Malori Reviews All Sorts of Stuff - Percy Jackson, The Hunger Games, The Bachelor, Southern Cookin'

Let's start of with "Percy Jackson and the Olympians - The Lightening Thief" - the movie and the book.... I read all of the books and love, love, LOVED them all to pieces! Percy Jackson is such a likable character and you truly want him to succeed and be a hero. You really love Annabeth and the relationship she has with Percy is so cute and fun to witness. Grover is so fun and always doing funny things! Camp Half-Blood is a fun place where everyone wears bright orange t-shirts and train and fight and hang out and just have fun together. It is fun and magical and exciting! I certainly suggest you read the books.

Now, when I heard they were making a movie, I was naturally out-of-my-mind excited! You know how it is when you love a book so much and they make it into a movie. So sweet Jon took me to see it - and during the first scene, I was already a little bit sad. Now, I understand that you can't make a movie exactly like the book because books are much longer and sometimes things happen that are hard to show on film, but there were so many details, so many small little things that would have taken zero time and zero budget to make it more accurate! (ie: in the book, all of the food and snacks Percy's mom makes are dyed blue with food coloring - read the book to find out why - well in the movie, Percy is in the apartment and he pours a glass of lemonade...that was yellow!! A few drips of food coloring and a stir and it would have been perfect, but nobody thought to add that small detail that would have cost less than a dollar).

Still, if you haven't read the books, you will think it is a good movie.

So, watch the movie and then read the books and you will be very happy. Either way, you love the characters and the story.

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Speaking of incredible books, "The Hunger Games" is one I simply could not put down! It was very bad, I couldn't get anything done because I couldn't stop reading!!! Now, it isn't what I would call a "super happy" book, but it is very suspenseful and you grow to deeply care about the characters and the unfortunate situation they find themselves in.

You see, Katniss, the main character, lives is a sort-of futuristic world that has been overthrown by the government. The continent has been divided into 12 Districts - each with a certain trade (ie: District 12, where Katniss is from, is the mining district) and each is under the control of the Capitol. The way for the Capitol to continuously show their authority and to keep the Districts from having an uprising, is with The Hunger Games. All of the kids in the District, ages 12-18 have to put their names in a bowl. One boy and one girl are chosen from the bowls to be the "tributes" and compete in the games.

They are put in an arena - a dense forest, a desert, a jungle - with all of the other tributes from the other districts and their objective is to be the last one alive.

Are you already intrigued? I don't do a great job of describing it, but seriously - it is so great!!

The only bad thing about this book is that there are only 2 out right now. There are going to be more, and the second one certainly lends itself to the 3rd book and I am going crazy waiting for it to come out!!!! So you might want to wait until more of them are out before you start reading this book.....but you must, must, MUST, read it!!!!!!!! There is no choice!!!!

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Alright, this season of "The Bachelor" has been very entertaining. Jake came from the last season of "The Bachelorette" and he is very determined to find the woman of his dreams. He is determined to cut the crap and find his future wife. He has surprised the producers and Chris (the host) by cutting girls early, asking to not give out all of the roses because he knew that more than one girl were not right for him.

Then there was the drama with Roselyn who slept with one of the staff of the show and was asked by the producers to leave.

Not to mention all of the drama with Ally leaving because of her job and then wanting to come back, and Vienna talking crap behind the girls' backs, and this season has been a fun one!!!

Now we are down to 2 girls: Vienna and Tenley......
Here is a picture of Tenley - my favorite from the start. Sure she has had a rocky past (she was married before and the stupid guy cheated on her...even though she is gorgeous!) but she is so genuine and she is so perfect for Jake. She has strong morals (she was a virgin until her wedding night) and she is ready to be in a solid marriage and have children and live happily ever after. She is so cute and their personalities match so well!! The problem is that Jake feels like there isn't as much "physical chemistry" between them - but how can there be when you have a floozie like Vienna around......
Here is Vienna - the most fake and two-faced girl this season. I don't really understand why she is still around, other than that Jake wants to spend time with the "bad girl" type that he would never date in the real world before he settles down and starts a family.

He says that he is really into her, but he also says he is really into Tenley (of course he is supposed to say that) but I don't know how he can possibly want to spend the rest of his life with her............

Drama, Drama!!! I can't help myself - "The Bachelor" is without a doubt my little guilty pleaure...

If you are interested in seeing who is going to win Jake's heart, tune in to ABC at 7pm next Monday! You can bet I will be plopped down on my couch intently tuning in!!

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This weekend we took a very quick trip to Snowflake because Sister Shirley Salisbury from my parent's ward invited my family to dinner, and specifically asked for us.

Now, this normally wouldn't warrant an entire trip clear up to Snowflake, but her dinners are infamous, and for good reason!

We show up and the entire house smelled great!!! She had invited the missionaries and few other people from my parent's ward, so we listened to a nice message from the missionaries while we waited for dinner to be finished.

Finally it was time to see what we had been smelling - and I have never seen so many different main courses at a single house party before!!!

She had made fried chicken and mashed potatoes and pork tenderloin and barbecue beef and shrimp and noodles with a great sauce, and homemade baked beans, and a casserole thing and green beans and deviled eggs and an entire veggie platter and more!!! And it was all soooo tastey!!!! I was stuffed to the brim with such fantastic food, and then it was time for dessert!! She had made like 4 different pies and a chocolate parfait kind of thing and it was all amazing! I had never seen so much food cooked for one dinner party, and Sister Salisbury certainly has an amazing talent for cooking! The sad thing is that she is allergic to gluten, so she couldn't even eat most of what she had made, but she says that that doesn't stop her from cooking and having a great time entertaining and inviting people over, which is her favorite thing in the world to do.

Well, it was a great night with great food - certainly worth the trip!

So the moral of the story is, if you are invited to have dinner at Sister Salisbury's house, you do whatever you can to make sure you can make it!!!

Thank you Sister Salisbury!!