September 21, 2011 - Over the Edge THE HUNGER GAMES LEAVES YOU STARVING Indulge in the Guilty Pleasure of Reading Teen Fiction DARCIE SMITH ARTS EDITOR Everyone has a guilty pleasure, whether it be the newest Brittney Spears song that you love dancing to at the bar, or a soft spot for the Walmart brand of clothing. If you are in the mood for a guilty pleasure worth indulging in, try taking a look at some great teen fiction. Not only will it save your life when you are stressed about exams/papers/Christ- mas shopping/girlfriends/boyfriends, whatever your problem might be, but it is also a great way to keep yourself reading for pleasure. Teen fiction is often overlooked by some who con- SPOILER ALERT: BOOT CAMP sider it to be embarrassing to read or below their reading level, however, there are some amazing authors who know how to write a fun story that is not just about dating cute boys and vampires all summer long. If you find yourself reading a novel for teens on the bus and hiding the cover, try checking out Suzanne Collin's trilogy masterpiece, The Hunger Games, and cower no more! The Hunger Games takes place in what is now post-apocalyptic North America, but is now just the Capitol, Panem, surrounded by twelve dis- A Tear-Jerking Thriller DARCIE SMITH ARTS EDITOR Released in 2008, Boot Camp is a suspenseful drama starring Mila Ku- nis (Family Guy, That 70’s Show) and Gregory Smith (Everwood). Kunis’ character Sophie is sent to a remote boot camp located in Fiji by her neg- lectful mother and step-father to re- form her of her so-called rebellious ways. Smith plays her boyfriend, Ben, who fakes a drug overdose so his parents will send him to the same camp to be with Sophie and to try and help her escape. Supporting ac- tor Peter Stormare (Prison Break, Small Town Murder Songs) plays Dr. Anthony Hail, the “doctor” running camp ASAP for the troubled teens. His accent adds chill to the character LETTERS PAUL STRICKLAND CONTRIBUTOR Saturday morning, after a seventy- hour week at The Palliser Springs Chronicle, Terry drove, tired and half-drained of thought, down the Blue Hat Trail past brown fields of stubble, stunted sagebrush and _nar- row coulees. At one farm an evidently hopeful owner, in an era of twenty- one-per-cent interest rates, had paint- ed a rainbow on the side of the barn facing the gravel road that led along the southern boundary of the prov- ince. Gophers ran across the often washboardy road, but Terry was able to slow down in time to avoid all of them. He’d heard that some farmers would speed up when they saw the rodents crossing. Soon after Ronald Reagan’s elec- tion in the U.S., Terry had been act- and makes him seem far more creepy and dangerous than he actually is. The film is based on true events surrounding widespread abuse among many reform camp employees to- wards the individuals sent to the camp. In the movie, each teen is given a black shirt when they arrive at the camp that marks their newcomer status, and if they show progress they may advance to yellow and finally to white, where they are given staff priv- ileges and are allowed to eventually return to their homes. A young girl sent to the camp by her parents for promiscuous behavior makes a deal with one of the staff that allows her to earn her yellow FROM TH ing, with futile but psychologically necessary gestures, as a kind of guer- rilla environmentalist by writing let- ters from border hamlet post offices to Montana congressmen and senators against the policies of U.S. Inter- ior Secretary James Watt. He’d also rented a post-office box in Foehn, Montana, to receive answers from these legislators and maintain a mem- bership in a northern Montana Sierra Club chapter. During a months-long postal strike, it had also proved useful as a place to get mail from American and European friends. An unusually friendly U.S. Cus- toms officer at the border crossing north of Foehn, probably because he saw only one car every two hours or so, would sometimes talk to Terry for as long as forty-five minutes, asking tricts. The theory is that past civiliza- tions completely destroyed the planet and resources, and what is left of North America is now just ruins. The main character is Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen year old girl who has been called to participate by way of lottery in the annual televised Hunger Games —a nasty event that places two con- testants from each of the twelve dis- tricts into a battle to the death where only one child survives by outwitting and killing off the others. ning district receives food and proper The win- resources for the next year, which is shirt by providing sexual favors. The staff member ends up raping her. The same girl is placed in a circle, asked to admit her flaws and apologize for terrorizing her family, and when she refuses, the other camp teens are al- lowed to humiliate her and beat her with sticks. They stop when she even- tually breaks down and admits to her prior scandalous habits. Boot Camp is not an outstanding movie, but it certainly showed great insight into the common abuse and violation of rights that teens sent to reform camps are put through. It also demonstrated the power of a gang mentality, as the teens are shown beating the others simply to further about his reporting job in Palliser Springs but also telling him about his wife’s program of studies at the Uni- versity of Montana in Missoula. Terry would look at the clock inside the customs building and see time ticking away against the hour or fraction of an hour he had left before the stamp win- dow in the Foehn post office closed at noon on Saturdays. He couldn’t tell the customs officer to hurry up or he might trigger an inspection of his car that would create an even longer delay and he’d miss getting to the Foehn post office before the box lobby was closed as well. Then he’d have to drive on gravel roads through the Bunchgrass Hills to Cloudburst or Leaven to try to see if a small gen- eral store or a drug store would sell stamps. If he had something heavy a huge reward because most districts have been suffering and living in poverty while the Capitol thrives and lives lavishly. The Hunger Games are the leaders cruel way of showing the people of the districts to not revolt and take for granted what the previ- ous civilization did. Collins has a horrible knack for leaving most of the chapters at heart- stopping cliff hangers. She excels at writing page-turners, and the next two novels in the trilogy, Catching Fire and Mockingjay are no exceptions. This book is not like some typical EVERY YEAR TROUBLED TEENS = ARE SENT AWAY TO CHANGE THEIR L ON THIS ISLAND THEY MUST FIGHT TO SURVIVE. themselves in the program so that they can return home to their families. In a way, many of the teens become brainwashed into believing that the doctor is right in his abusive methods of rehabilitation. Over 40 deaths have been reported over the past 30 years from “accidents” at these boot camps, and in the film due to the abuse of a staff member, one teenager drowns. It highlights the corruption in the facility, as rather than accepting the blame for the death, the staff member lies and says that he drowned trying to escape. A downfall of this film is the soundtrack. The songs and artists themselves are not awful, but the to mail and hadn’t reached the Foehn post office until after the noon clos- ing time for the stamp window, he either had to give up trying to mail it or guess at what the correct postage for the packet would be and hope it would be acceptable when dropped in a mail box outside a closed post of- fice. He remembered how one time the kindly postmistress in Foehn had put in three dollars of her own money to pay the balance of his box rent when it went up to twelve dollars per year from the previous nine-dollar annual rate. In a note with the receipt she’d put in his box, she said she’d covered him for the extra three dollars and he could send the balance to her at any time. One time when Terry had had to popular teen novels — there is no sex and the lead character is strong, in- dependent and tough as nails. It does not read like a typical teen novel as well, and the dystopian-like feel to it certainly makes the reader put some extra thought into the overall moral. Collins has stated that she discovered the concept for the Hunger Games trilogy when she was flipping chan- nels between clips of a reality tele- vision competition and footage of the war in Iraq. 10/10 stars ONLINE SOURCE placement and timing of the music does not quite work. A Band of Hors- es track is played during a scene that is meant to be emotional, however it does not fit well and when the music comes on it sounds more like an in- terruption, rather than something that adds to the experience. It comes off as a bit rushed. It is not a terrible movie, and there are moments where it genu- inely hurts to watch these teenager get abused and bullied. If you are still harbouring a little crush on Gregory Smith from his Everwood days, it is probably worth a watch. This film is available for rent on DVD from the Prince George Pub- lic Library. drive all the way to Cloudburst, he stopped at Nelda’s North Retreat saloon for a beer to write a letter to drop in a box outside the Cloudburst post office, or to make an entry in his journal. At first Nelda would charge the full exchange rate: the Canadian dollar at the time was worth about eighty-four cents U.S. But Nelda would sample her own wares, and when Terry ordered his next beer, she accepted Canadian currency at par. She continued to enjoy the products she was selling, and when Terry went to order a third beer, she said, “That’s OK. It’s on the house!” Another time she told the regulars at the end of the bar, “That guy’s got moxie!” Terry took that as a hopeful sign he might survive in his career.