Random header image... Refresh for more!

478th Friday Blog Roundup

The ChickieNob asked me a question I couldn’t answer, so I pass it along to you.  Who is this?

Harry Potter Who

It’s a playing card from her Good and Evil Harry Potter set.  I’ve seen all the movies six dozen times, but I am completely blanking on ever seeing this actor in any film.  And beyond that, that he’s an important enough character to be included in the deck.  I mean, poor Justin Finch-Fletchley doesn’t have a card, and that boy was petrified by a basilisk.  But this guy is the three of hearts?

No, really, who is he?

By the way, this set is the worst idea ever.  We’re only on book five, so the cards are a bit of a spoiler.  And anyway, the whole point of the series is that all of us have these good and bad impulses, and it’s up to us to decide which way we’re going to go.  And that it’s never too late to do the right thing.  I’m looking at you, Narcissa.  To mark them as good or evil flattens out dynamic, complicated characters.

So… right.  Anyway, who is this guy?  I’m guessing someone at the Ministry?  Or in the Order?

*******

Finally started Mockingjay.  Unlike the other two books, this one hasn’t grown on me yet.  It may be because the setting is so dreary.  Whereas in the other two books, the setting added interest to the plotline.  I’m sticking with it to the end, but I’m not devouring it like I did the first two.

I’ve heard that kids hate Mockingjay and adults appreciate Mockingjay because while it isn’t the satisfyingly happy ending we crave, it’s the more realistic ending.  Trying to figure out where I’ll fall on the likey/no likey spectrum.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

Okay, now my choices this week.

Only Nuts in May could make life going ass-over-teakettle sound both amusing and horrifying at the same time.  As they wait to start their FET, her hormones mess with her mind in a way that only hormones can.  Sending her good thoughts on her FET as well as a tongue lashing to Cute Ute to stash its vile personality as they embark on the cycle.

River Runs Dry has a post about marathon training that could soooooo easily be a stand-in for cycling in general.  How that failed cycle can throw off your confidence, make you second guess your next decisions.  She writes, “Because the fact is, running a marathon is an exercise in happiness AND pain. It hurts and you ache and you wonder why you’re doing it in the first place. Distance running is about how you get through discomfort to find a place of contentment.”  Could we not say the same thing about assisted family building?  Love the honesty of this post.  She needs to know we are cheering her on.

I didn’t see the movie but The Road Less Travelled made me wish I had seen Inside Llewyn Davis in her post tying the film into living child-free after infertility and loss.  She writes: “I know a little something about loss & grief, about not achieving your dreams. I know that my story doesn’t exactly shout success and hope, at least in conventional story terms and triumph-over-infertility narratives. But that doesn’t mean that I consider myself a loser, someone whose life is ‘shrinking, hope diminishing, aspiration dissolving… ghosts and disappointment… not meeting the challenge of life’.”  Wonderful post.

Lastly, It is What It is (or is it) has an eye-opening post about searching for her birth-father, which is really about finding herself.  I especially love the insight she gives with: “It is really hard to explain the juxtaposition between how badly I want to know who he is/what his life story is and how paralyzed I feel to actually do the searching.”  It’s a beautiful post that captures that strong need to know something.

The roundup to the Roundup: Who is that on the card?  In the middle of Mockingjay.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 17th and January 24th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

20 comments

1 bleu { 01.24.14 at 8:33 am }
2 Kasey { 01.24.14 at 9:22 am }

I’m part of the no likey for Mokingjay. In fact sign me up for I hated it lol.

3 sarah { 01.24.14 at 9:37 am }

Oooh, that actor looks so familiar, but I can’t place him either!
Hunger Games was a funny trilogy. I probably liked the first book most, but really, I found the whole thing to be poorly written. Don’t get me wrong, I devoured it! The plot was awesome, the concept behind it was brilliant and compelling, but the writing itself was hackneyed and lazy. The love triangle part felt forced to me and didn’t add much. Yeah, yeah, it’s young adult lit so it gets a free pass…So I’m totally digging the movies, they smooth out the actual writing of the book, plus it is such an epic, visual story tha t I think the cinema suits it well. Can’t wait to see Mockingjay in the theater!

4 Sharon { 01.24.14 at 10:15 am }

I loved the first two Hunger Games books and did not like Mockingjay, for a variety of reasons not limited to the ending. No spoilers, so I will leave it at that. . . though I’d be happy to discuss in more detail once you’ve finished the book. 🙂

5 Elisha { 01.24.14 at 10:22 am }

I loved the first two books but had trouble with the last two. :/ I am so behind, I have only seen the first movie. yikes!

6 Elizabeth { 01.24.14 at 10:38 am }

I went into Mockingjay having read somewhere that it reflects the reality of PTSD that people who have been in war experience, and that really made a lot of sense to me reading it. I actually loved the whole series, but then when it comes to fiction I’m not really very picky at all. Overall, I really liked how the author understands dimensions of power – coercion, resistance, subversion, and the symbolic aspects of it as much as everything else.
I waste a lot of time looking at Hunger Games fan art on the web 🙂
No idea who the guy on the card is.

7 loribeth { 01.24.14 at 10:58 am }

Thanks for the shoutout, Mel! 🙂 While I have mixed feelings about the movie (which I describe in the post), I’ve found myself returning to think about it several times since we’ve seen it — and not all movies do that.

I find it difficult to separate Mockingjay from the rest of the trilogy, since I read all the books one after the other. I can understand why people might not like it and the ending. While there is a happy ending of sorts, it’s not an entirely conventional happy ending — there are shadows. There’s a lot of cynicism about politics and power, governments and leaders, and the media, that reflects the cynicism in our own world today.

8 Katie { 01.24.14 at 12:18 pm }

I’m not sure about how I “liked” the last book. All I can say is that it truly haunted me for several days afterwords and left me very unsettled.

9 Jenn Porter { 01.24.14 at 1:30 pm }

I loved Mockingjay. I loved them all. But I loved Mockingjay the most. It taught me a lot about myself and our culture. 🙂

10 Esperanza { 01.24.14 at 2:10 pm }

Wow! For the first time EVER I’d already read ALL of the posts both in the open thread and in your round up. The ALI blogosphere must be getting smaller…

I really liked Mockingjay. It’s not as glamorous as the first two books (and I think in the end Catching Fire remains my favorite) but I really like the issues it tackles and I appreciated the ending. I hope it grows on you as you read through it and I hope you like the ending…

11 Vanessa { 01.24.14 at 2:28 pm }

Gregorovitch

http://hpcelebration.tumblr.com/page/12

Leave it to a Harry Potter challenge to de-lurk me. I’ve been reading your blog for years.

12 Turia { 01.24.14 at 2:55 pm }

I read all three books really close together so I don’t have a clear memory of them as distinct entities. I did enjoy them, but in a “hey this is a good light read for the weekend” kind of way- they didn’t really stick with me.

There were two posts over at Grounded Parents this week that I thought spoke to the ALI world. The first is about adoption: http://groundedparents.com/2014/01/20/you-and-your-damn-babies/ and the second is about micro preemies: http://groundedparents.com/2014/01/22/abortion_preemies/

13 Kimberly { 01.24.14 at 3:15 pm }

I had a hard time with mocking jay at first. It didn’t have the same tempo as the other books. It took me twice to start it and stay with it, but once I got to a certain part, I was hooked and powered through it in one reading.

14 Bionic { 01.24.14 at 3:22 pm }

I recently reread all three books, and Mockingjay really grew on me. It’s darker and less “fun” to read than the others — if books about kids killing each other can be said to be fun — but I don’t think it is less good. I think a lot of the negative responses I heard and, to be honest, to some extent felt when reading it the first time have to do with the complexity that ultimately makes the book better than it would be if it were satisfying in a more surface way. (Sorry for the vagueness; trying to avoid spoilers.) I was much more satisfied this time that those parts, while more difficult in a sense than other ways I could imagine the same setups being resolved, had a real depth to them. There’s still one scene/turning point I think could use slightly better explanation, but when I think about it from a technical standpoint, I see where the clarity I would like would undermine the construction of later, related scenes. That one drove me nuts the first time I read it, but I was less bothered this time.

15 May { 01.24.14 at 6:10 pm }

Thank you very much for the mention. I appreciate it hugely.

16 Buttermilk { 01.24.14 at 11:08 pm }

I am ignorant of all things Harry Potter.

I was inspired by this post at Work is for Suckers: http://workisfor.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-bitch-is-sort-of-back.html. It’s about how she made a turn to empower herself when she was getting hazy information from her OB.

Also, after seeing so many IF blogs die after the baby goal is reached, I was thrilled to read that Samantha at The Stroller Coaster has decided to continue her blog, unapologetically, after spending some time mulling over whether or not to abandon it. The post is sincere and succinct. http://www.thestrollercoaster.com/2014/01/a-crossroad.html

17 Mia { 01.25.14 at 11:53 am }

I finally came out of the IF closet on my non-IF blog. I had been keeping it to myself for a few years – in the blogosphere – but for some unknown reason was ready to share this week. It was well received and now my mother wants to help me write my book. Eeek!

http://remissionstatement.blogspot.com/2014/01/what-it-is.html

18 St. E { 01.27.14 at 12:33 am }

It’s a case of Harry who for me. So I can’t help you there.

I have read The Hunger Games, but not followed up with the rest in the trilogy.

Here’s a post I want to submit:

http://bandbacktogether.com/post/4046/

19 Elisha { 01.30.14 at 9:55 pm }
20 Amber { 02.04.14 at 11:17 am }

Hopefully you’ve found an answer to who that guy is on the card, because I can’t help you. As for Mockingjay, that was by far my east favorite of the three books. The second book, Catching Fire, was my favorite.

(c) 2006 Melissa S. Ford
The contents of this website are protected by applicable copyright laws. All rights are reserved by the author