Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Would you like to attach a face to that voice? When you subscribe to the Book Interrupted YouTube channel, you get to see everybody as well as check out a bunch of extra Book Interrupted videos and music content. Visit the Book Interrupted YouTube channel to see what you've been missing.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Parental guidance is recommended because this episode has mature topics and strong language. Here are some moments you can look forward to during this episode of Book Interrupted.
[00:00:26] Speaker C: Gail's pretty, right?
[00:00:30] Speaker D: Where's her love affair with some Italian guy? None of it. Nothing. I was like, oh, that's strange. I guess it's just the olive oil. Can you have luxury without suffering?
[00:00:40] Speaker E: Globalization is just mass interconnectivity.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Nobody makes a billion dollars. People only take a billion dollars.
[00:00:49] Speaker C: Very pro violence.
[00:00:52] Speaker D: She's a monster.
[00:00:54] Speaker C: Especially between children.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: The formula they won't share with us is like, destroy the human race.
[00:01:01] Speaker C: Plus this, plus that.
[00:01:03] Speaker D: Yeah, right.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Then everything's fine.
[00:01:06] Speaker D: My body information is trying to learn something new without me.
My body is information is trying to.
[00:01:25] Speaker E: Learn something without being disrupted.
[00:01:30] Speaker D: Mind, body and soul.
Inspiration is with and we're going to talk it out on Book Interrupted.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Welcome to Book Interrupted, a book club for busy people to connect and one that celebrates life's interruptions.
During this banned book cycle, we're reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This book has been banned for antifamily insensitivity, offensive language, violence, religious viewpoint, occult, and sexuality. If you'd like to follow along, this book cycle is from April 1 to June 1. In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies Panam, a capital surrounded by twelve outlining districts. The capital is cruel and keeps districts in line by forcing them to send one boy and girl between twelve and 18 to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Let's listen in to this episode's. Group discussion welcome to the group discussion of The Hunger Games. This is our final discussion and we'll find out what everyone thought and if they recommended the book.
[00:02:44] Speaker F: Great.
[00:02:45] Speaker E: We'll do final discussion.
[00:02:48] Speaker D: Final discussion.
[00:02:49] Speaker E: The final is very misleading. Well, I guess it's the final discussion of this book, but it's never our final discussion. We always have many more discussions planned, right?
[00:02:59] Speaker D: This is the end.
Don't panic anybody.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: This is it.
[00:03:04] Speaker E: And sometimes we also talk about the book still later, like in some other can't stop.
[00:03:11] Speaker D: Especially since there's another book now, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which I listened to, which is like, not a book to listen to because it's full of songs. And so the guy who's speaking the book narrating the book has to go through all the songs, but he doesn't sing it, which I'm like, well, maybe they should have picked somebody who would sing. Anyway, there's a movie coming out in November for that. So if you binge watched all the Hunger Games movies after reading this book, then there's another movie coming in November of this year. It's about President Snow. When he was a young man.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: I saw a preview for that movie.
[00:03:46] Speaker D: Kind of like the making of President Snow, in a way. You saw the preview?
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:51] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. It just came out, right?
[00:03:53] Speaker E: Yeah. I didn't know it was about President Snow, but by watching the preview, I suspected because they found a good character. The guy looks like a young Sutherland.
[00:04:02] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:03] Speaker E: You could tell like that. That's how I was like, I bet you this is his story, or whatever. But honestly, what's the third book?
[00:04:10] Speaker D: The Mocking.
[00:04:11] Speaker E: J. Yeah. So I don't think I really liked that book because it wasn't Hunger Games. You know what I mean? Like, now it was like the revolution or whatever. And I got the same kind of a vibe from this other new movie. But I think there is at least a portion of Hunger Games in the movie. Like, it's the 10th Hunger Games in.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: The it's the 10th.
[00:04:28] Speaker D: It's not the same.
[00:04:29] Speaker C: Did you watch all the movies?
[00:04:32] Speaker E: I have seen all the movies after reading the book. This time, I was super excited to watch the movie that went with the book. And then Fred likes the second one better, so we also watched that. But then nobody wants to watch the third in my family. I mean, not in the world.
[00:04:51] Speaker D: No.
[00:04:52] Speaker C: Did everybody watch the movies after reading or rereading the book?
[00:04:56] Speaker D: I did. Yeah, I did, too.
[00:04:58] Speaker E: I didn't expect it.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: I didn't even want to reread it.
[00:05:03] Speaker C: Yeah. I had never read the books, and I had seen them all the movies as they happened, as they were released. And then reading the book, I was like, okay. I kind of remember the movie. And then watching the movie again. After reading the first book, I was.
[00:05:21] Speaker D: Like, man, they butchered it.
That's funny.
[00:05:25] Speaker E: I felt opposite.
[00:05:26] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:05:27] Speaker C: It's hard when you watch a movie first. Does anyone else find this? I know some of you like to do it first because the casting is so different in your mind.
[00:05:36] Speaker D: Right, though.
[00:05:37] Speaker C: I think jennifer jennifer Lawrence is great. Like PETA's all wrong.
[00:05:43] Speaker D: All wrong compared to the book. Right.
[00:05:45] Speaker C: In my mind.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Great actor.
[00:05:47] Speaker D: But he's just all wrong.
[00:05:49] Speaker C: And Gail's pretty right.
[00:05:54] Speaker D: Gail's right. Gail is really good.
Gail is right on.
[00:05:59] Speaker C: Gail's pretty right.
[00:06:00] Speaker D: He's so right.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: Yeah. It's such a different experience doing it in that order.
[00:06:05] Speaker D: I was like, this is completely not the right order for me.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Also, the book set up. I listened to Kim's personal journal.
If you guys haven't no, no.
[00:06:16] Speaker D: From the first one, the way that you said it made it seem like.
[00:06:20] Speaker E: You felt naughty, in trouble.
[00:06:26] Speaker D: Obviously, I listened to it. I edited it and put it out.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: How you were like, it was really boring reading about the world again. But I feel like the movie just cut it out. You didn't really get a sense of their lives. But in the book, they talk about the dad a lot. They talk about how she met Gail. They talk about being scared of fence. They talk about how she met PETA.
[00:06:51] Speaker D: She talks about her sister and their.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Goat and trading at the market.
[00:06:55] Speaker D: There's a lot of more details about.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Their lives before the games. And I understand nobody can make a movie the same as a book because it would be like so long. Right?
[00:07:07] Speaker E: Definitely they can do that. I have to tell you.
[00:07:10] Speaker D: Is there a book?
[00:07:11] Speaker E: I feel like this movie did I'll tell you for sure? This movie for sure did bring up those things just out of order and like flashbacks. We saw the men going into the cave or maybe because I've watched movie one and movie two. I don't know if it happened in movie two. And they finally did some like I don't remember. They definitely did that. There's PETA throwing her bread in the rain, all of that. And I think to both of what you guys are saying, that's kind of the mountain or whatever that the movie maker has to surmount. I don't know. Why am I saying mount so much? But you read the book, obviously, I know you obviously have your own understanding of it. And then the movie comes out and it's not what you thought, obviously, because nobody pulls your brain from your head to make the movie. And there's not billions of different versions of the movie that represent what you thought. So whenever people are like, the movie is never as good as the book.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: That'S one reason why.
[00:08:08] Speaker E: And nobody can help that it's not actually that the movie is not good. It's just that the movie doesn't reflect what you thought. But the second thing is that they take those liberties to tell those stories. And I do definitely think what you're saying, Sarah, with the whole setup in the beginning that I was over because I already knew the story, I guess it doesn't have anything really to do with this. You get the emotional tones, though, and you understand the relationships better. And I felt like that for Twilight, they missed so much of the can't touch. It so much of the literally can't touch.
[00:08:42] Speaker D: Relationship.
[00:08:43] Speaker E: Yeah, exactly. All the intangible stuff between the characters. They miss so much of that for Twilight. Anyway, the movie that's exactly like the.
[00:08:50] Speaker D: Book is Shawshank Redemption because the story is so short.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Fine, yes, but totally.
[00:08:56] Speaker D: I was going to say that also.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: Here's another example. Same director, The Green Mile is also exactly the same as the book. And that book was a six book miniseries.
[00:09:07] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: Still, each book was like, sure, yeah, right. It probably equaled one actual average size novel. But yeah, both of those are legitimately exactly the same.
[00:09:17] Speaker C: Interesting. Okay, well, good on him.
[00:09:20] Speaker D: I think this is interesting because when you see a movie for like oh, you should really read the book first. But maybe for certain ones, you should see the movie first because you're going to enjoy the book anyway. And then you can enjoy the movie without knowing that they left the stuff that you loved out from the book.
[00:09:36] Speaker E: I like it because then you have the characters in your head, so those will be the characters when you start reading it. So you're not going to experience that disappointment. But if I watch a movie first, truth be told, that takes away any motivation to read the book. Because there's something about not knowing the story. Exactly. And that drives me through a book. The movie. I don't know why it's easier to watch a movie. Both is still just sitting still, not doing anything. But I guess you're reading versus watching. I guess watching requires less effort.
[00:10:04] Speaker D: It comes down to whether you read for the journey or for the destination. Yeah, right. Because some people want the end. They're like, I got to know what's going to happen. And some people are like, I don't need to know what's going to happen. I just want to be in the story. Right?
[00:10:16] Speaker E: Yeah. Because I must be a destination. Because if I already experienced the journey, I don't want to take the journey again. But again, with that being said and thinking, I know myself, and I wouldn't do this, and I don't do that, I didn't want to read this book again. I had already read it. I watched the movie and all these things, and I really enjoyed reading it first, seeing the movie, time passing, reading it again. Oh, spoiler alert for my personal journal. In the beginning, I was like, oh, no, I hate this. I knew it. I wasn't going to, like, rereading something, but it was all that foundational stuff, like background story stuff that for some reason I didn't like. But once I got into it, I was in that journey again, and I really enjoyed it, even though I knew where it was going. And then I really enjoyed watching the movie again.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: So I never would have thought any.
[00:11:03] Speaker E: Of that would have been true had I not been forced to reread this book. Forced by Leah.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: Forced.
[00:11:10] Speaker D: Forced.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: I don't know if there's any books that you guys know, but sometimes I watch a movie and I love the movie, and one of them is under the Tuscan Sun. That movie?
[00:11:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:20] Speaker D: That's good.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: I love that movie. Such a good movie. When I was at abused bookstore or something like that, that book was there and I was like, I didn't know.
[00:11:29] Speaker D: It was a book before.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: I should read it because I love that movie. And then the book is nothing like the movie. The woman in the book has a husband. Or maybe not husband.
[00:11:40] Speaker D: Maybe partner. No, I think husband. So she's not divorced.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: None of that has happened.
[00:11:44] Speaker D: A woman doesn't stay with her and have a baby.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: That's her friend.
[00:11:47] Speaker D: None of those things happen. The only thing that happens is she.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: Renovates a house in Tuscany and she wasn't going to there to escape. She works in San Francisco and comes to her Tuscan house for the summer and she just goes back and forth.
[00:12:02] Speaker C: No, that's totally different.
[00:12:03] Speaker D: No, that's funny.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: None of it is the same at all. And I'm reading because like you were saying, I'm reading because I think I know the story.
[00:12:12] Speaker D: And I'm like, when are we going to get to anything that's in the character that I love? Where's the character going to show up and they're just not part of the story at all? Where's her love affair with some Italian guy? None of it. Nothing. I was like, oh, that's strange. I guess it's just the olive oil that didn't even the author. And they're like, we're going to make a movie out of your book.
[00:12:31] Speaker E: And you're like, did you just chapter seven.
The rest we're going to make up our own.
[00:12:39] Speaker D: We're just going to borrow your title.
[00:12:40] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:12:43] Speaker D: Our marketing department said we should use this title for a movie anyway.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: It was just weird.
[00:12:49] Speaker D: It was a whole thing. Nothing about her character is true.
[00:12:52] Speaker E: So in reverse, that's another reason why people hate the movie. Because of the liberties that people take. I'm not in favor of changing an ending when you read a book. Again, this is more speaking to my destination tendencies then. Because if I read a book and I know what's going to happen, then I watch a movie and I'm like, what?
[00:13:10] Speaker D: That's not how it ends.
[00:13:11] Speaker E: Right, exactly.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: That's not how it goes.
[00:13:13] Speaker D: I got through that book, I found out the ending and this isn't it.
[00:13:16] Speaker E: Yeah, totally.
[00:13:18] Speaker D: I know the ending.
[00:13:18] Speaker E: You can't fool me.
[00:13:19] Speaker D: Unsatisfied the movie.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Chocolate and the book.
[00:13:25] Speaker D: That's what happens in that they change the ending. Totally.
[00:13:28] Speaker C: Do they?
[00:13:29] Speaker B: Completely, yes.
[00:13:31] Speaker C: I love chocolate.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: The movie or the book?
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Love that movie.
[00:13:34] Speaker C: I've never read the book, though.
[00:13:35] Speaker D: I used to watch this.
[00:13:35] Speaker C: I didn't even know it was a book.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: The book's sad compared to the movie.
[00:13:39] Speaker D: So read it.
[00:13:39] Speaker E: I was going to cry. I was going to contradict myself and be like, I might be pro changing the ending if for some reason the ending made me upset and then the new ending makes me happy.
[00:13:51] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:13:52] Speaker C: I love that movie.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: I should let everyone know. Ashley's probably not going to make it because her dog has been throwing up all morning, so she's rushing it to the emergency.
[00:14:05] Speaker D: No. Oh, no.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: I know. Poor Ashley.
[00:14:10] Speaker D: I have a heavier question that's not related to movies and books, but related to the Hunger Games that I've been thinking about.
[00:14:16] Speaker E: Is this the one you wanted to bring up last Sesh?
[00:14:19] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:14:19] Speaker E: Okay.
[00:14:20] Speaker D: Actually there was two. I don't know which one I was talking about last time because my memory.
[00:14:23] Speaker E: Is poor do both.
[00:14:24] Speaker D: Okay, so the first one is so the capital is all luxury, right? And you kind of get this impression that the capital people kind of lead these empty kind of materialistic lives and then the people in the districts are all suffering. So that that can be a reality, so that the people in the capital can have their luxury. So the question is, can you have luxury without suffering? And if you cannot, when is it ever justified to have luxury? Speaking from somebody who lives in a country that has a lot of luxuries, I mean, I'm sitting here talking on a computer to my friends across that's a good one, right, world, and think that's like one of the commentaries that the book is making is that all luxury has suffering inherent in it. And there's part of the book, and.
[00:15:07] Speaker E: I don't know if it was this.
[00:15:07] Speaker D: Book or one of the other books, because I ended up reading them all. Where Katniss is looking at her meal that she's eating in the capital. And she starts trying to figure out how long it would take her to collect all the ingredients and be able to make a meal like this. And she starts going through like, well, I could probably get some wild onions and then I could get this and I could get that, and I could barter for this, and we could milk the goat and get something similar. And it was like this big amount of work just for this one meal that popped out of a table with seemingly no effort.
[00:15:36] Speaker E: I think something that matters in answering this question is what we agree the definition of luxury is.
[00:15:42] Speaker D: But that's all relative, right?
[00:15:44] Speaker E: That's what I'm saying, right? Because my first instinct was thinking about original, free contact indigenous societies functioning on basically everything's connected, understanding, theory. So everyone what was the quote that we had heard before? It's not about what you get, it's what you're responsible for or something like how do you take care of everyone? It's all about giving. And that comes back because of that point of view. My first thought was like, well, that would be luxurious. They live in a perfectly clean environment where nothing is at risk, extinction, because everything is respected and relative and whatever out of the whole thing, I don't want to talk about it too much because I'm obviously not indigenous, but that was the first thing I thought. But then, as a non indigenous person, that's crazy camping from someone with privilege and luxury, right? Would I want to live like that, though? Is that luxurious to live that way? And so that was what made me think, what is the definition here of luxury? And again, I know that there are a million different kinds of cultures within indigenous cultures, but in general, there was common kind of an understanding of the interconnectivity of everything and that informed respect which created a situation where people weren't destroying things, they were living off the land, right?
[00:17:05] Speaker D: They weren't suffering because it was a give or take. But I think what I'm talking about is if you have something that you haven't really worked for and it comes easily and it costs you very little but you get to enjoy the fruits of the labor without the labor part. You know what I'm talking about?
[00:17:20] Speaker E: Well, this is what I'm saying though.
[00:17:21] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:17:22] Speaker E: Back in the day before the industrial revolution, for example, many people would enjoy the fruits of their own labors. And so whatever you're having is basically equivalent to whatever effort you put in plot of land you have or whatever things you grow or whatever relationships you have to trade or whatever, right? And then the industrial revolution happens all of a sudden machines and mass production and what you're talking about is created really and kind of with capitalism anyways in the western world is out of control, right, because people are working and then people are benefiting, right? And that's how this luxury situation kind of unfolds. It also, I guess, matters what moment in time, what kind of technology is involved. All of these things lend or at least play a part in the answer. And if the ultimate situation is like the Hunger Games, it sounds like no, you can't have luxury without someone else incredibly suffering because all of those luxurious people, they don't know how to do anything right because they've been so indulgent and taken from everyone else they've never done for themselves.
[00:18:29] Speaker D: Like, I'm thinking about things like okay, I can go to the grocery store and buy a bag of apples for, I don't know, $7. But if I go to work, the amount of money I'm making per hour I could easily in 1 hour I could buy a whole bunch of apples, right? But somebody else who is putting in the work way more hours, right, going to the grocery store and getting some apples is a luxury for me. Whereas somebody else, they might have to work like a whole day to get something that's the same. I don't know about apples. Maybe this is a bad example because I know very little about how I get my apples and all the different steps, but I know they're being transported there. And there's a lot of work that goes into getting those from a tree and then putting it maybe in storage and then it goes to the grocery store and somebody at the grocery store is getting paid to stock the shelves and stuff. But in the end it's very little effort to me. So it's a huge luxury just to be able to go to the grocery store. But for somebody else maybe who's at the beginning of one of these big chains of production for anything. Like, I mean, I've got a car and I've got a cell phone and all these things somebody has to work an awful lot for me to get this thing that's very cheap in the grand scheme of my life. It's true.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: It's totally true.
[00:19:43] Speaker D: No, it's true.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: I was just saying there is no.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: And it's not fair.
[00:19:46] Speaker C: This is just like the video you sent me earlier, Sarah, that video clip that we were talking about.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Yeah. There's no luxury without suffering.
[00:19:54] Speaker C: Without suffering. I don't think there is.
[00:19:56] Speaker E: But you know what's interesting? So the person at the beginning of the Apple chain, anyway, if they are, let's say, an Apple farmer, the luxury is one step away. If the luxury in this case is the Apple, they just have to take.
[00:20:09] Speaker D: That that's what I'm saying, as a bad example for Apples, but not for but a good example.
[00:20:14] Speaker C: It's an iPhone.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: The extremes are a bit more if it's an iPhone. Right. The luxury may be out of reach in a lifetime.
[00:20:22] Speaker D: Right? Right. Like, I have this thing and how much suffering went into me being able to just have this.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: Also, we have to be cautious, though, because we can work this into reverse, where it's like, then let's shut down the iPhone factories.
[00:20:37] Speaker E: Like, it's not fair.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Equal pay, whatever. Right? And when things like that happen, the individuals whose livelihood depends on those jobs, even though from our privileged standpoint, we're like, that's not fair, they have to work ten times as hard for one times the amount of our whatever. It doesn't work for them.
[00:20:56] Speaker C: Well, in the iPhone or the smartphone case, it's a bit more it's so egregious. It's more like working conditions, I think. It depends on the thing. It depends on the luxurious item, I think.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: But that's the point. So the raw material for the iPhone comes from the Congo and they want to maintain the prices of that raw material to be low.
So, for instance, let's say a new government comes in and said, no, our workers be paid appropriately. This is how much it's going to cost for you to take this product out of our country. And then Apple goes to the US government and says, we're going to cut all our funding to this candidate unless you make sure that our prices don't go up, because then 8000 jobs will be lost and your ratings will go down for your jobs, whatever. So then the US government comes and threatens the Congolese government to pull aid and support and funding in their economics. Maybe we'll never buy any of your products going forward, and no one in the US can ever buy something from Congo unless you maintain that low price. So then they do, because now they're being bullied into making sure Apple has cheap product for the people who live in luxury. And that's how it works. It's politics. It's just politics is what it is. You can't have luxury without suffering. I can't remember who said it. In the US, they have an acronym for her name like, oh yeah, I.
[00:22:33] Speaker E: Know who you're talking AOC.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: AOC. She was doing an interview and she said, nobody makes a billion dollars because he was asking about billionaires. And she was like, nobody makes a billion dollars. People only take a billion dollars. And I was like, what do you mean? She's like, Because the reason that guy made a billion dollars is because the person who was assembling the product is getting paid not a living wage. So his profits are going up. But if he paid people appropriately, he wouldn't be taking the billion. He would be giving people the proper money for the things they do. So nobody makes a billion. People take a billion.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: Alexandria ocasio cortez. Ocasio ocasio cortez.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's her. Yeah.
[00:23:22] Speaker E: I think it's interesting that what Sarah's describing is based on interconnectivity. Globalization is just mass interconnectivity. So, like, the original understanding of the original people is true. But this is what happens when it's not handled with respect. When you add capitalism and it's about greed and gains and money and it's like a giant bastardization. So for me, I just think it's ironic or interesting or whatever the interconnectivity remains. And this is what can happen. This is why it was so important to really understand how interconnected everyone was. Because this is what can happen if people don't honor the fact that my riches could be someone else's poor if I'm not participating in this respectful, right? Participating in this system in a way where I know I'm responsible for having.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: That responsibility piece right, that you were talking about. It's responsibility for the whole of everyone being connected. And if you're not, if you have.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: The greed disease, yeah, you're just solo.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: And you want money for your shareholders and then you don't care and you made a billion dollars.
[00:24:33] Speaker D: Part two is kind of what we're talking about. What Kim's talking about and everybody's talking about is that you can't have luxury, like true luxury, where you're not really working for it without suffering. Then can you really have luxury and peace at the same time? So the part of what the book is talking about, he's like, peace is very fragile. And so the peace and The Hunger Games is all dependent on the people who are suffering for the luxury, not fighting back. It's only peace for the capital. It's peace only because people aren't fighting for themselves. So a lot of people are like, oh, world peace would be really great, but you're not going to have world peace if some people aren't working for what they have and the other half is working for what other people have like they have in The Hunger Games. That's kind of where we are now, where we have like everybody would love to have this life for maybe not everybody, but from where we live, it's kind of like we've been told this story that the Western life with luxury is kind of what people want, right? Rather than having to toil in the districts, people want to be capital or not in the districts. But can you really have peace and luxury at the same time? Or is it just going to be always fragile until everybody is kind of doing their part and everybody has equal all their needs taken care of? That's kind of like the new economics that we're going to need if we're going to slow down global warming, for example, is that it has to be more like not what you can get, but do you have enough? When is it enough and everybody just taking what they need rather than trying to become billionaires or whatever? I don't know. That wasn't really a question, but you know what I'm saying, right, I get it. Yeah.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: In your part two, you definitely define luxury as almost like having something you didn't even earn, right? Someone else made it possible or earning.
[00:26:20] Speaker D: It for you, right.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: You didn't have to work for it. Or there's some version of like, it's not even really yours. Like when you said that mayor, that really helped clarify for me and then I was like, well, nobody should even want that then.
[00:26:32] Speaker E: Really?
[00:26:33] Speaker A: But it makes your life easier, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:26:35] Speaker D: Right.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: The other piece to it is when the people aren't fighting back, it's arguably peace, right? But they're giving up a portion of their whole, right? They're not whole people because they don't have autonomy, so they're giving up a portion of whatever makes them whole. And for me, that's another argument angle that I think would be valid is that define happiness. What's? Happiness?
[00:27:02] Speaker C: Oh, good point.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: We have a whole narrative about money doesn't buy you happiness. And there's probably a bunch of billionaires out there who have gold toilets and like 50 servants and are divorced or whatever, right, but that's what I'm saying is that the true luxury, I think is like self actualization, whatever version of that. And so are you spiritually sound? Are you mentally sound? Are you emotionally sound financially? I don't even know if it comes onto that chart wheel or whatever.
[00:27:32] Speaker D: Right.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: I feel like that is the thing that people should be going for. And for someone who by all causes for this argument anyways, we would view as successful or in receipt of luxury, et cetera, et cetera. I would argue that their wheel of things required to make you a whole sound person is not reflective of what we claim is their success and maybe even more so than the people that we would define as the servants or working to feed the rich or whatever. It's reminiscent for me of when we asked in Handmaid's Tale if that place like the wastelands or whatever, if you could have love there, you're doing all of the shit, but if your boyfriend's there or you know what I mean, can you still experience that there?
[00:28:21] Speaker D: And.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: It reminds me kind of of that, right? It's truly about how you define things. But in the society that we're currently in, it's sick. And the programming as well.
[00:28:31] Speaker D: Right?
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Like, I know that there's probably many things that I am blind to even as I make this speech, but it's like a sickness. It begins with understanding. I don't know, I guess yourself at first, because I'd say a lot of those people at the top of the top are blind in many ways, I think also community.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Don't you think one of the things I really like about living in Senegal is one of the greetings that you say to someone, like, hello. Lots of the greetings have to do with saying, are you at peace? Are you at peace? And your response is like some of the responses is just saying gem rake, which is like peace explanation. Mark, if you have a problem, if you tell someone, that's their problem now too, so they help you. So I think also it's not just about the pie shouldn't just be about realizing your own self.
[00:29:23] Speaker D: Right?
[00:29:23] Speaker B: I think it should also have to do with knowing that it's interconnected, knowing you have people that care about you and community. And those people, they know they can rely on you and you can rely on them. And it's not just financially, but that too, but also just support in whatever category. Support would be for whatever problems you have. Where I think if you have degree disease and are just going after this quote, unquote success, you're probably destroying all those connections of community because you're just trying to get more and you're not sharing with the people around you, especially if you're not paying people at the bottom. You know what I mean? If you don't really care, you just care about the final result of profits, then you're missing out on I don't think you can have peace without people.
[00:30:18] Speaker D: People around you, unless there are no people at all. Do you guys hear in the news that they're trying to put more funding into, like, AI in the military?
[00:30:29] Speaker C: That's scary.
[00:30:30] Speaker D: They're talking to Dan this morning. He's like, yeah, why don't we just watch Terminator and see what we should put IEI to next? Oh, the military we're going to get control over. Wendy said, use nuclear weapons and Irobot.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: I watched something on BBC that the godfather of AI, the guy who basically helped create it, is now going around warning people, this will be the end of the human race. We need to shut it down.
[00:30:53] Speaker D: And then I was thinking, if AI decided to start getting rid of some humans because they're like, this is not working out for the world, I wonder if they would decide because you don't know what's going on in that black box. Like, decided which humans to keep around and which ones wouldn't. And what would AI decide for the world? Right? Isn't that very interesting. Would I be on the list? Which list would I be on?
[00:31:17] Speaker E: The thing that scares me about AI is even when the program is meant to create or at least avoid discrimination or you know what I mean, like, be racially blind. I don't even know if it's because humans programmed it or because the statistics, like, if they're taking because where do they get their information, like their knowledge from? It's, like, fed in. Even if it's historical data, whatever, they can still find the patterns of oppression and or racism or whatever. So AI, which is not having any political stance, so to speak, can still trend liberal or trend conservative or trend racist, depending on what data it's producing and then putting through. And so that freaks me out, too, because humans are so stupid, they're going to think like, oh, no robot can't do whatever. But then the robot does replicate these things because all of the information that it gave itself came from people who are imperfect. So whether it's doing it nefariously or not is beside the point. These patterns still reveal themselves and are brought out.
[00:32:19] Speaker D: Is AI becoming the new capital, though? Because it's got all the fun jobs? It's got the fun job, yeah, it's taking all the fun job. It does art now, fantastic art, and writes books.
[00:32:30] Speaker E: Well, I'm really pro the make it.
[00:32:34] Speaker A: So that nobody has to work.
[00:32:36] Speaker D: It's going to be the doctors and the lawyers and the engineers or whatever, like all the fun stuff. I'm such an engineer. All the fun ones, like engineering. But that's the thing. Leah's an artist. Can you imagine? You know what I mean? Like, all these things, and then all the humans are going to be the ones in the coal mines and shoveling.
[00:32:54] Speaker E: Well, the argument is that they'll take such an amount of jobs away and not all the fun ones. Things like the coal mine, too, right? And then everything, you're going to have to pay people universal wages just to be here, which is kind of a little bit exciting for me, because then you can be an artist and not have to rely on being an artist to make the money because you're already.
[00:33:17] Speaker D: I feel like that's an ideal situation that people talk about generation that the people in power of our governments wouldn't just be like, let's all be equal. The people who are funding the politicians, the billionaires and stuff, being like, hey, I don't want to make the same wage as everybody. I mean, I'm an optimist sometimes, but not when it comes to human nature.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: But one of the things this guy that was being interviewed, not The Godfather, it was another guy who worked in AI, and she's like, Is it true? Do you think it's going to be the end of the human race? And he said, yes, what he said is completely true. He's like, what people don't understand, they think AI is like surrey and all these things and it's part of it. He's like, but the supercomputers that we have now are solving problems that we don't know how to solve and coming up with answers without giving us how it solved it.
[00:34:06] Speaker D: So they're literally making no more than.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Us already and we don't know how they got to those conclusions even though the answers are correct. So he's like, we feed problems we can't solve into it. It gives us an answer. We use it to already making the power balance off. And he's like, and we've just started it's. Every day it's getting smarter and smarter and smarter to these supercomputers. We should be very scared. We should take it seriously now.
[00:34:33] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: Little do we know that the missing information, like the formula they won't share with us is like, destroy the human race plus this, plus that.
[00:34:43] Speaker D: Yeah, right.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Then everything's fine.
[00:34:46] Speaker D: How do we solve global warming?
[00:34:48] Speaker B: Kill all humans.
[00:34:50] Speaker D: Okay, great. Okay. We'll just let them destroy each other.
Because my questions always make our conversations not hilarious.
Let's talk about something very depressing.
[00:35:07] Speaker E: Yeah, sorry, it's thought provoking.
[00:35:08] Speaker D: Anyway, though, can't help.
[00:35:10] Speaker E: I do enjoy that. It's better than not having anything to say. Definitely drove a good solid portion of content.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: We should go through and say we recommend the book.
[00:35:20] Speaker D: Okay, I'm going to go first because I know what I'm going to say. I have recommended the book and I hadn't read it before. Before book interrupted talking to somebody who had just started the Twilight series and they're like, oh, do you recommend that book? And I was like, yeah. The Hunger Games was kind of like, did I say this already in the.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: Last one action movie? Yep, I sure did.
[00:35:38] Speaker D: So I would recommend it and I've read all the books, even the new.
[00:35:41] Speaker E: One, The Ballad of Song, to it.
[00:35:44] Speaker D: But I consider that reading. So yes. Yeah, it's fun. Great. Leah? Yeah.
[00:35:50] Speaker C: I think I would recommend it to someone after they disclosed the type of books or entertainment they like, I think it's specific. This is not a book for everybody.
I guess that being said, what book is yeah, I wouldn't have a problem recommending it.
[00:36:09] Speaker D: Glowing. What's?
[00:36:11] Speaker B: Your apprehension? The violence.
[00:36:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I didn't love it. I like the movies. The book was better than the movies. I don't know.
[00:36:19] Speaker D: I didn't love it. I didn't love it. So you don't you're just like neutral.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: You didn't love it.
[00:36:24] Speaker D: Neutral.
[00:36:24] Speaker C: I'm medium, yeah, but I don't hate it.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: Well, this was the first time that.
[00:36:28] Speaker E: You read the book and you're neutral.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: She's either I liked it or not liked it. This is your first neutral, I think.
[00:36:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm pretty neutral on it, which is I'm surprised. Yeah, I'm usually pretty decisive, but that's my answer is, sure, I'd recommend it.
[00:36:44] Speaker D: Sure, why not? Whatever.
[00:36:45] Speaker E: Neither here nor there.
Kim so if I don't get too serious, then I totally recommend the book. I think it's a great read. It's super entertaining and just a really cool concept. But then if I put on my serious hat and pretend like it's a nonfiction or notice all the ways that it mirrors the world or whatever, then I'm like, well, maybe you don't want to read it. Like, it is about kids killing each other. I get why it was banned or whatever, but the concept of kids killing each other as a fan, I'm like, OOH, that's going to be different. How are they going to get out of that?
[00:37:22] Speaker D: Right?
[00:37:22] Speaker E: That pulls me in. But if I think about it, like, oh, what if kids really killed each other? Obviously, I'm not pro that. So depending on if we're looking at it politically or just for entertainment, I'm going to go on the entertainment side and say, yeah, I totally recommend it. It was a really great series. I love the stories, and I'm just talking about book one. I will recommend book one. I will withhold any opinions about the rest of the series.
[00:37:47] Speaker D: They all blend in for me, except for, I guess the third one.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's because it's a cliffhanger. Yeah, like, the end of the first book is a cliffhanger for the second book, and the second book has a cliffhanger for the third.
[00:38:00] Speaker D: So does anybody else want to be friends with Sinna? Her leg? Yes. Her stylist.
[00:38:05] Speaker E: He seems great casting.
[00:38:08] Speaker D: I was just going to say that.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: They picked the best casting for him.
[00:38:11] Speaker C: Yeah, he's so cool. He's just so sexy and so cool. He's not even reverse aging. He just doesn't change.
He's just capsuleized in hot coolness.
[00:38:21] Speaker D: Hot coolness.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: Yeah, Lenny Kravitz.
[00:38:23] Speaker E: Hot coolness.
[00:38:24] Speaker D: Oh, I didn't know who that was.
[00:38:26] Speaker C: Oh, in the movie?
[00:38:27] Speaker D: Yeah. I also want to be friends with Lenny Kravitz. If he's out there.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: So, you know, the whole experience of reading versus watching versus reading versus watching, like the back and forth and back and forth, I had the same experience reading the book to the characters the first time, like, not liking PETA, basically. But then the second time I did like him, and it was probably because I remembered him from the first movie. You know what I mean? Like, I wasn't as upset about it. I was like, okay, this is who they are. I'm used to it.
[00:38:56] Speaker C: Yeah. For as much as some of the casting I felt was off a lot, actually more of the casting was really on.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: That was true. It's really just PETA.
[00:39:04] Speaker D: Yeah, it's just PETA. Yeah, it's just really PETA. He did a great job because it.
[00:39:09] Speaker C: Had to be a different hamage as Woody Harrelson. Perfect.
[00:39:12] Speaker D: Woody Harrelson with his hair. So he's great.
[00:39:15] Speaker C: Yeah, he's so gross.
[00:39:18] Speaker D: He's so good. He does such a good job at Hamid.
[00:39:20] Speaker C: What is her name? The character? Effie.
[00:39:23] Speaker B: Effie.
[00:39:24] Speaker C: That actress. Amanda Banks.
[00:39:26] Speaker D: Something.
[00:39:26] Speaker C: Banks. Elizabeth Banks.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: Yeah, Elizabeth is right.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Elizabeth is right.
[00:39:31] Speaker D: She did a great job. Just such a great job.
[00:39:33] Speaker C: I mean, her character gets more and more revealed through the books or through the movies, rather. But I thought she was pretty good.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: Yeah, she was good. So I recommend the book. I enjoyed reading it the second time just as much as I enjoyed reading it the first time. There was different things in the book that I forgot because of the movies. And that happens to me every time I enjoy a book or a book series. And then I watch the movies over and over because I like them. Then I completely forget things in the book. So I like those little things that were revealed that were different. It was almost like a secret I had forgotten. So I like that. I realize I like reading a book, watching a movie and then reading the book again. So I might do that more often.
Yeah, I'd recommend it. It is super violent. I agree with Leah. That's why I asked if she was cold on recommending it because of the violence in it.
[00:40:21] Speaker C: I'm very pro violence.
[00:40:25] Speaker D: She's a monster, but she's a terrible babysitter. Yeah, or a really good one.
[00:40:36] Speaker E: You only need to use her once.
[00:40:42] Speaker D: But Sarah does not like violence.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: I guess I don't generally like books that are violent. Yeah, it was entertaining. Every chapter was a cliffhanger, so it's not that I didn't mind the violence.
[00:40:54] Speaker D: But it also made you feel hopeful.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: For the characters that you cared about. But I cried. There's moments in the book I cried.
[00:41:00] Speaker D: When horrible things happen, but like, is that a surprise? I cry at most books, even some books that aren't that sad.
[00:41:06] Speaker E: What parts are cry worthy in this book?
[00:41:09] Speaker B: When she sang to Rue, everything was and she tried to do the things for Rue before the helicopter came or.
[00:41:15] Speaker D: Even when Jess found her and all happened.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I cried.
[00:41:21] Speaker D: Like that whole thing.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: I just was bawling.
[00:41:23] Speaker D: And my kids are like, what's happening? I'm like, Just let me read it. I have to get through this part and I can't stop now.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: But, yeah, I would recommend the book. Anything in the book you guys want to mention that we didn't talk about before we close off and go to the giver?
[00:41:38] Speaker E: I just want to talk about how I have this weird I don't know if it's because I'm concerned that people are going to judge me or something when we're talking about violence and stuff. And he's like, I like violence. So do sometimes. I like kill Bill because it's kill Bill and part of kill Bill.
[00:41:53] Speaker D: Right.
[00:41:54] Speaker C: Also, it's stylized violence in that movie that is particularly fantastic.
[00:42:00] Speaker E: Yeah, right.
Experience for you where it's like, can I own my love of violence in that context, or is that bad?
[00:42:12] Speaker D: You're loving, like, fiction.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I like the Matrix, and it's super violent.
[00:42:17] Speaker D: Like, it's fiction. Right? It'd be different. If you loved real life violence, that'd be strange.
[00:42:23] Speaker E: Well, fair, because that's even like when I was giving my recommendation just a minute ago, I was like, what do I say? What do I say? Because I know both sides of these arguments and it's like, I don't want to be banned.
[00:42:33] Speaker D: We're going to ban you.
[00:42:36] Speaker E: Totally.
[00:42:38] Speaker D: I wish we had the graphics bonk. Yeah.
[00:42:41] Speaker E: To get it right now.
[00:42:43] Speaker D: I love how we both saw that in her mind's eye at the same time. Banned.
[00:42:47] Speaker C: Almost everything, I think, has two sides.
[00:42:50] Speaker D: Everything.
[00:42:51] Speaker C: Sometimes more love visually, artistic or stylized reading, like how they describe the violence sometimes can be too much. There's all styles, I guess. It's all entertainment.
[00:43:02] Speaker E: It's a whole other can of worms. We cannot I feel like we're winding this episode down, so I won't.
[00:43:09] Speaker D: Yeah, we're winding down the ledger way slowly.
[00:43:15] Speaker E: Just going to slide out of.
[00:43:19] Speaker D: This.
[00:43:20] Speaker B: Interruption is brought to you by unpublished do you want to know more about the members in Book Interrupted? Go behind the scenes. Visit our website at WW bookinterrupted.com.
[00:43:33] Speaker A: Book Interrupted.
[00:43:35] Speaker C: Hi, guys. It's Leah. I'm excited to be joining the crew to be reading The Hunger Games with y'all for season three of Book Interrupted. I can't wait to see everyone's shiny little faces and get back into it. Hope you're enjoying the book and I'll talk to you soon.
Bye.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Book Interrupted.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: It's book report time. We're going to find out from each member their final thoughts and do they recommend the book? Let's listen.
[00:44:08] Speaker C: Hello. This is my book report or PJ. Two for Hunger Games.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:17] Speaker C: Oh, God.
I haven't done this in a while. So Hunger Games was okay. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. As we spoke a little bit in the group chat, I'm kind of neutral about it. I had seen the movies years ago but had not read the books. And having read the first book, that was kind of like confusing to my brain because I think I really liked the imaginative part of reading a book and imagining the characters. But I did it in reverse or reverse for me where I kind of went into it with Katniss as Jennifer Lawrence and PETA's character as oh, shoot, I forget his name. Anyways, you know what I'm talking about. So I think most of all the casting was pretty spot on. But some of it, it didn't align for me, especially PETA's character. It just felt like in the book then described a different being altogether. But that's pretty minor. All things considered. I think the book is great. I think it's very of a time. It might feel a little young for me now and I didn't get a ton out of it. I think more so than the book having any flaws. It just didn't land with me and where I'm at. So it's a good book. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to a certain person who's looking for a certain experience. But I didn't love it either. It didn't make me want to read the second book at all. I did, however, follow up the book with rewatching all the movies consecutively over a week, which was a fun little thing to do with my husband. So that was good.
They do a great job with Costuming in that movie. Whoever the costume designer is nailed it. So that's all I got to say about that. And it's been a pleasure sharing and reading and talking about this book with you guys. And I'll see you again sooner than later, I hope. Okay, bye.
[00:46:22] Speaker D: So I enjoyed The Hunger Games. This was my first time reading it. I didn't read it when it first came out. I saw the movies, however, or at least the first movie. I'm not even sure if I saw the other movies or not back then, but I have now. I've read not only the first one, but I end up reading all the books, not just the first three, which would be The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mocking J. And now there's a fourth book, which is a prequel that's called The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, I believe. Anyway, the point is, I read them all. They were very entertaining. I enjoyed them a lot. So we talked a lot about some of the things I've been thinking about with this story already in the group discussions. But the one thing I wanted to say that we didn't really have time for, so I didn't bring up was the idea of purpose. The people in the district don't seem to be living a life of purpose, so they're surrounded by entertainment, and they funnel their purpose into other things, maybe more material things, like, I guess, how they look. They dye their skin like green or have different tattoos and fancy clothes and enjoying fancy meals. And I believe it was at the second book they went to a banquet, and there was even these little glasses that you could drink so you could throw up, so that you could taste all the food. So really focusing energy into indulging. And I don't know if that's everybody in The Capitol or just characters that are in the story that are closer to The Hunger Games or not. But anyway, that's the impression you get at The Capitol. And then you have the people in the districts who have to work for the capital, whether it's mining coal or whatever, but their life has purpose because they don't have enough to eat, for example, and they're trying to stay alive and keep their children alive. But because of that, they have to work harder on that. So in a way, that almost gives their life purpose, their relationships and being themselves in spite of all the oppression from The Capitol. And one can see that in Cadnus Everdine, the main character, where she has a great sense of purpose because she's trying to keep her family alive. She goes off and learns how to hunt and she catches game, and she has all these important relationships in the community because of that, to trade the food that she's gathered or hunted. And then also in the books afterwards, what you see is the Victor wins. The Hunger Games are expected to have like a hobby or something that takes up their time. And I think that's almost like the Capital's way to impose a sense of purpose. Now you have to funnel all the energy you used in staying alive in the districts into something else. So PETA does painting and Know kind of chooses one. That's not really what it is, but it's interesting because it's almost like there's an understanding from the Capitol that if the Victors don't have a sense of purpose, then it's going to affect them in a way that they can't control. So they say you have to have something to funnel your purpose through. I'm not sure why that's why they do it, or just so they're entertaining and marketable, but I think it makes you reflect on your own sense of purpose. As we surround ourselves with luxuries that make our lives easier, like dishwashers and cars and whatever, getting food at the supermarket, do we lose some sense of who we are? So an animal that needs to survive and be able to feed ourselves and keep ourselves warm and stuff like that, is that where having too much stuff can lead to depression or a sense of being unfulfilled in life? Is it because we don't have that sense of purpose? I don't know. I haven't really finished what I think about that, so I'm just going to leave it at that. But beyond that, it was just very entertaining. I read it very quickly, and I would recommend it for anybody who wants something that's a light read about children dying.
It doesn't sound like a light read, but it does seem very fictional, I suppose, the way it's written. So that's it.
[00:50:33] Speaker A: Hello, everybody.
As many of you may remember, I didn't like rereading it in the beginning. I don't know what it was about. I don't know if it's because I knew it was going to get going and get good, and I just was irritated with having to go through all the setup stuff. The part that I didn't like was when she was originally in District Twelve and it was just literally setting the stage because I already knew it, I guess. But I don't understand why. Maybe it was more exciting once we got into the Games. Even once she got to the Capitol, even once the reaping was over, I was basically back in. I read it so fast and I loved it. So I was really pleasantly surprised to find out that if you reread a book, it can still be good. So now I'm thinking about all these other books I might want to reread. Which ones, I don't know, but I'm now open to it. Whereas before it wouldn't cross my mind to reread a book, it's done next.
So I'm really excited that that was my experience because I honestly really felt like this was going to be a chore. And if my setup wasn't so difficult to set up, I would have hopped on and done a real time first personal journal and it would have sounded something like, I don't want to do this.
But I'm happy to report that that changed quickly once the game started and I really enjoyed it again. Maybe even twice as much I want to watch the movie again. And that's an interesting point actually, because just because it didn't cross my mind.
[00:52:05] Speaker E: Maybe because it takes effort.
[00:52:06] Speaker A: Why don't I want to reread books? Especially if it was a good book that I enjoyed. I'll watch movies more than once, like a movie that I like, I'll definitely watch again, but I think it's because it takes less time. It literally might just come down to a time investment.
[00:52:19] Speaker D: But again, if I liked it, that's.
[00:52:20] Speaker A: Not a waste of time. I would arguably enjoy it, as we've seen here with The Hunger Games. Who knows? I'm just an enigma. I just don't even know why I do what I do. So take it or leave it. I ended my last personal journal a little bit prematurely, so I just wanted to add on. I've thought about it. Some books that I want to reread. I definitely want to reread Twilight, especially since Sarah has recently become obsessed with it. I really like that book. Anyway, like those books. So I'm thinking that I'll reread those and a million little pieces. That's another book that I'm thinking I might reread. What else? Maybe that's it for now. Twilight just popped into my mind right after I stopped recording. So I just wanted to give you guys a quick update. That's how fast my brain works. Okay, bye.
[00:53:08] Speaker F: This is Ashley's book report for The Hunger Games. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the recording for the podcast episode just due to some personal reasons. But I do want to give my final book report and review because I love this book and I was so excited to read it again and just be part of these episodes. But first, for anyone that's watching on YouTube or sees any of our clips, I am wearing some really cool eye pieces. They're eye decal stickers and they're in the shape of flames. They're from a brand called Holowise that are indigenous women owned, which is absolutely amazing. And I just thought it was cool because it's like the Girl on Fire and people in the capitol dress really crazy. And so I wanted to do that with my makeup. So I love them, I'm having fun with them and I hope if you're watching, you also like them. So just to jump into the book. I finished reading it almost immediately after we finished recording our last episode because it's so hard to put this book down. I think it's really hard not to read this all in one sitting, which I ended up doing with Catching Fire immediately after I finished The Hunger Games. Like I said when we did the first episode for this book, I do think Katniss can be really annoying, and sometimes that's hard to read. Sometimes I just think she's whiny. But throughout the book there's just so much happening. It feels like such a dystopian world that you're just reading so quickly. Honestly, I really kind of got over that after the first quarter of the book. And I think also now that I'm older, I kind of empathize with her. She is going through these life or death situations, super life changing, and she's struggling. Of course she's going to be whiny, so I completely understand where she's coming from and I get that. But I do want to mention that I kind of love how gruesome and cruel this book can be. Some of the details are just insane in how they come out. Like, I really like Snow and his white roses, and that kind of plays like a theme throughout all of the books and all of the movies. So I like that those seeds are being planted now because there's just such a big payoff. So I really appreciate that. I think the world building had a lot of thought put into it, and even when I was reading it, I could picture it. But the one thing I do wish is I wish somewhere in the book, in the front or something like that, or in the back, there was a page just dedicated to actually showing like a map of Pan Am. Because I remember when I read this first as a teenager, I had no idea, I could not understand where each district was in comparison to the Capital, in comparison to the world that we have now. So that's something I really wish, and I've seen a lot of people online in reviews also say that, but I have also seen that you can Google it really quickly to get an idea of what the actual layout looks like, but that's kind of annoying. You want that in the book. So I think that's one of my only complaints about the books. I do appreciate the representation of people with disabilities. The fact that gets his leg gets hurt and he loses his leg and Katniss is hard of hearing afterwards. I think that's really real, that's in a game where people are murdering each other, chances are you're not going to get out with no injury. So I thought that was really nice to see and interesting to read and kind of the struggles when Katniss and PETA are moving through the forest and they're trying to be as quiet as possible, but PETA. Can't because his leg is so messed up and he's just making a bunch of noise. So there's just those type of details that really make it feel real when you're reading, and I love that so much. Again, each chapter has so much action. Sometimes it really does feel like reading an action movie, and the movies feel action, too. I like that. I appreciate it. Would I recommend this book?
[00:57:25] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:57:26] Speaker F: 110% yes. I already recommend this book to anyone and everyone. The fact that it was banned in part due to that it promotes people to question authority and their government really shows how fragile our society is, just like The Capitol. And I also think that the parallels at times can be kind of scary because it really makes you begin to realize how closely we are to the world inside of Panhem, even though we don't think we are. We feel like it's such a crazy, futuristic world, but there's so many things that we're currently doing, just like The Hunger Games. So I don't agree with the banning of this book. I think it really fosters young readers'curiosity, but it's still digestible and really entertaining, and I think it does make you want to read the rest of the books again. I remember when I first read this, I immediately went and bought the whole series. After reading this one, I went and read Catching Fire, and I rewatched the movies. I love it. The book itself gets a 4.5 out of five for me, but the movie itself gets a five out of five, and then the series together get a five out of five for me. So love the Hunger Games. I'm so excited that we got to read it, and I hope that our listeners are also reading it or they're interested enough in starting it, because I don't think anyone would be disappointed reading this. So, cheers.
[00:58:54] Speaker B: All right, this is my final book report for The Hunger Games. I'm recording it for the second time because I ended up rambling on about the second book unintentionally. So let's talk about this book. I would highly recommend this book. It's excellent. It's just like Meredith said, it reads like an action movie. Every chapter is a cliffhanger. I read it just as fast the second time during this book cycle as I did the first time. I think I've read all three books in a week the first time. This one I think I read in, like, three or four days. Why I started going on about the second book is Ashley mentioned that the second book was her favorite book. And I also agree there's so much more that goes on the second book. If you haven't read the second book and you've been reading along with us, I highly recommend getting the second book. It's just as enjoyable, if not more. This book has to go into describing the world that they live in in Panam, and the hunger Games and what that is. So the second book doesn't really have to do that, so it's even more action packed. A couple things about this book I wanted to mention is there are discrepancies very slight between the movie and the book. For instance, they have her sister give her The Mocking J, and in the book they describe The Mocking J a little bit more and it comes from the Mayor's daughter instead, which in my mind implies that the entire district Twelve is kind of behind Cactus and also how that mayor's daughter kind of feels separate because her father has food and resources that the other people don't. But that moment shows they're all just as miserable being in Twelve, even though they have food and whatever. I think they also show a lot more of Gail and Cactus's relationship and how that came about. So I like that as well. They talk about her father a lot in the book and how he really influenced who she is and why maybe her mother checked out when he died and he died in a coal mining accident. If you only watch the movie and are listening to the podcast and think, well, I don't really need to read the book, there's a lot in the book that paints the world and the person Cactus is, but it also gives more texture to each character, I would say, and her relationship with her world. And also it shows how she's a little bit paranoid, right? She doesn't really trust anyone. And in the movie, I don't think they do a really good example of showing how she doesn't trust anyone because she doesn't trust Peter at all. She doesn't trust anyone. So that's very interesting. So I highly suggest this book and recommend it, and I recommend reading all three. But the second book is excellent, so definitely read that if you haven't. And the movies are really good. I know that oftentimes you think they've ruined the book with the movie. This one's really good. There's some things that you're like. PETA's not really the best choice in casting, but generally speaking, they do a really good job in the movie depicting the book. All right, so I guess we're off.
[01:02:08] Speaker D: To the next book.
[01:02:10] Speaker B: Another band, Book Dystopia, coming up with the giver. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Book Interrupted. If you'd like to see the video highlights from this episode, please go to our YouTube channel, Book Interrupted. You can also find our videos on www.bookinterrupted.com.
[01:02:29] Speaker C: Have a listen to our off the shelf episodes. These are the silly, fun and weird wonderful things we do when we get off queue. So listen to our off the shelf episodes to hear more and more from us. The book interrupted crew. I think you'll love it and I know you'll laugh.
[01:02:50] Speaker B: Moments you can look forward to on the next Book Interrupted. We are going to take the Hunger Games quiz.
[01:02:57] Speaker D: I'm probably going to hide.
[01:02:58] Speaker B: Maybe form an alliance first. I am very trusting.
[01:03:01] Speaker C: I'm going to go with the super specific.
[01:03:04] Speaker D: I'll be the second one dead. You're not going to go with sarcastic for Sarah?
[01:03:09] Speaker C: Well, I assume I'll be dehydrated from crying.
[01:03:13] Speaker E: I'm a tie between rejection and death, I think.
[01:03:17] Speaker D: I feel like mine is like super vain, but I'm going to go with I fear nothing.
[01:03:21] Speaker C: Mine's bad.
[01:03:22] Speaker D: Mine's real bad.
[01:03:23] Speaker E: Mine's real bad.
[01:03:26] Speaker D: You lucky bitch.
[01:03:27] Speaker E: You're so hot right now.
[01:03:28] Speaker A: Book interrupted.
Never forget, every child matters.
