May I put LinkedIn in its place, please?

Huh.

Who knew that in the competitive social media landscape, LinkedIn was the equivalent of the aloof cheerleader in high school who claimed that people who didn't like her were "just jealous."

At least that's how it appears when The Atlantic Wire releases an article claiming that women just don't "get" LinkedIn. They go one further and purport that we're less "savvy" at social networking than men.

Full disclosure: The professional networking site itself defines "savvy" in a rather unusual way -- "a ratio of two things: 1) the ratio of one-way connections that men have to connections that women have, and 2) the ratio of male members on LinkedIn to female members. We label an industry as “female savvy” when, for example, 45% of the industry is female and where women have 70% of the connections. A perfectly neutral industry is one in which the % of females in the industry is equal to the % of connections that women have in the industry."

Okaaaaay.

Now, I'd be taking this declaration more seriously if the Pew Research Center had themselves deemed women less fluent in corporate social-professional networking, but this is the scorned company itself declaring that because fewer women USE the site, it must naturally follow that they don't UNDERSTAND the site.

Bit of a jump from Observation A to Insult B, I'd say, particularly given that the same study indicates that "As with the use of most social media, SNS users are disproportionately female (56%). Women also comprise the majority of email users (52% women), users of instant message (55%), bloggers (54%), and those who use a photo sharing service (58%)." Soooo, we use electronic forms of communication in greater proportion than men, but when it comes to THIS PARTICULAR SITE, we're just dumbfounded as to how to make it work for us. Couldn't possibly be that we don't like the product.

Actually, the study itself, "Social networking sites and our lives: how people's trust, personal relationships, and civic and political involvement are connected to their use of social networking sites and other technologies" is a fascinating read. The Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project took a look at our use of social networking sites to investigate how our participation relates to our "varying social behaviors and attitudes." The study actually pointed toward an interesting discovery: that we're MORE intimately connected with one another now that we're all up in each other's business on the webernets.

Here's my perspective on the LinkedIn disparity -- it's very similar to the Wikipedia gender disparity (that is, the fact that most creators of Wikipedia content are male) which was explained very well by Kevin Drum of Mother Jones:

"The gender disparity is real. But I suspect the reason has less to do with women having trouble asserting their opinions and more to do with the prevalence of obsessive, Aspergers-ish behavior among men. After all, why would anyone spend endless hours researching, writing and editing a Wikipedia post for free about either The Simpsons or Mexican feminist writers? I think that "having an opinion on the subject" is far too pale a description of why people do or don't do this. You need to be obsessed. You need to really care about the minutia of the subject and whether it's presented in exactly the right way. And you need to care about this in a forum with no professional prestige. You're really, truly doing it just for the sake of the thing itself. I've long been convinced that this tendency toward obsession is one of the key differences between men and women. I don't know what causes it. I don't know if it helped primitive men kill more mastodons during the late Pleistocene."

Aha. In that case, it would make this observation within another Atlantic Wire article that much more accurate. "Given that LinkedIn is the only specifically business- and career-oriented site on the list, are these numbers a reflection of the real world's male-dominanted hierarchies, slipping in to pixelated form? Or is it just that men are more into uploading resumes and feeling important on the Internet? We're kind of leaning to the latter..."

Aha. And there it is: professional accomplishment versus relationship-building, one of those age-old, hallmark gender differences.

I'll be frank - I log into LinkedIn only occasionally; typically after a rough week at work when I want to touch up my resume and dip my toe into the job prospecting pool. Immediately following that, I'll head over to Facebook to cruise through pictures of So-and-so's anniversary weekend or engagement photos or baby pictures or whatever - because it takes my mind OFF of the work situation and places it back in more comfortable, people-oriented territory.

LinkedIn tends to reduce its users to a series of positions they've held, to a series of colleagues who's work they recommend, to organizations who's board they chair. Reduces them to their resumes. And perhaps, for men who (to generalize) tend to extract a greater sense of worth from accomplishment than from relationship, the cooler, hands-off nature that comparing resume size on LinkedIn provides is, inherently, more attractive to men.

And it's not that we don't "get it."

It's that we don't like it.

At least not in our spare time. Not for fun.

Hide your....Cindy Crawford lookalikes. Canalooney is dunzo.

And lo, the day was finally upon us.


Somewhere in the gorgeous Italian countryside, a slightly horse-faced "model" with the most magnificent backside ever to grace a brazillian-cut bikini is crying "shoulda kept her mouth shut about that marriage thing" tears into a very expensive pillow that probably still smells like George Clooney's commitment phobia. I suspect.


She's now part of the club. The Club of Perky Brunette Arm Candy Not Allowed To Admit They'd Hoped To Marry George Clooney." There are a handful of them.


Makes me wonder - why the international hangup with whether or not this guy puts a ring on a girl's finger? Why do we care if he's settled down, monogamous and reproducing? Nationally, culturally, we can't fathom someone successfully high-profile NOT placing marriage and children at the top of their priorities. And, on the flip side, what woman (in her right mind, not in her Elaborate Fantasy Mind) would actually want to be shackled to this guy for the long haul, anyway? The guy's married to his work -- and it's not just films; he's heavily invested in charity/ambassadorial work in the Sudan. It's enough to keep the guy busy. Until Darfur looks like the Garden of Eden, there will always be something more important to Cloons than picking out the right diamond and running around to the OBGYN appointments.


Oh, gee look -- I was right. He said it himself in an excerpt from "The Daily Mail."

‘I tried marriage and it didn’t work. I have had long relationships with women and they get bored with me working all the time. My fear is that I would make a lousy husband and I don’t want to put myself, or anyone else, through the pain of finding out. If I was my girlfriend, I wouldn’t put up with me for very long.’

See, for all of the fantasies this guy inspires in a surprisingly (confoundedly) large percentage of American imaginations, he'd be one heck of a disappointment in real life. And he's very up front about this. SO, to the small army of strikingly similar-looking, caramel-haired women left in his marriageless wake: you can't say you weren't warned. And make no mistake about it, you WON'T be "the one who changes his mind." And beginning a relationship with any such delusions pretty much puts an expiration date on the fantasy relationship (no matter how amazing your ass looks. Ahem). 


And while we're analyzing what Elisabetta did wrong - how about this comment made recently to an Italian news source:

‘I could never be with someone who every time he opens his mouth says he doesn’t want a child with me or to marry me...My boyfriend has not given an interview on his private life since 1999 – everything that you read is just a rehash of stuff that has been written in the past...My second job at the moment seems to be maid of honour. For the time being that’s how it is, but I’m not putting any time limits...Who knows what will happen? I am a firm believer in marriage, in the future I will be married, but for the time being I am happy as I am. I don’t need anything to confirm how happy I am.’

Er - uh...got it.


She drank her own Kool-Aid.


She believed the reports that she might finally be "the one" to squeeze the Happily Ever After out of the most publicly confirmed bachelor we've seen in years. Which makes the rest of us average folks up here in the cheap seats chuckle deliriously - we saw it coming - was she so secure up in her Lake Como tower that she thought she could start dropping hints to international media outlets and actually prove the rest of us wrong?


Apparently.


Note to the next cocktail waitress or wannabe actress or international swimwear model out there: stay young and pretty and don't kid yourself: he's not gonna marry you, sweetheart. Just ask any of these ladies:

 Also: I, for one, will not be tumbling all over myself to make Lake Como my next vacation spot, hoping that I (in all of my young, perky auburn-haired beauty) might be the next one to take a ride on Clooney's motorcycle. I guess having an upper lip is sort of up there on my list of requirements.........

Admission: I ADORE "The Voice."

Yeah, if you'd have told me a few months ago that I'd be one of those Reality Singing Competition Fangirls...I'd have punched you in the teeth. But then, if you'd told me a few months ago that I'd own three pairs of white jeans and be pairing blazers with them in earnest, I'd also probably have punched you in the teeth. So, maybe that means when I swear I'll "NEVER" do something or watch something or wear something, it's basically more like a mild statement of distaste and a worn out attitude toward American Idol, from which all other obnoxious talent television has been spawned. I watched the first season of American Idol - that's it. No "Dancing With the Stars," no "So You Think You Can Dance," no "America's Got Talent" (grammar - ugh!). Nope. Not even those a capella barbershop singing contests hosted by ex Boy Band wash-ups. At least not of my own free will.

I hate those shows.

Previously, the fanatics that wanted to SQUEAL about them on Facebook or Twitter (or in actual conversation -- yes, I still occasionally have those) were IRKSOME at best, blocked from feeds at worst.

Yeah, I'm that fickle. Ditto people who post too many things about sports championships or how miserable their lives are. Apparently I use social media for my own glee and amusement and have a sort of zero tolerance policy for divergent interests. Sad truth. There's an entire cadre of articles out there talking about the fact that our preferences (and customized sidebar ads and anticipatory Google searches, etc) are shrinking our world view and creating sheltered little bigots out of us...and I think, to a slight extent, I can see that manifested in my own webernet lifestyle. You mean there's a world out there beyond discount designer overstock sales and shoe websites???? How long before we're never even exposed to things that don't match our browsing/posting/searching/THINKING habits? The more I think about how easily that could happen, the spookier the webernets become.

But what's THAT got to do with "The Voice?"

N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

Except that I broadened my horizons, set aside my Singing Show Reluctance a few months ago and absolutely fell in love with "The Voice."

Yeah, that show where Christina Aguilera shows up and seems drunk and flashes parts of herself we shouldn't see unless we call her mommy and depend on those giant silicone globes for food. If you catch my drift. Seriously, I make at least one comment per episode to the effect of "Look at those things! Ohmygoodness -- it's like they're screaming for mercy! Make it stop!" And then I force Mr Wonderful to stare at them, too, and agree with me. "Aren't they scary? Doesn't it look like that bustier thing HURTS? Do they freak you out?????" And he'll kindly oblige, admit her outfits are sort of obscene, decides she looks generally inappropriate and we can go back to wondering why the Cee Lo wears sunglasses the entire time.

My theory: ALL of the judges are loaded on something. The Giant That Is Blake Shelton admitted as much last night. Something like, "It's not just water in my glass."As the show goes on, the judges get more and more punchy, the one-liners make less and less sense, the jabs between each other seem increasingly confusing. And that's part of what makes the show fun. There's great singing, some fun, incoherent "competition" between the judges, we get to see glimpses of famous pop star personalities, get attached to the competitors - it's fun.

And then I read THIS article on Mashable that brought attention to just how interactive the show aims to be for viewers. Here's a snippet:

The Voice is about a journey, and Yaron says the NBC.com homepage has been focusing on “24/7 storytelling and continuing all of the reality stories and experiences of the artists and the coaches and the rivalries between them.” By cultivating the story online and providing a look behind the scenes, The Voice is becoming more than just a weekly television show — it’s nonstop entertainment online, complemented by an hour or two of live performances every week.

“The artists are not sequestered, they’re encouraged to talk about the show as much as they can,” Haislip says. “Regardless of how they do on the show, they still will come out of the competition with something that is going to help them in the future, and they’re all getting a huge leap ahead of the competition.”

That “something” Haislip refers to is digital savvy and a strong fanbase. From the minute they landed in LA for blind auditions, artists were given training in blogging and Facebook Pages and handed Samsung Galaxy Tabs and cameras to document everything from team dinners to rehearsals with photo and video. Each artist has his own hub on the site that links to a blog, Facebook, Twitter, video and photos — viewers really have the opportunity to be heavily invested in the show and the artists, and that translates to better ratings and higher engagement. Giving the artists free reign has let their personalities flourish — Beverly McClellan has started a fake talk show called, “What’s Up With That?” and Jared Blake captured his new ink session on video.

“This is something that every other reality show has kind of shied away from, but we feel really strongly about it,” says Yaron. “We are giving the artists the same platform that real musicians have. We’re training them and mirroring the new ways in which the music industry works. We’re giving them the tools to be the next Lady Gaga. It will help them stay in the competition and become successful music stars. We felt that it was time for a reality show to do that.”

I LOVE that. I love that the show is not grooming contestants to be better COMPETITORS, but to be viable, successful artists who have cultivated a strong, involved, interactive fan base BEFORE they even hit the studios, before they've even won the competition. That's smart.

Of course, it's also gimmicky, and yes, they do dedicate time during each episode to lots of Tweet babble and patting themselves on the back for the fact that they're trending world wide, BUT, the fact that they've introduced social media and iTunes into the voting process is pretty convenient. It treats the competitors on the show like legitimate recording artists straight out of the gate. Makes sense.

So, onto the actual SINGING part of the show.

Here's the thing: from the very first audition episodes, I LOVED all of the would-be competitors. Part of that stems from the fact that the producers hand-selected many of the competitors, most of whom had already established themselves as artists, but in a smaller, less "NATIONAL TELEVISION SHOW" sort of context. Some had small recording contracts, some were backup singers, some traveled around with their bands - the level of talent was MUCH higher than American Idol straight out of the gate. And rather than subjecting us viewers to hours and hours of REALLY LAME audition episodes, they paraded competent singers up on the stage, weeded out the few that didn't appeal to the coaches, and hit the ground running with really strong performances from REALLY likeable competitors.

They weren't all polished and pretty, but they all have compelling personal stories, amazing talent and an immediately likeable..."watchability" that meant I was always bummed when the episode was over.

Also working in The Voice's favor: the format from episode to episode was different. A few audition rounds, a few "battle" rounds that whittled the field down by half and left the coaches to pick the stronger of two members of their teams after the team members competed against one another in coach-selected duets. The chemistry between the contestants was great. The song choices have tended to be more fun and current than a lot of what I remember sitting through during American Idol. The spirit of the judges tends to be encouraging; there are no snarky Cowell-esque sycophants out to tear anyone down, the coaches seem genuinely excited to see their teams succeed - it's great.

That said: I have some favorites. AND, for a little sample, I've included videos of their live performances over the past week along with the original songs they covered; in both cases, I think The Voice competitors created stronger renditions of the songs than the original artists. These are some skilled performers. Different styles, different genres, different demographics they probably appeal to, but I think they're both marketable and feel like they'd have solid careers ahead of them.

So - enjoy.

Vicci Martinez - Jolene:



Dolly Parton - Jolene:


Dia Frampton - Heartless:


Kanye - Heartless:

I totally had this on repeat in the car this morning. Don't judge. Wait til the 4:50 mark and get the giggles instead.

Okay, today's reading comes with instructions.

1: Listen to the ABBA song.
2: (All the way to the end).
3: Come back and read the rest of this.

I'll wait.

See, you can enjoy some dorky pictures of the lovely Agnetha Faltskog while you listen.

So. Are you in a good mood yet? Because Mr Wonderful and I had a conversation this weekend while fixing dinner that went something like this:

"It's impossible to listen to ABBA and not be in a good mood."

"Yeah, if you listen to an ABBA album and aren't in a good mood afterward, you should probably just commit suicide -- "

"-- And you're actually probably a sociopath."

Which, I think, is completely true.

Also true: In my nearly dozen years of commutes to work, I've never ended up in a fit of hysterical giggles until this morning, when I put "Chiquitita" on repeat during my drive. Not Waterloo, not SOS, not Mamma Mia. None of those make me giggle as much as the very precise pronunciation of "Chi-qui-tee-taaaah" over and over again.

I'm sorry, you make it to the end, to the 4:50 mark when the song gets so damn JUBILANT and it's impossible not to enjoy Monday morning. It's shrill, corny, unadulterated FUN. Just when you think the song is done, that hokey piano comes back with this carnival ride-esque vigor that just had me in stitches.  Like, eight times in a row. I couldn't stop myself.

Anyway.

Here: just to give you a little relief from the fact that I gushed about ABBA for a page, let's do a little "Duchess of Issa" (look it up) outfit assessment.

I'll admit: I adore this girl's style. She's gorgeous. She's got amazing legs. She's a bit thin these days (envy, envy), which she wears well, but it makes clothes fit a little less....delicately. This gig here: needs a belt. The boxy jacket with the swooshy skirt has me confused, but the least she could do was add a belt to break up all of the white. And maybe a brightly colored clutch.

There, we'll go out on that note.

Pardon me while I get totally whiny and self-obsessed. Or, just skip this post.

(yes, I am permitted a few sentences of sheer, unadulterated, sickeningly self-conscious WHINING. Happy Thursday).

I got on the scale this morning.

Heh. Heh. Heh.  (Or, Wah Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh, as the case may be.)

I know, I know, it's asking for discouragement, inviting self-loathing, cause for derision.... Man, is it ever.

Full disclosure: I'm both vain and insecure AND -- ordinarily -- only hop on the scale when I feel like I've dropped a few pounds - to re-affirm myself or something. I learned ten years ago that attaching a number to a "yikes, I feel jiggly and bloated" morning is a sure-fire way to generate SERIOUS DISGUST. And when you've had twelve successive months of "yikes, I feel jiggly and bloated, but man was that beer tasty" mornings, about the worst thing you could do is "check to make sure the batteries on the scale still work."

Yeah....they still work.

Cue the discouragement, self-loathing, derision and serious disgust. The validation that, "no, you don't just FEEL like a heftier version of yourself these days, kiddo. You ARE."

I could put a positive spin on this and say, "Hey, I now weigh what I did in high school!" Er, except my high school number was a few bags of sugar MORE than I've weighed in 10 years.

Nothing will send you running back to the Americanos and banishing the lattes like a morning at the cusp of swimsuit season when you look at the scale and think, "hmmm - I've only ever been THAT number before when I hopped on here WHILE HOLDING MY PURSE."

I've heard this is a "natural part of getting older." The whole "metabolism slows," and "jiggle finds new places to call home," and all that jazz is simply to be expected. Welcome to grown-up-hood.

Well, I'm a week from 3-0 and lemme tell ya: these hips are definitely committed to getting older. In fact, they've blazed a trail straight ahead to 46 or so without my permission.

So it's a strange, new world. A world of "huh. there are little rolls of blubber at the top of this bra thing. How bout that!" And "Hmmm! When I wear this cute little waist-cinching belt, now there's a little puddle of TUMMY that plops out under the belt. Wow!"

It's pretty much like I've become Amy Adams in "Enchanted" and I'm twirling and marveling my way through a gloriously baffling new world in which I hardly recognize myself when prancing around in my undies, and am not quite sure what to make of all of this. Like I've fallen out of the mythical land of "Flat Tummy And Thin Upper Arms" and into the harsh reality of "Why Does That Keep Rippling After I've Stopped Moving???"

 Maybe I just have to get used to the fact that as a woman of a child-bearing age who sits at a desk all day, does nothing that could be called physical activity (unless re-curling my eyelashes is exercise) and loves her glass or two of wine in the evening, I'm just finally unable to skirt the fact that I'll be wearing that behavior on my tummy. Cheeks. Hips. Knees. You name it. AND, I could further decide that this is to my reproductive advantage - that with some extra meat on the bones, it's biology's way of telling me I'm in good shape to support a little bundle of joy one of these days.

But the inalienable truth here: it's hard when you don't feel pretty. When you'd rather hide yourself under things than appreciate yourself in them. When your primary goal is "conceal, conceal, conceal." When your go-to Fat Jeans are much, much, much too tight and you're probably weeks of a liquid diet (or a good flu) away from fitting into them even snugly. When you pass your reflection in a mirror or window and think...."wow, I used to love seeing my reflection...now.....well - is that REALLY how I look to everyone else?"

At any rate: this isn't a plea for sympathy - it's this sort of compulsive need to just get the complaining out of my system. Whine about it. Admit that I'm not happy about it. Own up to it. Recognize that I'll want to take pictures of myself and some friends at a little birthday shindig next week and thinking, "ew, but there are so many angles I don't like these days - can we just hide me behind a couch or something?" And that's new to me.

So, we'll just call this The Day I Threw Up My Hands and said "Enough already! We're losin those pounds and we're losing em NOW."

Because I would like for 30 to be the advent of the time of my life during which I'm actually in better shape. Would like this new decade to mark the beginning of taking BETTER care of myself, not resting on the doughy laurels of "happy and in love" as though that were some excuse I could use for the next 50 years of my life.

To get all dorky about it: Goodbye Bra Bulge. Goodbye lumpy tummy. Goodbye saddlebags. Goodbye chipmunk cheeks. Goodbye muffin top. You're a pain in my ever-expanding, rather dimply ass and I think it's best we not be friends.

SO. THERE.

(Oh - but surprisingly bigger boobs: you can stick around. I like you well enough.)

If you only read one (okay, THREE) books this year......

I'm haunted. Truly. And Mr Wonderful (who, incidentally, became something of a "book widower" this weekend) is probably particularly glad I've finished reading these.

Because I COULD NOT PUT THEM DOWN.

A little back story. Started reading about that Jennifer Lawrence actress being cast in a film version of some book called "The Hunger Games" slated to be released about a year from now. This casting tripped an inordinate amount of press (like, more than "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" when its movie adaptation was announced). More people signed on. I started seeing names like Stanley Tucci. Donald Sutherland. Woody Harrelson. Elizabeth Banks. Wes Bentley. Lenny Kravitz. Liam Hemsworth.

"What the heck is this gig even about?" was my prevailing thought. "And why is it getting so much tabloid attention????"

Ah, apparently it's a "young adult" novel that is "very popular."

In my mind, that puts these books in the company of "Twilight" and makes them, therefore, "particularly toxic."

BUT, I'm curious. Because I read somewhere that Suzanne Collins, author of "The Hunger Games" was thrilled with the casting of Jennifer Lawrence. And any time a novelist gets this excited about some relative newcomer having the chops to tackle their beloved main character: I get a liiiiiiiiiiiiittle curious.

Cue Amazon, at this point. Sent a free sample of "The Hunger Games" to the Kindle.

Became promptly hooked.

HOOKED.

Hooked, hooked, hooked. 

(er, while giving myself the side-eye, thinking "Um, but this is a Young Adult Novel I'd Assumed Was In League With Twilight." Because that's what 12-20 year-olds like these days, right? Poorly written fluff about vampires and warewolves filled with clammy, undead make-out sessions between centuries-old, sparkly spooks and the high school-aged object of their undead affection? And junior high girls get all swoon-ee and stand-in-line-overnight-waiting-for-movie-tickets crazy and a couple of reluctant, relatively unknown actors get catapulted to global super-stardom?)

BUT, let's be ABSOLUTELY clear: Suzanne Collins' MASTERPIECE trilogy ought NEVER to be associated with Twilight in any way, shape, or form.

So there's the back story.

Then there's that small matter of my general reluctance to read anything that's so massively, commercially successful it makes an extreme minority of those who avoid it. Think Dan Brown. Jonathan Franzen. Harry Potter. Eat, Pray, Love. Books about hobbits. And yes, Dragon Tattoos. I have this sort of perverse aversion to those "must reads." And suddenly, it seems these Hunger Games books are EVERYWHERE, and there I am, curled up on the weekend, reading a book a day, wandering voraciously around the weekend vacation cabin with my kindle held aloft, praying to the 3G gods for just a SINGLE BAR OF COVERAGE so that I could download the next in the series.

Worse (or better, take your pick): I was actually thinking about the characters for the hours in between. When I wasn't reading, I was desperately hoping that Collins would get it right and deliver her characters into the happy ending I wanted. They DESERVED that much. Her characters are real enough, believable enough, loveable enough, and frustrating enough that you feared (since they, clearly, have a mind of their own outside of the confines of the page) that they might just screw up their own happy ending.

Really, these read like a single, multi-volume opus more than three standalone novels. Because, for instance, reading only "The Hunger Games" without following up with the other two would sort of be like eating the chocolate off of the outside of a peanut butter cup. Nice, tasty, melty. But not as satisfying as scarfing down the whole thing. Or tossing it in the blender with girl scout cookies and Butterfingers and ice cream and making your own blizzard. Like that.

I won't give the ending away. But I will say that about 10 pages from the end of the third book, I had braced for supreme disappointment, and would have been ready to heave the Kindle at the dog (or whomever) had she gone for the easy out. THANKFULLY, Collins is smart enough to know that she's written some of the most loveable, flawed, READABLE characters in contemporary literature, and to rob her readers of the ending we ALL want would have been -- truly -- as cruel as the Hunger Games themselves. But she wasn't above leaving us in suspense.

How about a synopsis?

In their entirety, the books are a sort of social commentary on war -- the way war creates monsters of men and heroes of children (er - that's actually sort of a poetic way to put it. Way to be, Heather).

They're set at some point in the future - a future in which America proper no longer exists, in which war has left the country ruled by a wealthy capitol city, and the rest of the land is divided into twelve isolated "districts." To remind these districts that they're under the sovereign fist of the capitol, each district must send two "tributes" to participate in a nationally televised, gladiator-style death match every year. The tributes are young - between the ages of 12 and 18. They're minimally trained. Only one may come out alive.

So, we follow the heroine, Katniss Everdeen (yeah, I know. Collins had fun with the names) as she voluntarily takes her little sister's place as her district's representative in the games. We're in the arena with her and 23 other reluctant killing machines as they form alliances and do their best to stay alive. She's under the watchful protection of her district's other tribute, a boy who's been hopelessly in love with our little heroine since they were kids.

That's the first book. The other two follow Katniss through the Games' aftermath as the country is plunged into another war.

Sure, there's the sort of familiar "underdogs rally against oppression and the cannibalism of rampant capitalism" less-is-more moral running throughout. There's the "war hurts everyone, especially our youth" message wound in there. There's the question of "is there a difference between doing a good thing for a bad reason or a bad thing for a good reason" dilemma that resurfaces plenty of times. We see the ills of wasteful consumerism, of unchecked greed and sloth and any other number of deadly sins. We have crooked politicians and saviors with murky motives and the stuff that good page-to-screen stories are made of.

AND, yes, there's the sweet little love triangle that knits most of it together.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these books should be standard reading material in high schools. There's enough blood and guts to hold a kid's attention. There's enough good, clean puppy love to hook the day dreamers, and, under that, about every social issue under the sun gets tackled in one of these three books. Family versus country. The value (or cost) of lies. The price of war. The moral quandaries of leadership. Lots of good stuff.

But, in the end, just REALLY, really, really, particularly, beautifully well-drawn characters - characters who would make excellent role models for our kids. Characters who seem so real, you're left rather hollow and lonely and desperate for more once you finish the books. Sort of like that empty feeling after the holidays, when the family has packed up and gone and the house feels a little too quiet and you miss having all of those people around. A little bit like that.

With a nice, happily-ever-after ending that Collins spent all three volumes nursing along the readers' desire for.

Perfectly written. Best books I've read in years.

And now that I've read them, Mr Wonderful can have me back.

(PS - I certainly hope this Moviefone article comes true and these movies WIPE THE FLIPPIN FLOOR with those Twilight wimps. Over and out.)

(PPS - Team Peeta.)