The DOOM and GLOOM Post

Okay, here comes all the downer stuff to make up for that super-happy gushy post. Let's start with this depressing but amazing book I read.

The Hollow People by Brian Keaney is definitely one I'm loaning to my friends. It starts off in a weird reality: in a world where dreams and free-thinking are all but forbidden, Dante is a kitchen boy at the asylum, the lowest of the low.

He has never known love because he didn't know his parents and nobody cares for him; his mother was a patient at the asylum who killed herself (or so Dante was told). He is given the unwanted jobs such as cleaning up the cells or taking prisoners their food. Life is pretty blah until he meets Bea, a girl dreading her coming-of-age ceremony who also thinks outside the box.

Together with the freaky new prisoner, Ezekiel, they discover and rebel against their oppression. A phenomenally great book.

I can't even say why it's so amazing, it just is. The writing, how it's so realistic even though nothing like this has ever happened... maybe that's another reason I love it so much, the idea is so fresh. It's kind of like The Giver (another of my favorites) only DARKER, if you can imagine that.

Now another video game addiction: BIOSHOCK! This game is gory as heck, really creepy (so don't start off playing at like midnight, like I did), and totally twisted, but I am in love.

This game has an AMAZING setting: the underwater city of Rapture, where everything has gone to the Splicers (zombie-like creatures that would just LOVE a human sandwich). The atmosphere takes your breath away, with creepy corridors and rundown buildings, with little tidbits from the sixties, since that's the time period.

I want to post a better screenshot on here, but unfortunately it's all too violent. So if you want to see more, go look it up or buy it yourself, at your own risk. Because as much as I highly recommend this game, it's not for the intestinally weak. This is the same reason I couldn't post the video promo. =)

This is also my first shooter game, meaning it's first person. It's a little hard to get used to, but I don't mind it as much as I thought I would... just the screen is really dark on some parts so you have to adjust the brightness a lot at first until you're used to it, and it's also a little unnerving to not be able to see someone coming up behind you. I got clubbed so many times because of that. Fortunately, I have a wrench and a pistol, and nothing can stop me in this game.