Yeah, i can just see that "Ooh, baby, let's go to your place!" ...walk in... "Oh, sorry, I can't do this"

I don't think I've ever been dissuaded from having sex with someone by having a look around their home, but in at least a couple cases what I saw determined whether or not there would be a repeat performance.

We live in a digital world, people. If you look at my cd cases, you can get a pretty good idea of what music I was listening to...in the 90's!

Books are moderately more current, but won't be for long.

If you look at my cd cases, you can get a pretty good idea of what music I was listening to...in the 90's!

Totally.

I finally read Hunger Games last night. Started around 9:30, finished around 12:30.

I'd been putting off reading it as my DH read it like a year ago or longer, and didn't like it. Quoth he, "Way too much time describing what people are wearing."

So I wrote him last night to tell him I'd read it and liked it, and he responded, "That's funny, as I just stayed up way too late reading Catching Fire. "

Now we're fighting about whether or not Hunger Games is cut from the same cloth as Twilight.

Now we're fighting about whether or not Hunger Games is cut from the same cloth as Twilight.

Really?

Now we're fighting about whether or not Hunger Games is cut from the same cloth as Twilight

Who's arguing the "pro" position? Because I'm not seeing it, except in a very general sense that it's an SF/F story with a young female protagonist, that has captured the imagination and attention of a lot of people. Oh, and written in the first person.

Collins' prose isn't fantastic, but it's competent enough, and she's killer at narrative momentum, none of which I've heard about Twilight. Katniss operates out of desperation, and not out of any romantic longing--while I find the series a bit too heteronormative, one can't say that Katniss wastes a lot of time pondering her romantic choices. She's got shit to do.

So, keeping in mind that neither the DH nor I have read any of the Twilight books, and are therefore talking out of our asses, allow me to paste his position from email:

It gets positively creepy how she starts writing about all the sleeping together and the warm-tummy feelings (but no sex, of course) and I am sure that you have figured out that Peeta is Edward and the ... other one is.... uhm, the wolfy one.

I guess I just find it disturbing that YA is now all about these erotically charged, but sexless, relationships where the main character's cluelessness is what preserves the purity of the relationship. I find this neither realistic, interesting, or healthy. I would just as soon that my YA be devoid of any references to eroticism than have it flirt with sex but suggest that ignorance is the best defense against anything untoward.

ETA: my response was to tell him to read Cold Kiss before painting all YA with the Twilight brush.

I think you really need to finish the trilogy, and have a little more knowledge of Twilight, before making the comparison. Peeta, to my mind, is in no way like Edward, and Katniss wouldn't allow him to be anyway.

The sex thing is a different issue. Some YA includes sex, but it's mostly contemporary, realistic YA that deals with it seriously. In Collins's book, I had no problem with the lack of it, simply because it rang true to me that it was something completely new for Katniss -- when you're trying to keep your family alive and fed, hooking up isn't likely to be the first thing on your mind.

Also, these books are written for teens, remember, not all of whom are exploring sex as early as you might think. There's also the issue of anything gratuitous being censured or challenged, so a lot of authors and publishers prefer to stay away from it unless it's important to the story. Here, it's not, in my opinion.

I meant to say, too, that the books are about so much more than that for me, and Katniss is such a rich, conflicted character who has to make so many hard choices, I just can't see any comparison to Bella, aside from the fact that they're both girls.

And thank you for the kind words about Cold Kiss. I was prepared to fight for the one scene that explores sex -- albeit fairly vaguely -- if my editor balked, and I'm grateful that she didn't.

I guess I just find it disturbing that YA is now all about these erotically charged, but sexless, relationships where the main character's cluelessness is what preserves the purity of the relationship

Purity of the relationship? There isn't even a relationship. There's a forced mockery of love, with one half of the interaction being a kid with PTSD and what looks like at least situational asexuality going on.

Some people are going to want to fuck like rabbits when they have to fight to the death and kill other teenagers.

I'm not judging anyone, however, who isn't like me.

What that has to do with even the popular impression of Twilight is beyond me.