This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

I like the movie of Catching Fire SO much more than I liked the movie of The Hunger Games. (No spoilers here.) I'm happy about the directorial change to Francis Lawrence, who doesn't rely on way too much shaky cam to create tension (which I blogged about when the first movie came out). I have to say, though, that I think I'm going to need a sedative or something for watching Mockingjay Parts 1 and 2. If they stick to the plots and characterizations depicted in the books, parts of it are going to be so hard to watch.

The word of the day today at dictionary.com is "pilcrow", which is the punctuation symbol for "paragraph": ¶. I'm rather fond of this symbol, because I use it frequently in my work, when I've got sentences crammed together and realize there should be a paragraph break between them, or worry that my own formatting is so messy that I'll forget to put in the paragraph break when I transcribe from my handwriting to the typed documen…

In lieu of a post today, I'll link you to Cindy Pon's interview with me about Bitterblue, over at The Enchanted Inkpot. Cindy is running a Bitterblue ARC giveaway, so head over there if you're interested! Many thanks to Cindy, who asks really good questions :).

My 30-second Hunger Games movie review: I had to leave the theater around minute 90 because the camerawork was making me sick. If you're prone to motion sickness, consider taking your meds or whatever, and DO NOT sit close. The frustrating thing was that at the moment I left, they'd just entered the arena, and FINALLY there was some point to all the shaky cam, zooming, fast panning, quick cutting, deliberate unfocusedness, etc. Finally it was effective. But my body couldn't deal with it anymore at that point. Very disappointing. The one judgment I was able to form before succumbing to the horror of "Is the whole movie going to be shot like this? Oh NO," was that District 12 didn't seem all …

I recently reread the Hunger Games books, in anticipation of the first movie. I don't have time to write the post I'd like to write, but I'm going to give myself an hour or so to work through some of my broadest thoughts here on the blog. My reread was different from my initial readings. Nothing and no one in the books can feel the same when you know what's coming, know their fates. To be frank, my reread was devastating.

When it comes down to it, these books are about war, evil, totalitarianism, trauma and its aftermath, madness, desperation, loss. They're about how the most seemingly incorruptible good can be shattered into awfulness given the right (wrong) circumstances. They're about being broken so often that you can never fully heal, and about the enormous resilience and courage it takes to keep clinging to hope.

A disclaimer that should be obvious: there will be plenty of Hunger Games/Catching Fire/Mockingjay spoilers in this post. To those readers unfam…