Christine's Book Corner

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...

Don't feel guilty because you didn't go truly mad while reading Truly Madly Guilty , a contemporary fiction book by Liane Moriarty. One sunny day, six adults, three young children, and one small dog gather at Tiffany and Vid's house for a BBQ.  One ordinary day, one secret that haunts each of them for the weeks that follow.  Sam and Clementine's marriage is tested.  Oliver's wife, Erika, has a secret she'd been hiding for awhile.  Tiffany and Vid are the owners of the house where the BBQ was held.  What could possibly go wrong when everyone is gathered in a backyard enjoying the day?  In Moriarty's book, the basis of relationships is tested.  With everyone carrying a heavy burden of guilt, secrets are going to come out and harbored feelings released.   This was the first book I read from Moriarty, but the summary looked good and I was looking forward to reading when my copy came in the library.  I thought the secret everyone...

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...

The After Party by Jana Prikryl is a book of poems that takes us through continents and eras.  In the first half of the book, we are brought to each of these places, seeing them through Prikryl's eyes.  The second half is consisted of forty poems that are related and told in the many voices of Prikryl with her style.  Again, we are taken on a journey with her through the poems. This book gets 0 out of 5 stars from me because there is nothing, not even one factor that I found redeeming in this book.  As a poet, I really looked forward to this book, hoping it would bring me inspiration for poems that I'm writing.  The only thing it taught me was how not to write any poems. I should've known from the first poem how it was going to go.  Ontario Gothic was the title, the poem...nothing to do with what I was expecting.  And the stanzas were nowhere near connected with each other.  I sat there sitting, wondering what it was all about.  An...

The Basketball Diaries  is a memoir by Jim Carroll written in diary form to show us what it was like growing up in New York City during the late 1960's.  Living with sex and drugs as an everyday occurrence, we learn the struggles of Jim Carroll and how it affected his life. A memoir could be written as a narrative, but in The Basketball Diaries , Carroll wrote it as the book suggests, a diary.  I think this was a great way to write this book because it really brought the reader into his life.  It was in depth and I felt that you were really brought into his life.  You felt his struggles with drugs and sex and how tough it was for him living in New York.  I think if it was written as a regular book, it would've lost that affect.   Where Carroll lived is where I live now and I found that all the more exciting.  Granted it's in the past, five decades ago to be exact, I found out facts I didn't know about my neighborhood.  I even had...

In The Cross and the Dragon  by Kim Rendfeld, Alda is caught in the middle of a difficult decision.  Her brother is in talks with having her marry Ganelon, who is rough and shows abuse towards Alda and they aren't even married yet.  At the same time, Alda is attracted to Hruodland and the feeling is mutual.  The two plan to marry, no matter what happens.  After much convincing, Alda finally gets her brother to agree that she could marry Hruodland.  Soon into their marriage, Hruodland is sent away to fight in the army as they invade Hispania.  This troubles Alda as she worries if she'll ever see her husband again once he leaves.  With Ganelon still wanting revenge for Alda choosing Hruodland over him, will she ever be safe from his harm?  Will Alda and Hruodland live the life of a couple so in love with each other?  Will war break them up?   My Review: Normally, I love books that are written about this time period.  A...

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...

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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...

Summary from Goodreads #1 New York Times bestseller Nicholas Sparks turns his unrivaled talents to a new tale about love found and lost, and the choices we hope we'll never have to make. Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life - boating, swimming , and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies -- he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style. That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door. Spanning the eventful years of young love, marriage and family, THE CHOICE ultimately confronts us with the most heartwrenching question of all: how far would you go to keep the hope of love alive? My Thoughts:  This was the first book I read by Nicholas Sparks and I'm glad that it was.  I'll be honest, I saw the movie when it was out in theaters back in February, not knowing to expe...

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 from Goodreads.com Summary Taken from  Goodreads.com A vicious fifteen-year-old "droog" is the central character of this 1963 classic, whose stark terror was captured in Stanley Kubrick's magnificent film of the same title. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex—to "redeem" him—the novel asks, "At what cost?" This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked" My Thoughts Rated 1 Star I know this book is a classic and I knew very little when starting to read the book.  The only thi...

Summary:  Taken from Goodreads The first installment of an adventure featuring stolen books, secret agents and forbidden societies - think Doctor Who with librarian spies! Irene must be at the top of her game or she'll be off the case - permanently... Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, which harvests fiction from different realities. And along with her enigmatic assistant Kai, she's posted to an alternative London. Their mission - to retrieve a dangerous book. But when they arrive, it's already been stolen. London's underground factions seem prepared to fight to the very death to find her book. Adding to the jeopardy, this world is chaos-infested - the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic. Irene's new assistant is also hiding secrets of his own. Soon, she's up to her eyebrows in a heady mix of danger, clues and secret societies. Yet failure is not an option - the nature of reality itself is at st...

Title:  Flowers in the Attic Author: V.C. Andrews Photo from goodreads.com Synopsis: The Dollanganger family seem like an ordinary family to their friends in Gladstone, PA.  Four children who many consider being perfect, with a loving mother and father.  Nothing could ever go wrong.  Or could it?   Everything changes the day the father dies suddenly in a car crash.  The mother, desperate for money when she finds out her late husband left her with nothing at the time of his death, writes to her parents.  Waiting and hoping that her mother will help her out in her time of need.  The children never heard of these grandparents, but when the mother explains how her parents are rich, the kids can't wait to live a life of luxury.  However, they will soon learn there are many secrets within their family and that their grandparents aren't whom they seem.  When they arrive at their grandparents' house, the children h...

Title: The Burning Author: Jane Casey Photo from Goodreads.com Synopsis: The Burning Man.  He's the serial killer that has the people of London terrified.  Finding young woman, killing them, and then burning their bodies beyond recognition.  With four bodies already found through the course of five months, a fifth body is found.  Is it The Burning Man's work, or that of a copycat killer? Maeve Kerrigan is on the murder task force and has been following the cases of these women.  She wants The Burning man caught before he can kill again.  She wants to show the others on the force that she is more than just a pretty face and that she deserves to be on the force just as much as they do.  With the fifth murder, she hopes that she can break the case and finally be respected.  Rebecca Haworth is the latest victim and Maeve is determined to find the murderer.  She believes it wasn't The Burning Man who killed her....

Title: Wink Poppy Midnight Author: April Genevieve Tucholke Photo from Goodreads.com Synopsis: Wink is the girl no one wants to know from school.  The one that's at the end of constant bullying and from a family that others consider weird.  She isn't described as beautiful and is known as Feral Bell to those who tease her.  Added to her weirdness, she has a mother who does tarot cards and reads tea leaves.  She and her siblings live with their mother after their father had run out on them.  Poppy is the most popular girl at school, every guy fawns over her.  But it's Midnight who's the first guy she sleeps with, only because the guy she really loves, Leaf Bell (Wink's brother) doesn't like her and says she's an ugly person on the inside.  She is one of the characters who is always bullying Wink.  Midnight gets himself involved in a love triangle between these two women when he decides he's had enough of Poppy and how she...

Photo from goodreads.com (370 pages) Synopsis: Jamie Pyke is the first character we meet and we quickly find out he's the son of a slave and a master.  He is on the run after killing his father who was going to sell him to slavery.  At the young age of 13, he runs away for his safety and not to be caught.  It is there when he meets Henry, a slave on the run, who saves Jamie's life.  Years later, the two meet again when Henry asks Jamie to take his son Pan on as a servant.  When Pan's stolen from Jamie a new adventure awaits for him.  Mixed in with his lover, who's married to another man, who is pregnant with Jamie's child, the adventure has many turns for him, full of love, heartache, and new beginnings. My Review: Grissom did a real great job bringing these characters to life.  Jamie was my favorite character throughout this book.  My heart felt for him which each heartbreak he had to endure.  Grissom showed...

Title: Tell The Wolves I'm Home Author:  Carol Rifka Brunt Photo from goodreads.com Summary:  Taken from goodreads In this striking literary debut, Carol Rifka Brunt unfolds a moving story of love, grief, and renewal as two lonely people become the unlikeliest of friends and find that sometimes you don’t know you’ve lost someone until you’ve found them. 1987. There’s only one person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus, and that’s her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn’s company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June’s world is turned upside down. But Finn’s death brings a surprise acquaintance into June’s life - someone who will help her to heal and to question what she thinks she knows about Finn, her family, and even her own heart. At F...

Title: Salt to the Sea Author: Ruta Sepetys Rating: * * * * * Photo taken from Goodreads.com Summary:  Taken from Goodreads Winter, 1945. Four teenagers. Four secrets. Each one born of a different homeland; each one hunted, and haunted, by tragedy, lies…and war. As thousands of desperate refugees flock to the coast in the midst of a Soviet advance, four paths converge, vying for passage aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship that promises safety and freedom. Yet not all promises can be kept. Inspired by the single greatest tragedy in maritime history, bestselling and award-winning author Ruta Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray) lifts the veil on a shockingly little-known casualty of World War II. An illuminating and life-affirming tale of heart and hope. My Thoughts: Four secrets.  You know right off that this book is going to revolve around four secrets from four different people that have their paths cross.  You can't help but to wonder what it is t...

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...