With Love From Your NCS Library!

Love stories and stories about love of all kinds frequently make some of the most interesting, thrilling, heartwarming, and heartbreaking narratives.  So if you're looking for a book or film to help pass away the time over the long weekend, check out our 2012 Valentine's Day resource list--a mixed bag of diverse romances and love stories!   

All You Need Is Love--2012 Valentine's Day Love Stories List

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ms.Dickinson's Purple and Gold Pick of the Week: all these things i've done by Gabrielle Zevin

Chocolate, coffee, forbidden love, and organized crime--the perfect elements for Valentine's Day read!  all these things i've done, Gabrielle Zevin's third young adult novel (following her 2007 release, Memoirs of a Teenage Amniesiac), is a dystopian novel  set a world very close to our own featuring a highly pragmatic narrator and a story dealing with love of many kinds.

Several decades into the future, caffeine is outlawed and water & paper supplies are limited.  New York City is town rife with crime and poverty where museums have been turned into nightclubs and coffee is sold in seedy speakeasies.  As the daughter of the city's most notorious crime boss, Anya Balanchine is no stranger to the town's underworld.  But with both parents dead from mafiya hits, Anya is more worried about her siblings' safety than her family's weakening monopoly on illegal chocolate imports.  Then her loser ex-boyfriend gets poisoned by a couple bars of Balanchine Special Dark chocolate he begged from her and suddenly Anya's plans for staying out of the spotlight are ruined completely.  Meanwhile Anya's shifting relationship with the son of the new and ambitious District Attorney definitely isn't making her life any easier. 

As I stated, the future portrayed in Zevin's newest novel is much more familiar to readers of 2012 than the more distant worlds portrayed in dystopian novels such as The Hunger Games or Marie Lu's recently released thriller Legend.  The lessening of key resources and the outlawing of caffeine are the most obvious differences.  However, Anya's life is set apart in ways unrelated to the novel's futuristic setting.  Anya has grown up in a world of paranoia, violence, and distrust;  her general distrust of others' motives and her tendancy towards self-denial on behalf of the few people she really loves separate her from her peers.  Her great pragmatism and moral concern make her a fascinating (if slightly disconcerting);  these qualities also make the developing forbidden love story between Anya and the D.A.'s charming and sweet son Win even more sympathetic. 

I also greatly enjoyed Anya' s complicated relationships with her immediate family, including her siblings, her dying grandmother, and even her late father and mother.  Anya's struggles to distance herself from her family's criminal past and present while also relying on the skills and strength she's gained from such a life are as compelling as the larger mysteries and action.  The plot is not obviously action-packed but the novel is full of twists and turns; mystery fans will find a great deal to enjoy in the complexities of the Balanchine crime family and their illicit business.

The combination of a setting both familiar and unfamiliar, starcrossed romance, complex family relationships, and compelling mystery make Gabrielle Zevin's all these things i've done a unique and appealing coming of age story.  Grab a mug of coffee or a chocolate bar and check out this intriguing new novel!
 

Update on Hunger Games Movie Goodies!

For all our Hunger Games fans eagering awaiting the film's release on March 23, the media machine behind the likely blockbuster has produced two new exciting digital goodies to hold you over.  Yesterday, a second theatrical trailer burst onto the Internet to add to the hype.  Check it out here at the Entertainment Weekly website!
Are you more excited to see the movie? Or are you worried that some of your favorite pieces of the book are going to be lost on the cutting room floor?

Lionsgate also recently kicked off another fun online bonus feature: the Capitol Couture Tumblr.  It's a cool peek at the world the film creators are working to develop based on Suzanne Collins' descriptions. 

Also--the library will soon be announcing our very own competition to help pass the last few weeks before the film's premiere at the end of March! Keep your eyes and ears open for updates!