Reviewer Spotlight

Branch: South County Regional

Reader’s Club honors Christine this month. She is co-captain of the Reader’s Club Team and manages the review database. Christine is a dedicated reviewer of novels for both adults and teens. Here is what she has to say about books, reading and reviewing:

I realize that it’s a cliché, but reading really has been an important part of my life since I was a kid. We always had books in my house, and what we didn’t have we could get at the library. My parents have always enjoyed reading, and they were certainly a big influence on me. I’m not sure that I would love reading as much as I do if I had not seen my parents with a book in hand every day.

I primarily read fiction because I enjoy stepping into someone else’s life, sharing a character’s experience, becoming part of their world. My friends would say that I read “fluff,” and they would be right. After years of being in school and reading various scholarly works, I’m looking for books that help me escape. Some of my favorite books are classics (Wuthering Heights is one that I read over and over and still manage to learn something new), but Nora Roberts, for example, is just as fun for me. Leo Lionni’s Frederick is a favorite picture book of mine, and I’ve found some great books written for teens, too. As long as it has an engaging story, then it’s the right book for me.

The Reader’s Club web site has given me an opportunity to share books that I’ve enjoyed with more people than I could ever possibly encounter at the library. Over time I’ve learned that if a book review is not coming easily to me, it may not be the right book for me to write about at that time. The easiest reviews to write are the ones for stories in which I fully became involved. I may not be writing for a professional journal, but I still find great satisfaction in getting my thoughts about a book down on paper. Reader’s Club has turned me on to books that I might not have picked up otherwise, and hopefully my reviews will do the same for someone else.