The Running Bibliophile

I Am Made of Death by Kelly Andrew is a young adult book that is told from the perspective of two different characters. It opens with Thomas Walsh taking a job as an ASL (American Sign Language) interpreter for a mute girl named Vivienne who hasn't spoken since a family vacation gone wrong. Vivi must be accompanied at all times and isn't allowed out after dark. She has decided to take matters into her own hands and have a medically questionable surgery to fix her issue. A huge thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic for providing me with an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of I Am Made of Death by Kelly Andrew for free in exchange for my honest review. This is a book that I wished for, and my wish was granted. To say I was excited is an understatement. The character development for both Thomas and Vivienne was exceptionally good, especially for a YA book. We learn their backstory continuously throughout the storyline, so the development is slow. As for the writing, it was well written...

The Night House by Jo Nesbo  was published on October 3, 2023, is an adult horror novel released by Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor. The story follows Richard Elauved, a young boy sent to live with foster parents in the town of Ballantyne after his biological parents are killed. At his new school, Richard is both an outcast and a target of bullying, which only deepens his isolation. When a classmate named Tom mysteriously goes missing, Richard quickly becomes the prime suspect. He insists that Tom was somehow sucked into a phone booth at the edge of the woods, a claim no one is willing to believe. As fear and suspicion grow, another student disappears, leaving Richard in even deeper trouble and facing serious consequences with the law. Not having read any books by Jo Nesbo, I was intrigued by the synopsis and cover art of The Night House .  I requested to receive an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of this book from NetGalley.  I was absolutely ecstatic that I was...

The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict opens with Lily returning to her aunt's manor house and discovers that if she wants to inherit the house, she must play the traditional Christmas game with her cousins over a period of twelve days. When one of them is murdered and a snowstorm cuts them off from the rest of the village, Lily realizes she must fight for her life. Over the twelve days, twelve clues, and twelve keys, how many will perish? First and foremost, I'd like to thank NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the digital copy of The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict. I was thrilled to receive a copy prior to it coming out in paperback on October 4, 2022 because it sounded intriguing. Reminiscent of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (a.k.a. Ten Little Indians ) and the movie Clue , I found myself comparing The Christmas Murder Game to both. There were even parts that reminded me a bit of The Shining by Stephen King. However, this didn...

The Fear Street Prowler has every one on edge in Shadyside, especially Melissa, who wakes up screaming due to a tapping on her window. Strange things start happening to her like her new car veering into oncoming traffic, her presents being ripped open by an unknown entity, and something or someone trying to push Melissa out her bedroom window. Is it Melissa's imagination or the Fear Street Prowler. Find out in R.L. Stine's Haunted (Fear Street, #7) . The Fear Street book series by R.L. Stine was one of my favorite Young Adult Horror series when I was a tween and teen. I still had most of the books from them, so I decided to reread them, in the order they were published, as an adult to see if they still were as scary to me as they were back then. I didn't have a copy of Haunted , so I ordered a used copy through ThriftBooks.com. As an adult, this was a super easy read and only took a couple hours for me to finish. It was a creepy read that was perfect for a rainy night. Whe...

The Train by Diane Hoh opens with Hannah, Kerry, Mack, and Lewis, along with other students from Parker High School, boarding a train in Chicago for a cross country school trip to San Francisco. Once on the train, they find out a deceased student from their school was being transported back to his parents, and the friends start admitting to how horribly they had treated Frog before he died. Then, horrible things started happening to them on the train, and it seems like Frog is out for revenge. Rereading this book as an adult and having read most of Agatha Christie's books, The Train loosely reminded me of Murder on the Orient Express but in reverse. This book also has a very Stephen King vibe to it but is kid friendly. With that being said, I still am a bit jumpy from reading it as an adult. This is a book that I originally read when I was either a tween or a teen. Usually when I reread books from my childhood, I generally remember what happens as I work my way through the book....

When I was a kid, there was a book club subscription service called Especially For Girls . My mom signed me up for it when I began to become an avid reader. One of the books I received was Love Story, Take Three by Gloria D. Miklowitz. For whatever reason, it ended up on a shelf in my mom's shoe closet without me reading it. Several years later, she was cleaning out the closet and came across the book and gave it back to me. I remember reading it in high school and falling in love with it. As part of my rereading my way through my childhood, I decided to read it again to see if it stood the test of time. Love Story, Take Three by Gloria D. Miklowitz is about a teenage actress named Valerie who wants nothing more than to have a normal life like her classmates. When she starts dating basketball player Tom Gordon, Valerie lies about being an actress, which becomes harder to hide when she lands a lead role on a new television show. One of the things I enjoyed about the bo...

To say I was excited about Stephen King's newest book, The Institute , coming out last year is an understatement. However, I wasn't sure I wanted to pay full price for a brand new book, but while shopping at BJ's Wholesale Club, they were selling The Institute for under $16.00, so it was an easy decision that I should buy a copy. Although I was super excited about this book, I needed to wait a bit to read it because I was reading another of King's books. There were a few things that I loved right off about The Institute . Since most of Stephen King's books take place in the Northeast, at least that is the impression I've gotten from the books I've read by him so far, I was extremely surprised that several cities in the Southeast were mentioned. The one I loved the most was the mention of Marietta, Georgia, which is where I grew up. It's in the Metropolitan Atlanta area, so it isn't some small town, but unless you live in Georgia, you've ...

The Running Bibliophile's Thriller Book Challenge Challenge yourself to read each and every book on The Running Bibliophile's Thriller Book Challenge List below. Let us know if you loved these books or hated them! The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena Deeper Than The Dead (Oak Knoll, #1) by Tami Hoag Vanished (Nick Heller, #1) by Joseph Finder The Breakdown by B.A. Paris The Institute by Stephen King The Stranger You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams The Firm by John Grisham The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, J.K. Rowling The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Oh . . . my . . . god. I don't even know where to begin with my book review of The Shining (The Shining, #1) by Stephen King. The first thought I had when I finished the book was that I definitely needed to re-watch the movie because the book was written so well that it just left me in awe.  I'll be up front . . . I haven't read a lot of Stephen King's books yet because my mom wanted me to be a kid and actually read age appropriate books growing up, so I am a bit behind the eight ball. (I wasn't allowed to read his books when I was in middle school or high school even though other kids at school were reading him.) Now as an adult, I've been slowly but surely reading his books.  The Shining is definitely one of my favorites by him so far.  I have to say that I'm glad that my mom made that decision for me because I can see the reason why. King's books have such adult themes in them that I think I would have had trouble sleeping at night if I had read t...

It  by Stephen King takes place in the town of Derry where there is something terrible lurking in the storm drains and sewers that takes the shape of children's worst nightmares and hunts them down. The adults in Derry are oblivious of what is lurking in their town. Join the Losers Club as they fight  It  as children and promise to come back to kill it if needed as adults. With the remake of the movie It coming out in the fall, I decided to read the book by Stephen King because I wanted to see the movie but not without first reading the book. In the month of May, I began reading It , and it took me four months to read it ... 4 months! Now, I did take a one week break where I read three other books, but the length of It was a bit too long for my liking. In the version I read, it was close to 1,500 pages! With that being said, I'm not sure that anything could have been cut from the book because it would have lost that wow factor for me. It's hard to be...

Desperation by Stephen King is a chilling horror novel set along the desolate stretch of Interstate 50, where travelers may stumble upon the eerie, nearly abandoned town of Desperation, Nevada ...  a place where stopping could cost you your life. Beneath the surface of this lonely desert town, an ancient and malevolent force is unleashed, possessing the bodies of its residents one by one. In Desperation , no one is safe. You can run, but you can't hide. Have you ever come across a book so relentlessly bleak that it took you years to finish? Desperation was that book for me. While it’s undeniably well-written, the overwhelming sense of dread and emotional heaviness made it difficult to read for long stretches. I found myself repeatedly setting it aside in favor of lighter novels, only to return when curiosity and determination pulled me back in. At one point, I gained enough momentum that I was determined to push through and finally finish it, despite its deeply unsettling to...

11/22/63  by Stephen King opens with high school teacher Jake Epping being recruited by his friend Al, a local diner owner, to travel back in time to 1963 and stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy . Though skeptical at first, Jake follows Al’s instructions and discovers a portal to the past. As he builds a new life in another era, he quickly learns that altering history comes with unexpected consequences and not everything goes according to plan. Who hasn't thought about time travel ... of going back into the past or jumping ahead into the future? With so many books, and movies, on this subject matter, you'd think the subject of time travel would be overdone and predictable. But, Stephen King is anything but predictable and delivers a story that feels fresh, immersive, and completely unforgettable. I frequently find myself thinking about 11/22/63 . Does the date sound familiar to you? On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, leaving the nati...