The 60's called...

... they wanted their values back.

So, hubby and I went to see Hunger Games last week. And I must say I am really satisfied with the result! The book is of course - as always - a lot better but I still think that even the film version was of good standard. My husband thought it was a little slow, but I thought it was fantastic. However, I am also not quite as sensitive to slow movie sections as he is. I do wonder as bit though, how the movie was if you have not read the books. Do you understand everything or do you miss a lot of subtle messages?

But what's mainly been bothering me about this movie however, is actually not the movie itself, but rather the twitter debate that has raged in the United States about Rue. Rue is described in the book to have "dark brown skin" but apparently the reading comprehension levels have decreased so rapidly as of lately  that many people missed that detail. But that's not the main problem. Okay, so maybe one can miss that kind of important detail but then when it turns out that Rue is played by a dark-skinned girl, a person in their right mind should be thinking "Oh, she was back? I missed that. What do you know."  End of story.

 
You would think. But no. Instead of accepting the fact and moving on, people log on to the Internet and post awful and rastistic tweets about how they do not want to see the film, that it ruined the whole movie or the most disgusting thing of all - that Rue's death was not as sad as they'd imagined - because of the color of her skin. 

Hence, the 60's called... Seriously, people... Haven't we gotten further than this?

Review: Mini Shopoholic by Sophie Kinsella

Plot: Becky Brandon (nee Bloomwood) thought motherhood would be a breeze and that having a daughter was a dream come true - a shopping friend for life! But it's trickier than she thought - two-year-old Minnie has a quite different approach to shopping. She can create havoc everywhere from Harrods to Harvey Nicks to her own christening. She hires taxis at random, her favourite word is 'Mine', and she's even started bidding for designer bags on ebay. On top of everything else, there's a big financial crisis. People are having to Cut Back - including all of Becky's personal shopping clients - and she and Luke are still living with Becky's Mum and Dad. To cheer everyone up, Becky decides to throw a surprise birthday party - on a budget - but then things become really complicated. Who will end up on the naughty step, who will get a gold star and will Becky's secret wishes come true?

My opinion: Sophie Kinsella-s Shopoholic-series is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I have followed Rebecca Bloom Wood ever since the first book Confessions of a Shopaholic eas released in Swedish paperback in 2006 and have gotten to experience great things in her life: marriage, new job, baby. And this latest book is supposed to be about Rebecca's daughter according to the blurb.

I find this book to have a little more serious and darker undertones than normal; not even in the Rebecca Blomwoods universe can one escape the financial crisis. But Rebecca Bloom Wood must be at least partially, cat, because no matter what obstacles she encounters, she always lands on two feet. My favorite part, which recurs in all the books, are the at first very polite but at the end more and more frustrated letter Rebecca get from banks, shops and so on. In this book she receives such a letter from the Treasury, with a polite thanks but no thanks for her tips on the government finances. Epic.

Like the previous books in the series, this one is also easy to get into and hard to put down. A more light read than this is hard to find, and although I sometimes get a little angry with Rebecca for never being able to stop spending money, I still like here. In the future, if there will be another book in the series, I will definitely read it.

I'm back!

I couldn't keep away any longer! I missed bloging too damn much! I just hope you're still there! 

While I've been away from here, I've still been bloging though. I still have my personal blog about my everyday life (mainly for my family and relatives far away) and I've also tried book blogging in Swedish, which is awesome too. Then I realized that "Hey, I can do both!" I mean, If I write a review on a book in Swedish, it's fast work to translate it into English. And hell, sometimes it is easier to write it in English than in Swedish although Swedish is my mother tongue... Weird. Must be all those book blogs in English that I keep consuming. I kinda pick up on the English book lingo rather than the Swedish dito.

Aaaanyway... after having summarized my 2011 reading back in January, I realized that I've had a very one-track mind when it comes to my reading so for 2012 I have given myself a few challenges book wise.

Book challenges 20120

1. More men During 2011, I managed to read only three books by male authors as opposed to the 40 female authors whose books I've tried out. So more equality gender wise is my first challenge.

2. More Swedish
Perhaps a drag for most of you who don't understand Swedish, but.. Many Swedish authors, especially crime writers are translated into other languages such as English, German and Dutch at the moment, though. So, why more Swedish you ask? Apart from the fact that it might be nice to keep up to date with Swedish literature, it's also easier and cheaper to come by in Sweden, which brings us to my next order of business.

3. More library visits
Materialist - ja visst! Or owning is awesome! I do love owning my books. But I'm just don't have the financial situation right now where I can afford to buy as many books as I previously have. So more visits to the library is another challenge. That's also where "More Swedish" comes in to the picture. Swedish libraries mainly have Swedish books - shocking, I know! At least, my (small) local libraries have a limited selection of foreign books. But they do have a lot of new Swedish books and quite a good selection of books translated into Swedish.

4. A better mix
This challenge can be summed up in one simple sentence and in a way it kind of includes the others: I'm basically going to try to achieve a greater variation when it comes to genre, language, sex of the author etc. Simply more variation.

That's it for now. I hope to see you around!