Christine's Book Corner

Pack your bags and get as far away as you can from The Travelers,  a suspense novel by Chris Pavone where Will Rhodes is made a spy overnight.   Will Rhodes is constantly questioning himself if he's made the right decisions in life, whether it be about his job, which is writing for the magazine, The Travelers, or his marriage, wondering if he married the right woman or if she even loves him.  One night, he is in France working when he is approached by Elle, who isn't at all what she seems.  Before he knows it, he is asked to be a spy by Elle.  Though Will goes back and forth if he should take on this job, he agrees and becomes a spy.  One by one every choice Will makes is worse than the one before and he is sent all over the world by this new spy ring he is apart of.  Will soon find out that everything in his life wasn't what he always thought it was. Looking at the cover, you can sense the suspense that the two main characters are spies, ...

Let your mind wander and go crazy once you enter Asylum , a fantasy novel by Madeline Roux. Daniel Crawford is a 16-year-old high school student who is spending the summer in New Hampshire to attend a college prep program at New Hampshire College.  While the regular dorms are being renovated, students of this program are put up in Brookline, a former Asylum that holds many secrets.  Dan soon makes friends with Abby and Jordan while attending the program and together, they decide to go against campus rules and explore the hidden, forbidden ward of the building to find out what secrets it holds.  Is there a time when secrets should be kept quiet?  What is it about Brookline that people from the area don't want others to find out?  Roux takes you on an adventure of a lifetime with Dan and his friends as we spend the five weeks with them as they attend college prep in Brookline. Roux really brought these characters to life and you couldn't help but rela...

The Graveyard Apartment  by Mariko Koike centers around a young married couple who move into the news apartment with their small child and pet dog.  The apartment is everything a person could want, close to shopping centers and a school.  Cheap price for such a spacious apartment, but there is one catch; it's built with a graveyard right outside.  Not long after the move in, weird and creepy things begin to happen to the family and the few other residents who live in the apartment.  One by one, the other tenants begin to move out until this family is the only one left with whoever or whatever it is that is haunting the building. I rated this book 4 out of 5  stars.  It was a quick read and held my interested the entire time.  I'm always up for a good horror story and that is what this was, a horror tale.  I kept wanting to find out what exactly it was that was causing the creepiness to the tenants of the building.  One would nat...

Orphan Train  by  Christina Baker Kline Get on board the orphan train and travel to a different place and time where two girls who are separated by decades and yet find out their lives are no different at all in this novel  Orphan Train by Christine Baker Kline. I was captivated by this book right from the beginning.  Kline starts the book with a prologue of a woman speaking.  All we know is that she is ninety years old and endured many hardships in life.  From that moment, you need to find out who this woman is and what she went through all these years that she lived.  It was hard to put the book down with such a powerful opening. Molly is a seventeen year old girl who meets Vivian while she's cleaning out her attic as part of her community service.  Being placed in foster home after foster home, Molly finds herself in trouble after stealing a book from the local library.  When she goes to meet Vivian for the fi...

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep  by Philip K. Dick Summary from Goodreads It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there, lurked several rogue androids. Deckard's assignmet--find them and then..."retire" them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn't want to be found! My Thoughts  First off, let me say that the title of this book didn't describe the book at all.  Why did Philip K. Dick even make this a title.  We only saw an electric sheep mentioned at the beginning of the book and towards then end, when the main character got a goat.  Other than that...I saw nothing to do with electric sheep and the link with androids sleeping.  Androids, yes they were a major part of the book.  But I didn't see any other connection there to the title.  I really did have hope for this book when I began reading it, but slowly, the book kept changing bet...

Summary from Goodreads Catch a fallen star... Tristan Thorn promised to bring back a fallen star. So he sets out on a journey to fulfill the request of his beloved, the hauntingly beautiful Victoria Forester - and stumbles into the enchanted realm that lies beyond the wall of his English country town. Rich with adventure and magic,  Stardust  is one of master storyteller Neil Gaiman's most beloved tales, and the inspiration for the hit movie. My Thoughts:  I had no idea this book was a movie until I was halfway through reading it.  Having said that, I have to see the movie now (and not only because Ben Barnes is in it), but because I hope that the movie is better than the book. Gaiman's writing in this book had be hooked at the beginning and I was really looking forward to where it was heading and then just like that, the book lost me.  I began to lose interest and found myself skimming through some of the chapters.  Too much ...

Summary from  Goodreads A profound and dazzlingly entertaining novel from the writer Louis Menand calls "Jane Austen with a Russian soul"   In her warm, absorbing and keenly observed new novel, Lara Vapnyar follows the intertwined lives of four immigrants in New York City as they grapple with love and tumult, the challenges of a new home, and the absurdities of the digital age.    Vica, Vadik, Sergey and Regina met in Russia in their school days, but remained in touch and now have very different American lives. Sergey cycles through jobs as an analyst, hoping his idea for an app will finally bring him success. His wife Vica, a medical technician struggling to keep her family afloat, hungers for a better life. Sergey’s former girlfriend Regina, once a famous translator is married to a wealthy startup owner, spends her days at home grieving over a recent loss. Sergey’s best friend Vadik, a programmer ever in search of perfection, keeps trying on different w...

Photo from Goodreads.com Summary  from Goodreads Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children  was the surprise best seller of 2011—an unprecedented mix of YA fantasy and vintage photography that enthralled readers and critics alike. Publishers Weekly called it “an enjoyable, eccentric read, distinguished by well-developed characters, a believable Welsh setting, and some very creepy monsters.” This second novel begins in 1940, immediately after the first book ended. Having escaped Miss Peregrine’s island by the skin of their teeth, Jacob and his new friends must journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. Along the way, they encounter new allies, a menagerie of peculiar animals, and other unexpected surprises. Complete with dozens of newly discovered (and thoroughly mesmerizing) vintage photographs, this new adventure will delight readers of all ages. My Thoughts: Rated 5 Stars. Riggs had me hooked with Miss Peregrine's Ho...

Photo from Goodreads Summary  From Goodreads Before.  Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. My Thoughts Rated 2 Stars The first book I read by John Green.  I thought Green really brought Miles to life in this book.  You can feel his pain, hurt, emotion throughout the story.  A new kid in a new school, he felt out of place.  That is a naturally feeling.  I'm sure many of us h...

Photo taken from Goodreads.com       Title:  Everybody's Fool Author: Richard Russo Rating: * * Summary:  Taken from Goodreads.com The irresistible Sully, who in the intervening years has come by some unexpected good fortune, is staring down a VA cardiologist’s estimate that he has only a year or two left, and it’s hard work trying to keep this news from the most important people in his life: Ruth, the married woman he carried on with for years . . . the ultra-hapless Rub Squeers, who worries that he and Sully aren’t  still  best friends . . . Sully’s son and grandson, for whom he was mostly an absentee figure (and now a regretful one). We also enjoy the company of Doug Raymer, the chief of police who’s obsessing primarily over the identity of the man his wife might’ve been about to run off with,  before  dying in a freak accident . . . Bath’s mayor, the former academic Gus Moynihan, whose wife problems are, i...