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Welcome to a new Online Book Club discussion for September! This month, we’re reading The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin. 

The Online Book Club, if you’ve never joined us before, is a book discussion group that takes place entirely online. Each week, I write a new blog post that talks about different aspects of the book, and you can interact directly with me and other readers by leaving a comment in the comments section. Make sure you check back each week and see what new topics we’re talking about. 

The Mountain Between Us is a harrowing story about Ben, a surgeon, and Ashley, a magazine writer. After their plane crashes on an icy mountain, they have to find a way to survive. Even though they are strangers at the beginning of the book, they grow to trust each other as they rely on each other to make it through their ordeal. Also, there are a couple of surprising twists that I can’t wait to talk to you about! It’s a great book if you’re interested in a survival story with a lot of interesting character growth and development.

You can also watch The Mountain Between Us movie if you’re interested in the story but don’t want to read with us. Check out the trailer above if you’re on the fence about watching this month. Feel free to leave comments about the movie on the blog posts, even if you aren’t reading the book with us. 

We’ll be reading the first seventeen chapters for the discussion next week, so make sure to read that section by next week if you want to follow our pace. I hope you’ll join the discussion!

Welcome to the final week of our Murder on the Orient Express Online Book Club discussion!

Ok, be honest. Did any of you solve the mystery before reading the end of the book? Were you so surprised when you actually read what happened? I know I was—I just didn’t see that ending coming. 

Do you think Poirot had enough information to make the conclusions he did? Did you go back through and review all of the clues that Agatha Christie left to see if you could have figured out the mystery if you had just understood the significance of all of the clues? I’m not sure if I believe someone could have solved the mystery with just the information Poirot learned, but I guess that’s what makes this such interesting fiction. 

Do you feel that justice was served? Did you wish that the passengers had to have some sort of repercussions for their actions? Even though Ratchett was such a bad guy, it seems a little weird that no one was punished for his murder. 

If you enjoyed this book and want to learn more about Agatha Christie, check out The BBC’s Agatha Christie page. On that site, you can listen to some interviews with Christie and her husband and see short documentaries about her life. You can even watch clips about The Mousetrap, a play Christie wrote that has been running in London’s West End since 1952, making it the longest-running play in history!

I hope you leave any final thoughts about the book with me in the comments section! I can’t wait to hear what you thought of the book, the mystery, and Poirot’s detective abilities. And, let me know if you’ve read another Christie mystery that you have really enjoyed. I’d love to get some more books for my reading list!

Welcome back to Week 3 of the Online Book Club discussion of Murder on the Orient Express!

This section was heavy on the details and evidence, wasn’t it? Did you get overwhelmed by all of the interviews? Do you feel like you solved the mystery with the evidence presented? I know I wasn’t able to figure out the ending from reading this section. 

Two of the biggest pieces of evidence in this section were the scarlet silk kimono and the button from the train attendant uniform. But after interviewing everyone, Poirot decided that these two pieces of clothing weren’t really clues. None of the women confessed to having a scarlet robe, and the train attendant who was on duty didn’t have any missing buttons. At the end of the section, the scarlet robe was found in Poirot’s luggage. Why do you think someone would have hidden the robe in his belongings? Was it a challenge? 

Also in this section, Mrs. Hubbard finds the murder weapon, a dagger, in her makeup bag. Why do you think someone put the the dagger there? Do you think she’s guilty, but trying to shift suspicion by finding the murder weapon and suggesting it was planted? 

It was also interesting that one of the passengers, Mr. Hardman, revealed himself to be a private detective. Why do you think Ratchett wanted Poirot to help him when he already had a detective on board who was working on his case? 

Do you suspect any of the passengers for the murder? Do any of them stick out to you as being particularly suspicious? Do you think any of them were lying during their testimonies? 

I hope this section enticed you to keep reading to solve the mystery. You’ll have to tell me next week if you figured out the mystery before you finished reading the book. 

If you’re looking for a fun video about the movie version of Murder on the Orient Express, check out this clip. It gives some behind the scenes details.

I hope you’ll join us next week as we finish talking about the book. Make sure to leave me a comment to let me know how you are enjoying the mystery so far!

Welcome to Week 2 of our Online Book Club discussion of Murder on the Orient Express!

How did reading the first section go for you all? I had a little bit of trouble getting in to the book. There are just so many details!

This first section introduces Hercule Poirot, and the crime he is going to have to solve. What are your first impressions of Poirot? He’s a little like Sherlock Holmes in that he can deduce a lot from just a few clues. Poirot is certainly not afraid to speak his mind, is he? Could you believe that he refused to help Ratchett, and he told Ratchett that he wouldn’t help because he didn’t like Ratchett’s face? That was pretty cold. 

We know that Ratchett was murdered, and the clues left at the scene may or may not be fake. Poirot thinks it is a little too convenient that there was both a pipe brush and a woman’s handkerchief at the scene. It seems like someone was trying to leave distinct clues, so nobody could deduce if the murderer was a man or a woman.

Poirot does find a more important clue at the scene: a scrap of burned paper that reveals that Ratchett wasn’t really named Ratchett. Instead, he was a gangster named Cassetti, who kidnapped and murdered a little girl named Daisy Armstrong. 

That gives us a motive for Ratchett/Cassetti’s murder: Someone wanted revenge for Daisy’s death. But we don’t really have any more concrete details. 

Do you have any guesses about the murder? Share them in the comments, but if you’ve already read the book or watched the movie, make sure you don’t leave any spoilers!

Did you know that you can still take rides on the Orient Express? It’s not exactly like the train that Poirot would have ridden on, but it’s still luxurious and elegant. If you want to learn more about the Orient Express now, check out this article from People and this one from the Telegraph, too. Both articles have great photos of the inside of the train cars. 

Make sure you read the next section before joining us next week. You’ll get a full view of all of the evidence, so by the time you comment next week, you may have figured out the mystery. I hope to hear from you in the comments section!

Welcome to a new Online Book Club discussion for August! This month, we’re reading Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. 

The Online Book Club, in case you’ve never joined us before, is a book discussion group that takes place entirely online. Each week, I write a new blog post that talks about different aspects of the book, and you can interact directly with me and other readers by leaving a comment in the comments section. Make sure you check back each week and see what new topics we’re talking about. 

Murder on the Orient Express is a classic mystery tale that involves one of Christie’s most famous characters, the detective Hercule Poirot. While riding on the luxurious train, Poirot gets caught up in a murder investigation. Instead of spending the journey relaxing, he is forced to interrogate witnesses to try to find a murderer. 

If you’re looking to end the summer with an intriguing mystery story, you’ll definitely enjoy this book. You can also watch one of the movie or television adaptations if you’re interested in the mystery but don’t want to read with us. Check out the trailer of the most recent version of Murder on the Orient Express, released last year, above if you’re on the fence about watching it this month. If you do watch one of the movies, feel free to leave comments on the blog posts, even if you aren’t reading the book with us. 

We’ll be reading Part One for the discussion next week, so make sure to read that section by August 13 if you want to follow our pace. I hope you’ll join the discussion!

Welcome to our last Online Book Club discussion of Everything, Everything.

How shocked were you by the twist ending? I wasn’t surprised at all when Maddy became sick when she was in Hawaii. That seemed inevitable. But, I was really surprised that she wasn’t really sick with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency. It must have been incredibly heartbreaking for her to realize that she really didn’t know her mother at all. And, to find out by an e-mail from a stranger, the doctor who treated her in Hawaii, must have made it more confusing. 

As a mother, I can totally understand Maddy’s mom’s desire to keep Maddy safe, especially since she had already lost her husband and son. But, it was too bad that she chose to keep her safe by making her believe she was really sick. Maddy lost out on so many different experiences by staying in her house for all of those years. 

Do you think that Maddy and Olly will continue to be together as the book implies at the end? They seem to be pretty compatible, and they had such a great time in Hawaii before Maddy got sick. 

What do you imagine Maddy’s life will be like after the book’s end? Do you think she will want to go away to college, or spend a lot of time traveling? I feel like she would want to experience everything. Even simple things like going for walks or visiting a zoo or a park would be really exciting if you had spent so much time in your house. 

Didn’t you think that Maddy was a believable character, and her excitement for the world and new experiences was true to her upbringing? Nicola Yoon drew on her young daughter’s reaction to experiencing new things to create the character of Maddy. She also made sure to make Maddy a biracial character, so that her daughter would be able to see parts of herself in Maddy. If you want to read more about Yoon’s writing process and the inspiration behind the book, check out this article. Make sure to check out the We Need Diverse Books website if you want to learn more about the organization. 

I hope you enjoyed the book this month! If you really enjoyed Nicola Yoon’s writing style, you might want to check out her other book, The Sun Is Also A Star. 

Let me know what you thought of the book by leaving a comment. I’m really interested to hear if you were surprised by the fact that Maddy wasn’t really sick. 

Join us next month as we read Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. I hope to hear from you in the comments!

Welcome to Week 3 of our Online Book Club discussion of Everything, Everything.

This was an exciting section, wasn’t it? How surprised were you that Maddy left her house, bought plane tickets, and went to Hawaii with Olly? I felt like something big like that was going to happen after they met. After they touched, it seemed inevitable that she wouldn’t be content with life inside the house anymore. I was pretty surprised that she went all the way to Hawaii, though. You’d think that she might want to start a little smaller than flying to a different state. I guess she just wanted to make sure she could have a good experience without her mother’s interference. 

Before the trip, Nicola Yoon spends a lot of time in this second section talking about Olly’s dad. Why do you think she put so much time into telling us about this periphery character? Do you think the fact that he was so volatile helped to bring Olly and Maddy closer together? Did it give them something to bond over? 

A pivotal point in this section was when Maddy ran out of the house after Olly’s dad punched him in the stomach. Her reaction was too intense for her to pretend that she didn’t care about Olly. Were you surprised that she ran outside? And were you surprised that she appeared to have no ill effects when she did?

It was sad that this event caused Maddy’s mom to fire Maddy’s nurse, Carla. She was so kind to Maddy. The new nurse is pretty horrible. I didn’t enjoy her passive-aggressive Post-it Notes. 

This section ends with Maddy ignoring a painful squeezing in her heart. She isn’t showing any other signs of illness, but this symptom is a little worrying. Do you think it’s stress, or is this a sign of her disease? Are you surprised that she is doing so well otherwise? How do you think this trip will end? 

As I’m sure you can guess from the format of this book, Nicola Yoon, the author, is a lot of fun. If you’re interested in seeing more of her personality, check out this video. Yoon plays a book game that looks like a game I would like to try with my family. 

Make sure to finish the book in time for our discussion next week! I hope to hear from you in the comments!

Welcome to Week 2 of the Online Book Club discussion of Everything, Everything.

How is the book treating you so far? The format is really interesting, isn’t it? There are so many different emails, text messages, lists, and pictures sprinkled throughout. Did you enjoy how author Nicola Yoon told the narrative? I thought that made the book different, fun, and fast to read.

On her blog, Yoon shared a behind the scenes photo of one of the first sketches she did for the story. Her husband ended up stepping in to create the art that we see in the book, and I think you’ll agree that was the right call after you look at her initial sketches. Yoon shares more about collaborating with her husband in this interview.

In this first section, we’re introduced to our main characters, Madeline and Olly. What do you think of Maddy and her illness? Can you imagine living inside, completely unable to interact with the outside world? She seems to have a pretty good attitude about it all at the beginning of the book. Were you surprised by all of the things she did while not leaving her house? Did it remind you of the movie Tangled, where Rapunzel lives in her tower but still finds tons of things to do every day? 

Once Olly shows up, things become more complicated. Did you guess that they would eventually meet in person once they started messaging each other? Do you think it was a good idea for them to meet? I completely understood why she would want to meet and why her nurse, Carla, would approve, but I was wary anyhow. It seems like at least one of them is going to be heartbroken by the end of the book. 

Did you know that Madeline’s disease, Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, is a real disease? The most famous case was David Vetter, sometimes known as “The boy in the bubble.” David Vetter was born in the 1970s, so he didn’t have all of the technological advances that Madeline did in the book, but doctors were still able to learn many things about the disease by studying him. Unfortunately, David died when he was 12, but his family has worked to make sure that all babies are screened for the disease. You can learn more about David in this video. 

Are you excited to keep reading along to find out what happens to Maddy and Olly? Do you have any guesses about how the book will end? 

I hope you’ll join us next week as we talk about the next 100 pages! Make sure to leave me a comment, so I know how you are liking the book. 

Welcome to a new Online Book Club discussion for July! This month, we’re reading Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon.

The Online Book Club, in case you’ve never joined us before, is a book discussion group that takes place entirely online. Each week, I write a new blog post that talks about different aspects of the book, and you can interact directly with me and other readers by leaving a comment in the comments section. Make sure you check back each week and see what new topics we’re talking about.

Everything, Everything is the story of Madeline Whittier, a girl who has a rare disease that makes it impossible for her to leave the house. She lives with her mom in a specially-modified house that keeps all outside germs away, and she only interacts with her mom, her nurse, and a couple of tutors. She isn’t allowed to touch anyone or experience the outdoors because she isn’t sure what could make her ill. Madeline is relatively happy with her situation until a boy named Olly moves next door. After seeing each other through the window, Olly and Madeline start to interact online, and that’s when Madeline’s life starts to turn upside down.

This book is really easy to read and would be a perfect book to take on vacation. If you’re not convinced that you want to read along but still want to contribute to the discussion, you could always check out the Everything, Everything movie instead. Feel free to leave comments on the blog posts, even if you aren’t reading the book with us. Make sure you check out the movie trailer above if you’re on the fence about watching the movie this month. 

We’ll be reading the first 100 pages for the discussion next week, so make sure to read those if you want to read along with our pace. I hope you’ll join in the discussion!