The Hunger Games book

Last night, I finished reading Suzanne Collins's 1st book of The Hunger Games trilogy. This first book, The Hunger Games, was released in September 2008, followed the next year by Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games), and later, of course, by Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3). These were best-sellers in the Young Adult (ages 12 to adult) fiction category...the same category as other best-sellers like The Twilight Saga and The Vampire Diaries , which have also been dramatized on-screen.

Dream Guy of the Week #2

Who hasn't seen either popular TV series The Vampire Diaries or Lost?  If you haven't seen either one, you're missing out on watching this week's featured dream guy, Ian Somerhalder. 

Have I Seen Her Face Before?

I watched You Don't Mess With The Zohan yesterday and noticed how familiar Emmanuelle Chriqui (who starred opposite Adam Sandler) looked. She reminded me a lot of Nina Dobrev, who is popularly known as Elena in the TV series, The Vampire Diaries. 

Until I did a little research and learned that Emmanuelle is almost 10 years older than Nina, I didn't want to believe they are two different people.  Aside from their looks, both ladies are from Canada. Nina moved to Canada when she was two; Emmanuelle, on the other hand, was born in Montreal, Quebec.  Similarly, both actresses took acting classes and started working in the performing arts at a young age.

Perhaps what really surprised me the most is that Emmanuelle Chriqui appeared in a music video of my favorite Hinder song, "Lips of An Angel". Check it out for yourself in the video below.

Closing the book on The Vampire Diaries

From L to R: Ian Somerhalder, Nina Dobrev, and Paul Wesley
I wanted to post this earlier, but I had a busy week-end. I wanted to share my thoughts about the new CW series, The Vampire Diaries, which I viewed last Thursday night. As I expected, it was too much of a rip-off of Twilight (performance-wise). While The Vampire Diaries was published before The Twilight Saga and has its own storyline, the characters in this TV adaptation are too much like Twilight - they are young, they are good-looking, the humans and immortals interact with each other during the day...the similarities are numerous.

As my friend, Lisa, commented on my previous blog entry about the show, their acting wasn't too impressive. Nina Dobrev, who plays the leading female character Elena, lacks an ability to display facial expressions. It hardly seemed she had any emotions - just a pretty face! Paul Wesley, the "good" vampire Stefan, mimicked Twilight Edward's facial expressions a lot. The only one who seemed to perform really well was Ian Somerhalder, who plays "Damon". His face reminded me a lot of a younger Rob Lowe (hot and sexy). While his portrayal of a sinister character deserves more merit compared to his co-stars, I think his good looks were too distracting. I could end up watching the show just to follow Stefan and ogle his uber-tantalizing looks.

Oh I don't know now...maybe the TV show just doesn't do justice to the books, which I haven't read yet. I found a place I could sneak a peek at the books. That's only if I'm on a computer though. Otherwise, I'd much rather try reading the books.




If I had to choose between The Vampire Diaries series and The Twilight Saga, THIS is what I can't wait to see in November - New Moon! The directing, the cast, the sound effects, everything this trailer (and previously released trailers) prove that New Moon is going to be way better, way more heart-stopping than Twilight.

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