I heard from Mark!

I have to send out a sincere thanks for all of you who worried about me over the weekend, and all of your efforts to cheer me up. I'll admit to succumbing to the horrible dark cloud of gloom. And then Sunday night around 7pm, guess who called!!! Mark! They were given one hour to call.

Wow, it was like someone turned on a light switch to my spirit. I can do this now. I can make it. Four more days. Mark will be home in four more days.

Besides that, I just went out to lunch with my parents and the boys. We ate Thai food, which is my absolute favorite. And I am full. Way way full. Like, I could go to sleep kind of full. But no sleeping. Now is writing time.

I do want to give a quick review to the fantastic book I read last week, called The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. Many of you have probably already read this book. Apparently it came out a few years ago. Well, I've been in hiding, I guess, because it just came to my attention a few months ago. And then I heard all about the sequel, Catching Fire, and figured I'd better read the first one first. When I realized she'd also written the Gregor series, well, I was convinced.

Let me tell ya, folks, there's a reason for the hype. If you haven't read this book, do it. You won't be disappointed. (Well, okay, out of 500 something reviews on Amazon.com, 7 people didn't like it. So there is the chance.)

The book follows a similar plot line as the Japanese novel printed a decade ago, Battle Royale. Two youth are selected each year in a government-sanctioned human sacrifice game. That's a total of 24 youth. Only one can win, and the government televises the battles for entertainment. The point is to watch them brutally murder each other until only one remains.

That's the basic idea. Of course, the book takes you into the battle in a much more personal way. Told in first person POV, we are deep in Katniss's psyche as we watch her explore this cruel demonstration of control. From the moment you start page one, you have to get to the end as quickly as possible, just to find out what happens. I prepped myself, imaging every possible scenario and deciding I'd be okay with whatever happened, otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to read the book. I can't handle disappointment.

I was not disappointed. Intense, fantastic, exciting, real. Very human. I loved this book. Get it. Now. Enjoy it.

Sequel Stats:
today's goal: 55,722
actual: 56,163
tomorrow's goal: 58,163