah, yeah!

Newhope:

They said "year." So I'm like, "Then what's a Turn?"

Smiley:

Yeah, I was so confused. I'm like, "Is Turn their year?" But then they say "year."

Walle:

In the beginning, I thought a Turn was a day, because a turn is a rotation.

Smiley:

Yeah, I thought it was a cycle.

DragonFlight -- First Impressions & Terms (Part 1)

Dande:

Welcome to the second formal meeting of the Morris YA Book Club!

Smiley:

How many people have actually finished reading the book?

[about half]

Dande:

It's a good thing Wvskier is here, since she's read the whole series. I've read a lot of the books, but not all of them. I never tried to systematically go through them or anything. I just read the ones that were at the library.

Wvskier:

I have the six directly related to the Weyrs.

Smiley:

Do you want to begin?

Dande:

First impressions?

Walle:

I think that the author's writing style was a bit different. Sometimes, I had to read the sentences over again, because when you read it the first time I thought it was a fragment or something, and then I had to go back, and search . . .

Dande:

Well I noticed a couple that were fragments—but I think it was definitely different. I think it was partly because it was written so long ago that they had a different writing style back then. 

Walle:

Sometimes they used very hard words.

[laughs]

Newhope:

The vocabulary I didn't very much like—how they kept introducing terms but didn't really explain them.

DragonFlight by Anne McCaffrey

Dande here! This month the focus of this blog will be DragonFlight by Anne McCaffrey. DragonFlight was published in 1968 and is the first book in The Dragonriders of Pern series. The epic series contains almost two dozen books that take place at various times in the history of the planet Pern.

Overall, we enjoyed our DragonFlight meeting, but we intend to pick more recent books to read in the future, if only so that there will not be such an imbalance between those who have read later books and those who have not.

Our discussion revolved around a few key things: the dragging middle, the unique solution at the end, and the fact that many of our questions about the world would be explained later in the series. The two attendees who had read other books in the series agreed that the quality of the series improves as it goes on. We hope you enjoy eavesdropping on our discussion and contributing your own thoughts in the comments!

The schedule for DragonFlight posts is as follows:

• Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 -- First Impressions & Terms (Part 1)
• Thursday, July 29th, 2010 -- First Impressions & Terms (Part 2)
• Friday, July 30th, 2010 -- Thrown In & Style (Part 1)
• Monday, August 2nd, 2010 -- Thrown In & Style (Part 2) & Threadfall
• Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 -- Firestone & Games
• Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 -- Middle Muddle (Part 1)
• Thursday, August 5th, 2010 -- Middle Muddle (Part 2)
• Friday, August 6th, 2010 -- Lessa and F'lar & Power
• Monday, August 9th, 2010 -- Thread & Title
• Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 -- Colors & Eggs
• Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 -- Politics (Part 1)
• Thursday, August 12th, 2010 -- Politics (Part 2) & Population Control
• Friday, August 13th, 2010 -- The Between, The End, & A Paradox
• Monday, August 16th, 2010 -- The Rest of the Series (Part 1)
• Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 --- The Rest of the Series (Part 2)
• Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 -- Bloopers: When You're Not in The Room
• Thursday, August 19th, 2010 -- Final Thoughts (Part 1)
• Friday, August 20th, 2010 -- Final Thoughts (Part 2)

At this meeting: Newhope, Dande, Walle, Wvskier, Smiley, Chair, Lasagna, Jolly

The Next Book: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games-- One Last Comment from Everyone

Dande:
I really liked it. Like any book, it was good at some things and bad at others, and the stuff that I think it was really good at was that it really threw me in there, and while I was reading it I couldn't put it down. And it seemed definitely realistic, I really could believe I was there.

Newhope:
It made me hungry.

Walle:
I liked this book a lot, mostly because it was completely different than what I expected. It sort of opened up my mind.

Windex:
I thought this book was really good, because of all the action and stuff, but I felt like the romance just kept going on and on and on and on...

Smiley:
I really liked this book too, but I don't know, I thought the romance wasn't that bad. But the romance made me so sad because I knew that Peeta really did like her, I just could tell, and I knew that she didn't. It was just so sad at the end.

O'Juice:
Yeah, I kind of agree with Smiley. The instant that they were interviewing the people and he said, "Oh, and I brought that girl with me who I've always liked." I knew that was real.

Dande:
When he did that, and then they had the chapter break to the next section, I was thinking, "Oh, no she didn't!"

Laughs

O'Juice:
Okay, so I think this book might end up being one of my favorite series, and it's really awesome. The romance... it was good, but it would probably be better if it was actually real. She was faking it, so there was nothing there. It was just, "I'll give you a kiss, and now I'm going to get food."

Chair:
Personally, I think it was almost violent enough for me to forgive that scene where he takes off all his clothes, when she's pulling him out of the riverbank.

Laughs

Smiley:
Not all...

Jolly:
I really liked it, there was enough romance where I can deal with it, but it wasn't Twilight. There was enough action to keep me in the book.

O'Juice:
It wasn't like love at first sight or something. I hate those kinds.

Jolly:
Yes, thank you. Love at first sight is shallow.

Newhope:
This story actually had a progression to it. I liked it a lot, it had highs and lows, it had peaks where it was really exciting, and then downtime to build up to being even more exciting. Except for the ending, it ended without that peak.

The Hunger Games-- Bloopers: Athens & A Japanese Game Show

Dande:
I actually read a little bit on the author's website, and it said that it was actually based off of, you know that Greek thing? With the Minoans? Who have that labyrinth with the monster guy in it?

Newhope:
Minotaur.

O'Juice:
You mean that bull guy?

Dande:

Yeah, and it was like a tribute from Athens, that Athens would have to send them seven girl and seven boys... but Newhope, didn't you have that Japenese game show thing you wanted to talk about?

Newhope:
No.

Begging and laughing

Newhope:
It sounded just like that, they had twelve students from this high school, and they had them all fight to death on this remote island, and it sounded just like this. They just gave them each separate weapons, pots and pans and stuff-

O'Juice:
Pots and pans?!?

Laughs

Chair:
See, who doesn't like Japan?

Walle:
Wait, so, this was-?

Dande:
No, not real-

Newhope:
Just a show I found.

O'Juice:
Can you kill someone with a cooking pot?

Laughs

Newhope:
You can deflect a bullet off of it.

The Hunger Games-- The Next Book

Dande:
I kind of got mad at Haymitch in the beginning for not helping them.

O'Juice:
It was kind of expected, because every time they'd die anyway, so he tried not to get close to them, because they didn't have a chance. I felt like he had to do that.

Jolly:
I feel really bad for them now though, because now they have to train the next tributes from District 12.

Dande:
Maybe that's for the 3rd book, because they're going to do the Gale/Peeta thing before that. Will you guys all be reading the next one?

Chorus of agreement

Walle:
I don't understand how the Hunger Games are going to tie into the whole story again.

O'Juice:
I feel like after the actual Games, there's no more story left.

Jolly:
They're probably going to revolt against the Capitol.

Chair:
The Games established the unstoppable, unchallengeable Capitol.

Newhope:
I thought that was going to happen in this book. Until it actually went into the Games, I thought she would try to run away, the rebellion would start.

Jolly:
The next book they're probably going to revolt.

Dande:
I bet the author can't create a world like this, and not by the end of Book 3, have it so the world is a better place.

Walle:
I think, the whole thing where they mention the Avox, and then they mention her dad, I think maybe her dad is actually alive. So maybe that will do something.

Dande:
They're probably going to go on that victory trip with the other districts, and there's going to be something with the mute person, the thing with Gale, and some kind of rebellion.

Jolly:
The Capitol is going to try to knock off Katniss. They're going to try to take her out.

Walle:
I think the Avox people are going to be a big part if they do rebel, because their tongues got cut off.

Dande:
And we're going to find out what was up with the thing where the hovercraft in the woods got the person. And I think that we're probably going to get to know somebody who lives in the Capitol.

O'Juice:
We already do know someone...

Dande:
No, but really, how it would be one of the main characters, that's a kid. To know what the Capitol's perspective on all this is.

Newhope:
I want to learn about more of the separate Districts.

Dande:
I want to learn more about how the world got this way. What happened to the rest of the world?

Newhope:
There's absolutely no explanation. And everything's fine, I don't see any environmental damage at all in this.

Chair:
It's 1984, it's just this is how it is, deal with it.

Dande:
But it tells a good story.

The Hunger Games-- "Gale vs. Peeta" (Part 1)

Dande:
So what'd you guys think of Katniss and Peeta, that whole thing?

Smiley:
I felt so bad for Peeta.

Chair:
Sleeping medicine!

Laughs

Jolly:
That was funny, it's like-

Chair:
"Good night!"

Jolly:
"I'm not going to let you go off and try to save my life. No, you're stuck here with me."

Chair:
"Here, have some of this!" "Oh, what's this...? zzzzz......"

Jolly:
He's yelling at her and then he falls unconscious.

* * *

Dande:
At the end, I got so mad at Katniss for being unsure. "Do I love Peeta? Do I not? Or should I just fake it?"

Jolly:
I got really mad at Peeta for being mad at her. He just overreacted.

O'Juice:
I thought he would know. I thought he knew all along that she was acting.

Smiley:
I knew he didn't know.

Jolly:
I knew he didn't know after the Games ended. I'm pretty sure he knew during the Games, but after the games ended I'm pretty sure he thought she was totally being real.

Chair:
I don't know, because Katniss knew that when romantic stuff happened, Haymitch would send in more food-

Jolly:
1 kiss = a pot of broth.

Chair:
But Peeta didn't realize that. He just lay in the cave, dying, like, "Still here... any more food yet?"

Laughs

Walle:
About Katniss, I think Katniss also thought that Peeta was faking it. I don't understand how she didn't realize that he actually loved her.

Smiley:
I don't think she wanted to believe that.

O'Juice:
I think she actually likes Gale though. I have a feeling, when she comes back-

Jolly:
I know. I kept expecting that to happen, that's going to be a subplot, there's going to be a mini-war between Gale and Peeta for Katniss.

Smiley:
Twilight series!

Jolly:
Pretty much. That's going to be the plot of the next book. There's going to be the rebellion, but there's also going to be Peeta vs. Gale for Katniss. I think that was the whole reason for the, "We could run away, and make lives in the forest, if we didn't have so many kids..."

Walle:
I also think that, when he's shouting, "Remember, I-" and then he got cut off-

O'Juice:
Yeah, when they were leaving, and he said that and then they shut the door behind him. I thought he was going to say, "I love you, don't leave me!" or something.

The Hunger Games-- The Ending

[Editor's Note* The first part of this is from the very beginning of the meeting, and this was the first thing everyone had on their minds.]

Dande:
So welcome to the Morris Young Adult Book Club... so what did you guys think about the book?

Chair:
Jolly, go right ahead-

Jolly:
It had no ending...

O'Juice:
I hated the ending.

Chorus of agreement.

Windex:
Is this a series?

Newhope:
Well the book says end of book one...

Dande:
There are two more books.

O'Juice:
But is it like all about the same person?

Newhope:
It better be...

Jolly:
The next one comes out September 1st.

Dande:
I get that you have to set up for the series, but that kind of thing gets me mad. You have to have some sort of conclusion.

Newhope:
Closure.

Dande:
I'm still going to get the next book, because I want to know what happens, but... * frowns*

Jolly:
There's no ending, okay? They're holding hands, and they're about to step off the train. That's it.
End of Book 1. That's not an ending.

Walle:
I think they should have at least shown how the crowd reacted, just for a second. A brief flash of Gales face-

O'Juice:
Then if they ended with the sentence, "And then I saw Gale," that would kinda be a little bit-

Smiley:
That'd be really worse!

Jolly:
They should have just ended it after Peeta got mad at Katniss. It should have been, she's just standing there, and he's storming back to the train.

Dande:
I don't know what the author could have done... you guys are saying to just add a couple sentences, but I think it's just the way that the story is made. The story is made for there to be a whole bunch of stuff that happens latter but she didn't want to have a book this thick- *pantomimes thick book*

Jolly:
She should've.

Dande:
-so she had to chop it off right in the middle. And I guess, probably, she likes it because people will be like, "Oh, what's going to happen?" and buy the next one, but it's annoying.

O'Juice:
I want to smack her.

Laughs

Dande:
I think that because she had to cut it off in a horrible place, I think it almost would have been better if she just cut it off after they start going home, after the interview drama thing, and not even introduced the Peeta thing.

O'Juice:
I feel like she just took a knife and chopped it wherever she felt like it.

Chair:
It would have been good if they go on the hovercraft and it ended there. If they didn't even go into all the preparation: her ear's fixed, he's got a new leg.

Dande:
But they have to have that extra drama, about: oh my god are they going to attack them for the berry rebellion thing?

O'Juice:
I've never read another book with an ending that makes me want to read the next book so bad.

Dande:
I have.

Smiley:
It's called a cliffhanger...

Dande:
No, cliffhangers are good for the ends of chapters, not the ends of books. When authors do it at the end of books, it's just mean.