WWRW: Some Rereads and A New To Me

Well this week was a busy one for me.

I began the week by rereading Divergent and Insurgent by Veronica Roth. The third and final book comes out next Tuesday so I was reading them in preparation.

So... Divergent, if you haven't already read them, is another one of those teeny dystopic trilogies. The first movie comes out in March. I have mentioned before in passing that the concept is the most interesting to me. In many of the similar books, the characters are being led by their society and government and wind up rebelling against the world in an ultimate power struggle.

In Divergent the characters are in a destroyed Chicago split into 5 groups based on archetype.  (Honesty, Bravery, Selflessness, Knowledge and Peaceful.) When the children of the society reach 16 they are tested and told which section they would best benefit. Here's where it gets interesting though, every individual can either choose to stay with their families or pick a different group to live with forever. The very fact that Roth let her world have some choices made it different.

In this series, Divergent is pretty good. It has the same training progression that Hunger Games had into the beginnings of the revolution you know is coming. There's the same relationship aspect and violence aspect that you would expect by this type of series. Insurgent gets a little messy with the revolution and at times is hard to follow. But like ALL of these series, I'm now invested and I have to know how it ends.

If you haven't read these books, the series will be complete on Tuesday. And the movie comes out in March. I like to read books before I see movies. That way I can be good and disappointed in the adaptation. I am already sure to dislike the movie because the main character is played by the actress from ABC Family's Secret Life of the American Teenager. And well... nobody on that show could act. But I'll see the movie anyway.

Also this week I jumped into another Jessica recommendation, and for realsies it is incredibly thought provoking. I am pretty sure I have found my book soul mate.

So anyway, I read Outliers by Malcom Gladwell and oh my gosh. I don't even know what to say. It basically is a probing non-fiction book to look at the common factors that make certain people extraordinary. It's so obvious and yet so much is based on small factors that we really have little control over.

This is not a cuddle up and read it all in one sitting kind of book. Unless it is for you, I guess I don't know your reading preferences. But for me, with the numbers and situations, especially in part 2, I couldn't digest more than a chapter or 2 at a time. There's a really interesting look at airline crashes and while it was fascinating it was a lot to chew on so I needed to ruminate on it for a few hours before I could keep going.

But don't let this deter you. It's a book well worth reading.

Linking myself up to Jessica over in her corner of blog world for another edition of What We're Reading Wednesday. So I wonder... what are you reading?

Not related to what I am reading but in answer to the question what am I watching or really what did you watch, the answer is Gravity. I went last night with my friend to take advantage of $5 movie Tuesdays. Which is an event I don't go to often. In fact the last time I went it was to see The Heat. In case you're curious, it is not a coincidence that they are both Sandra Bullock movies. I just really love her. 

So in case Gravity was on your list of maybe go sees I'll say this with no spoilers: I liked it up until the end. Really. Up until the last 5 minutes I was a fan of the movie. I got it. I understood all the award jabbering. 

I will say in fairness, I put absolutely ZERO stock in ANY award because A Beautiful Mind won Best Picture once and I can never get those hours of my life back. And then we had to watch it in math class one year because math wasn't already my least favorite hour in the history of ever. But even still, I got why everyone said Gravity was good. Until the end. It was a good movie.

We wound up seeing it in 3D. I don't think either of us realized that movie time was a 3D showing, and normally 3D makes me a little sick. The 3D previews did and I was really regretting the movie choice but then it actually started... and it wasn't sickening at all. It was very very pleasant.  So it has that going for it as well. 

Have a delightful Wednesday.