The One by John Marrs

Fiction

I cannot find the right words to express to you how much I enjoyed this book. I feel like it has been a while since I found myself looking forward to spending all my free time reading. I finished this in less than three days, beginning the book on a Sunday, reading during my lunch hours at work on Monday and Tuesday, and picking the book back up as soon as I got home. I put off chores, cooking, eating, and even showering, all so that I could reach the end of this novel.

This story follows five different people, each of them in a different situation with their ‘one’. In this reality, science has discovered a way to help you find your perfect match. It turns out that there exists a gene within the human DNA that is the counterpart to exactly one other person. If you meet this person you are struck with an overwhelming sensation of joy, desire, and completeness. Meeting your one is followed by such strong feelings to be with them that it often ends existing relationships. Even just being aware that you have a match can make you doubt any certainty that you are truly happy with your current partner, if you have one. And knowing that there might be a match out there for you could make you reluctant to even consider dating anyone else. But matches aren’t always who you expect them to be. Sometimes people from other sides of the planet are matched, sometimes the people are decades apart in age, and sometimes your match ends up being of a gender that you have never been attracted to. Finding your match isn’t always a dream, sometimes it can end up being an absolute nightmare.

I wish I could read this book again for the first time, and that is praise that I do not hand out very often. I don’t even remember where I heard about this book, but I am glad that I finally bought it and decided that it needed to move to the top of my pile. The book also happens to have been developed into a show, which I am not incredibly interested in watching. If you aren’t much of a reader, maybe watch the show. If it is anywhere near as good as the book then I’m certain it has the potential to be very enjoyable. 

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

Fiction

Ever since reading the scene in Catching Fire where Katniss and Peeta watch the 50th Hunger Games, I wanted to know more about what happened in the arena that year. Haymitch not only won, he won while competing against twice as many tributes. I knew that there had to have been something special about Haymitch for him to have beaten those odds. 

Every twenty five years there is a special games, called the Quarter Quell. Before the tributes are selected, the Capital announces an additional condition for the games that year. For the first Quell the condition was that the male and female tributes had to be chosen by the people of the districts rather than pulled from a lottery by a Capital representative, making the punishment even more cruel. The additional bit of barbarism for the second Quell was that there would be twice as many tributes, two males and two females from each district. Haymitch was in the clear once the second male name was called, but due to a series of events that made a bad situation even worse, Haymitch was punished by becoming the second male for district twelve. 

Although there have been some improvements in the way tributes are treated since the 10th Hunger Games, the girls and boys are still viewed as uncivilized animals. They are carted around in handcuffs in windowless vans, and not much is done to ensure that they arrive to the games unblemished and unharmed. The games back then were not the well oiled machine that we see in the original trilogy. I do believe that some of the events that occurred paired with the rebellious actions of Haymitch influenced the way in which the games were run from then on. In the original trilogy there are several mentions of unfortunate incidents that have befallen victors after the games, punishments doled out by President Snow to those that were not shy about showing their disdain for the Capital. We get to experience the very worst of what Snow can do to someone who rebels, and Haymitch suffers greatly for the multiple acts he commits both before the games and during his time in the arena. 

I love that we are getting multiple prequels from the author years after she wrote one of the most recognizable young adult series of this moment in time. This book made me want even more. I didn’t even care that this book was incredibly sad, I loved finding out more about the history of the games and getting to know more about characters that we are already familiar with. There are other victors I would love to have get an entire book dedicated to their story. I think Johanna Masons would be equally as tragic as Haymitchs, but it would be interesting to see how she turned her loss and sorrow into anger rather than depression. I can only hope we are so lucky as to get another prequel out of Suzanne.

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Banned, Nonfiction

A part philosophical, part political text which instructs how to be the best kind of ruler according to the circumstances that lead up to your ascension as well as how to conduct your reign after, this is another book I have acquired for my banned books collection.

I don’t expect to ever be a ruler of any kind, but I can see how this could be helpful if I were to somehow fall into a position of power. Not every person at the head of a country or government deserves to be there, and certainly not all of those people are cut out for it. Whether you have inherited your power, taken it by force, or been nominated by others, Machiavelli outlines how to rule well so that ultimately you can remain in that position. I do believe that there are many people in power today who could take a lesson, or several, from this text.

I can see why this is on banned book lists. Even though it was written in the 1500s, it is still relevant today and the man makes many good points. He makes examples of many things that I think are obvious but apparently they are not so obvious to others. It is a book that gives people something to think about. It will make you question why we allow some glaringly terrible leaders to remain in power. It also gives examples of the things that can happen to bad leaders, which should hopefully have been enough to make those leaders who read this text want to do a good job. And while overly violent assassinations are not so common today, torture, beheading, and dismemberment, just to give a few examples, I would think that wanting to remain in the good eye of the public would be enough to make leaders want to try to do what is best for the people.

I think this is a good book to keep around, but I don’t see myself reading it in its entirety again. The chapters are short enough that you can go back and read only the passages that interest you or that you want to pull an example from. I did mark a few pages, mostly excerpts that I found had relevance to the current political climate in this country. There was one very small paragraph towards the end that irritated me, regarding beating women, but I tried to remind myself that this was written during a time when women’s rights were pretty much non-existent and to not get too worked up over it. I didn’t let that one passage change my entire opinion of the text, and notwithstanding that I would recommend reading The Prince as well as have you consider adding it to your physical book collection.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Banned, Fiction

I don’t read the classics very often, but this novel is part of a collection that I am slowly gathering. I decided, for reasons I won’t get into here, that I should start buying physical copies of banned books as well as books that have a possibility of being banned in the near future. This novel was on one of those banned books lists.

I didn’t know much about this book going in, I think the only thing I knew was that it was going to be outdoorsy. I was intrigued when I saw that the story started off written from the point of view of a dog. I was skeptical when I started to realize that the entire story was going to be told from his perspective. But by the end of the story I realized that this story, a piece of historical fiction, needed to be written from the perspective of a dog to really get across what a terrible time it was to be a dog in that part of the world. So while this is a piece of fiction, a lot of what occurs could be events that actually happened. During the gold rush of the 1890s, when man realized that traveling in the harsh, cold winters in Canada couldn’t be done by horse, they turned to dogs. Dogs were bought, sold, traded, and stolen, and they were all worked to the bone pulling sleds while living on meager rations and forced to sleep outdoors in the snow at night. I understand now why this book was on a banned list as I could see why public schools might not want their students to read this. There are many passages in this novel that would upset animal lovers.

I don’t think this is a book I will read again, once was enough in my opinion. Even though my new philosophy is to donate books that I know I won’t read again, I think I am going to make an exception for books that I bought as part of the banned collection. Chances are slim that this book, as well as many of the others on my list, won’t be destroyed completely, but I think it is important to preserve literature and I will do my part.

The Bootlegger’s Bounty by Adriana Herrera

Fiction

If you’re looking for a book that gets straight to the point, I have found it right here. This is yet another book that I can’t recall where I heard about it from. I needed another short read this week, I am still recovering from that cold, and this one seemed to be the perfect length. 

Besides being short, a story that you can read in a couple of hours, it was also incredibly sexy. The female main character gets to business with her love interests immediately, and I wouldn’t call that a spoiler because the cover gives the plot away. This is a bisexual, throuple romance that takes place in the 1920s, during prohibition. Our two male main characters are rum runners, and they happen upon their future paramour as a stowaway on a boat transporting liquor. 

I’m not going to lie, it’s not the best written story. But if you are only interested in spice then you will be satisfied. I would have loved a longer novel, the plot was very to the point and it moved way too fast. I would have really enjoyed seeing how the female main character works towards reaching her goals. I think seeing the struggles that the three of them went through after their adventures at sea as they built their business would have been really fun to read too. I think with more time this could have been a really great piece of historical fiction romance, I’m imagining something like Bertrice Small would have written. If anyone knows of any good pirate smuggling books with a great plot and a side of romance I would love to hear about it.