Oh. My. God. Y'all.

Finally, the third installment of The Hunger Games has been revealed!

Isn't it beautiful? *gazes up with dopey eyes* It'll be release 8-24-10, so get your amazon pre-order in now, lol!

Yes, I know I'm thirty and this is a YA series, but I've possibly gotten more joy out of Collins' Hunger Games books than any other series I've read recently, YA or otherwise. Her style has definitely inspired my own writing, especially recently. What does it say that I've got a teetering tbr pile of books, but all I reach for when I want to relax in the tub is The Hunger Games.

Okay, so maybe it's not relaxing, exactly, but it's so easy to immerse yourself into her writing, so it has that escapist appeal I look for in a bathtub read. ;)

I knew it had been optioned, but this USA today article confirms a wonderful rumor I heard:

"Collins is finishing her screenplay of The Hunger Games, the first book."

Sweet. It's already got a bare-bones imdb page, too.

Whose work has been inspiring your own lately?

Dying for a good read?

I know I'm not the first to plug Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, but I'm sure I won't be the last. Like everyone else who's read it, I can't help but share what I loved about it.
In an effort to keep myself well-read, I'm going to try to do this every Thursday. Suggest a book and give five reasons to read it. Nothing spoilerific, obviously, but just to nudge anyone who might be on the fence. So here it is, the first ever:

Five Reasons to Read this Book; The Hunger Games

1. For a heroine that guys can relate to just as easily as girls. This is rare in YA, IMO.

2. For the little details that just stay with me: Katniss, the girl who was on fire, the bread from District 11, the costumes, the muttations... I still see them as if I'd been watching the Hunger Games myself on a television screen.

3. For the great balance of internal and external motivation and conflict the MC experiences from the beginning of the book, all the way to the last sentence. I felt sympathetic to Katniss immediately. And I had tears in my eyes at least once a chapter.

4. For being quite possibly the most intriguing dystopian novel I've read in years. The societal separations were way too believable. Scary. This book immerses the reader in a world both foreign and familiar. Which makes the things that happen there that much more believable...

5. For its masterful use of first person present. So good I only noticed the immediacy of the story, not the tense itself.

I hope I've managed to lead some potential readers to District 12, lol.
Other Hunger Games lovers? Feel free to add your own spoiler-free reasons to read this book.

Next week, Dust of 100 Dogs, by A.S. King.