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A Trip to the Stars

4.35 of 5 stars 4.35 · rating details · 970 ratings · 179 reviews

At a Manhattan planetarium in 1965, ten-year-old Enzo and his young aunt, Mala, are separated, an event that profoundly alters the rest of their lives. In an epic tale of love and destiny, "A Trip to the Stars" charts their paths over the next fifteen years as they search for each other and, in the process, discover themselves. As Enzo and Mala cross continents and seas on...more

Paperback, 499 pages

Published February 20th 2001 by Touchstone (first published February 15th 2000)

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Community Reviews

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Feb 16, 2011 Mariel rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: (*)(*)

Recommended to Mariel by: karen

The Book of Life, Love, Dreams and Epicness Beyond that did not read to me. I wanted to like A Trip to the Stars more than I did. You know that feeling of hearing about the very detailed dream someone has and you feel like you're probably missing a freaking ton of back story? The symbols that represent so much don't mean anything to you? People are people who wear masks of other people? It must mean an awful lot to the person having it. It ties in all of those things that they've been thinking a...more

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Apr 19, 2009 Lianne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, fiction

Wow. I don't remember what I was expecting when I started reading this book, but A Trip to the Stars far exceeded those expectations. The story is intricate, beautifully written, and totally engrossing. Very different than what I have read recently. I read a review somewhere that said the storylines of the two main characters, Mala and Enzo, are like separate wide spirals that get tighter and tighter as they overlap -- and I really agree with that assessment.

I am so glad I invested the time I d...more

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Jan 23, 2012 Nina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended by my friends Marla and Kerfe, "A Trip to the Stars" has everything that I want in a book: great story, characters drawn beautifully (even the dog Sirius is given a personality), and the hum of synchronicity throughout the book.
At age ten, Loren is kidnapped at a planetarium--he grabs a hand, thinking it is his young aunt's, and winds up being spirited away. He had been adopted, his hippie parents were killed in a car crash, and the person who finds him, and brings him back, is his...more

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Dec 02, 2009 Darrell Reimer rated it 1 of 5 stars

I've enjoyed the work of a few "magic realists" in my day, and was looking forward to Christopher's take on the genre. After slogging through 150 pages, A Trip To The Stars is fated to remain unfinished -- its pretensions have deflated its attempted "realism" of any emotional power.

An orphan kid, Loren/Enzo gets separated from his charge in '65, then shuttled to an exotic hotel in Nevada where he receives an eclectic education. Meanwhile his young aunt, Alma/Mala (said charge) drifts through lif...more

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Oct 05, 2009 karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: littry-fiction, table, favorites

this is then closest thing to a one-size-fits-all book that ive come across. whenever someone asks me "just for something good". "i dont know, just with a good story", "whatever", i just give them this. even when they are much more helpful with what they are looking for - i give them this. and i have had a number of people come back and tell me how much they loved it, and do i have anything like it. thats the problem. i dont. there are shades of it in other books - millhauser, harington, carroll...more

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Jul 21, 2009 Paul Crittenden rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction, magical-realism

(This review attempts to avoid spoilers while presenting something of a synopsis of the plot. Personally I don't think it needs spoiler warnings but if you like going into a book knowing nothing about it then let me just say that I very much enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.)

I wish I had written it. I could give a story higher praise but not much. A Trip to the Stars is an extremely engaging, well-researched story with a lively cast of unforgettable characters.

The plot spans the 15 year...more (This review attempts to avoid spoilers while presenting something of a synopsis of the plot. Personally I don't think it needs spoiler warnings but if you like going into a book knowing nothing about it then let me just say that I very much enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.)

I wish I had written it. I could give a story higher praise but not much. A Trip to the Stars is an extremely engaging, well-researched story with a lively cast of unforgettable characters.

The plot spans the 15 years from 1965 to 1980 and travels from New York City to Las Vegas to Vietnam to a series of islands scattered all over the globe. The two main characters are Enzo Samax and his adopted aunt Mala Revell. (Who begin the book with the names Loren and Alma Revell, respectively.) Their story begins in a planetarium in New York City and will end in a Hawaiian planetarium – which should give a clue as to the importance of symmetry, coincidence, and all things stellar in this novel. While at the NYC observatory 10 year old Loren is kidnapped, completely devastating his 20 year old aunt and sending her on a search that will end up changing her in surprising and fantastic ways.

In alternating chapters we are given first-person accounts of Loren and Alma and what happens to them over the next decade and a half. Alma of course searches frantically for Loren but the trail is stone cold. She barely knows Loren herself but found herself the boy’s only guardian after his adopted parents and then grandmother died. After coming to terms with the fruitlessness of her search and with a deep sense of guilt, she changes her name to Mala Revell, enlists in the Army as an x-ray technician and goes to Vietnam even though she has moral misgivings about the war itself. It is there that she meets and then loses the love of her life. She then dives deep into despair and tries to assuage her guilt and depression over losing two loved ones. She spirals into a life of alcohol and drugs while island-hopping around the South Pacific and even serves some time as a mind reader’s assistant.

Loren meanwhile finds out that his “kidnapper” is actually his uncle – his real uncle, a man by the name of Junius Samax. Samax tells the boy that his real name is Enzo and offers him a chance live in his uncle’s austere Hotel Canopus outside Las Vegas. Loren is told that a letter explaining what happened will be sent to his aunt – a letter which never gets delivered. Since Loren is precocious enough to realize that his young aunt cannot really afford to make a life for both of them he figures that living with his uncle would be the best idea for all concerned. Living in the Hotel Canopus Loren begins going by the name on his birth certificate, Enzo, and finds himself in a truly magical place peopled with exotic characters. Over the years he learns about his mother but of his father little or nothing is known.

The main theme of the novel is the search for lost people, places, or things. Enzo searches for his father, Mala searches first for Enzo then for her lover Geza Cassiel, and other characters search for such far-flung things as Atlantis, a lost moon pendant, vampires, and even the dark side of the moon. The novel’s symbology is primarily concerned with, as I mentioned earlier, astronomy and even delves into astrology and other supernatural things. Christopher has no qualms in making the numinous real. After separate spider bites both Enzo and Mala present with supernaturally heightened senses for a while. And Mala goes through a phase where she can share a person’s memories as that person is having them. Not to mention that coincidences occur with a precision that makes one think that the invisible hand of fate is directing events.

In fact the frequency of coincidences is my only real gripe with the novel. One or two occurrences at the end of the story stretched my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point in a deus ex machina kind of way. But honestly, these characters are so believable that I can almost assume they really do have some sort of latent supernatural power so that events seem to bend around them.

Even with that caveat I would definitely recommend this novel to anyone looking for a good read. I got emotionally involved with these people, even the ancillary characters and never once got tired of reading about them. And really, what more could you ask for in a novel?(less)

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Jun 26, 2012 lafon حمزة نوفل rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Sex is exhausting. Not the physical act per se (hey, certain teenagers still believe in the notion of waiting until marriage), but reading about it is. Mentally and emotionally there is very little as draining as reading about sex. I don't care if you use the crude (from "screw" to "fuck") or make it sound more polite (as with "lovemaking") or even make it sound clinical by using "sex" or "intercourse", it's tiring. Also depending on how caught up you are in the characters, the best you can hope...more Sex is exhausting. Not the physical act per se (hey, certain teenagers still believe in the notion of waiting until marriage), but reading about it is. Mentally and emotionally there is very little as draining as reading about sex. I don't care if you use the crude (from "screw" to "fuck") or make it sound more polite (as with "lovemaking") or even make it sound clinical by using "sex" or "intercourse", it's tiring. Also depending on how caught up you are in the characters, the best you can hope for is the feeling of there being a vampire over your shoulder draining your life essence (on a complete tangent certain mythologies believe that the human body has three main fluids which make up the life essence for a human: Tears, blood, and the fluids of sex. I suppose in a esoteric way I can understand this. I just don't want to think about it too much. Part of the reason I wrote this mildly interesting fact was that a succubus [if I'm accurately remembering the mythological creature's name] lived off of the third part of a human), and at worst the feeling of degradation or that you sold your soul for a paltry sum. Throught this novel I was bombarded by the relationships of the characters; and I don't mean the emotional ones. I was constantly having to put the book down as yet another scene where two of the characters slept with each other came up. Now to be honest there were very few and yet they affected me more than many other books I have read. I'm no prude by any stretch of the imagination (after all I'm honest enough with myself to admit that for a time I was obsessed with the subject as many teenage males are, although I'm ashamed of this part of my life. Have you ever talked to a person who thinks only of sex? They are incredibly boring. I'm just grateful that I never behaved as I've seen many people do.), but there does come a limit for how much a person can handle. Maybe it was due to the fact that I read Best Served Cold, which compared to "A Trip to the Stars" is infinitely more crude, immediately prior. This novel is primarily about one thing, and one thing only: the connections between people and the unintended consequences that all our actions have.

If I were to review this book on literary merit alone I would be hard pressed to rate it higher than two and a half stars. Look, though. Four stars. Why, you ask? Despite the feeling of watching a train wreck, or a war zone, and the feeling at times that I needed to throw-up, while reading through this - or maybe because of it - I was unwillingly drawn in, shown that you don't have to have the out-and-out cruelty of, say, Strange Flesh to inspire disgust at the lust, greed, and overall baseness that humans continuously exhibit, and still manage to wrap up the emotion positively with a chance of good things happening to those who deserve it.

I don't know. Usually I can be eloquent, but there is pain and then there is pain. Emotionally I'm experiencing the latter, and it's preventing me from really explaining what I feel about this book. I may come back later when this book is more a memory and finish off the review.(less)

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Mar 02, 2012 Chanticleer Book Reviews Editorial rated it 5 of 5 stars

From Chanticleer Book Reviews

A Trip to the Stars will take you to exotic locales and allows you to glimpse into the realms of magic, music, memory, and time travel along with acquainting you with other mysterious talents of the story's fascinating characters.Some of whom you will wish could become your friends;others with whom you will wish could feel your wrath.

The story opens with the young Alma and her ten-year-old nephew Loren enjoying an afternoon planetarium show. The drama starts when the...more From Chanticleer Book Reviews

A Trip to the Stars will take you to exotic locales and allows you to glimpse into the realms of magic, music, memory, and time travel along with acquainting you with other mysterious talents of the story's fascinating characters.Some of whom you will wish could become your friends;others with whom you will wish could feel your wrath.

The story opens with the young Alma and her ten-year-old nephew Loren enjoying an afternoon planetarium show. The drama starts when they are separated in a post-show tangle of exiting stargazers. The ensuing plot, enormously complex yet tantalizing, documents the next fifteen years of our protagonists' separate, but seemingly cosmically-linked adventures. While under this book's cosmic spell, you will be both educated and entertained as A Trip to the Stars sends you to the outer rings of love and destiny.

As Alma and Loren narrate alternating chapters of this 499 page opus, they become Mala and Enzo. Name changes are only two of what will be many portents you will encounter on their esoteric journeys. Indeed, Christopher will connect many of his dots with a colorful variety of such talismans, the majority of them touching on notions of stars and constellations, perhaps as a reminder that subtle, yet influential, energies are at play

Christopher, an accomplished poet, rendered in Mala and Enzo characters a vulnerability and an openness that propels them into captivating situations throughout their separate lives. Christopher's direct and sure-handed prose is made from words so carefully selected and assembled that you may at times be tempted to pause your reading to relish in the fluent lyricism of a recently read poetic phrase.

As you share with Alma and Loren in their struggles toward growth and fulfillment, you learn to care about them deeply, to love them as close friends and to hope for them that the biggest and brightest star in the cosmos will light the way to the convergence of their destinies.(less)

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Oct 14, 2009 Scott Dickerson rated it 2 of 5 stars

Why do we continue to read books that we consider terrible? Do other people have enough discipline to stop reading?

This book ia pretty ambitious, and tries to tell lots of semi-related stories that cross a variety of genres from within the lens of two protagonists.

The stories though with few exceptions are of a couple varieties: "rich, super-interesting people live their awesome self-satisfied existences" and "poor, super-gorgeous people drink themselves into stupor and pursue pleasure until the...more

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Oct 27, 2011 Carolyn Hill rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Randy Maxey, WilsontheRocker

Wow. The magical mystery tour is waiting to take you away on A Trip to the Stars. No, Nicholas Christopher's novel is not about a magic psychedelic bus or sci-fi, although there are some psychotropics and there is some space travel, but that's getting way ahead of things. From astronomy to Zunis, this book encompasses an amazing number of subjects as it follows the mystical journeys of two people who are the narrators. The opening setting, appropriately enough, is a planetarium in Manhattan in D...more Wow. The magical mystery tour is waiting to take you away on A Trip to the Stars. No, Nicholas Christopher's novel is not about a magic psychedelic bus or sci-fi, although there are some psychotropics and there is some space travel, but that's getting way ahead of things. From astronomy to Zunis, this book encompasses an amazing number of subjects as it follows the mystical journeys of two people who are the narrators. The opening setting, appropriately enough, is a planetarium in Manhattan in December, 1965, where ten-year-old Loren and his adoptive aunt Alma, only ten years older and his only living relative, have attended a show entitled "A Trip to the Stars," when Loren is whisked away by kidnappers. The book alternates chapters between their divergent, but mysteriously connected, stories.

Loren, who is called Enzo by his kidnappers, is taken to be raised at the luxurious Hotel Canopus outside of Las Vegas by Samax, a wealthy collector of rare and lost treasures. The Hotel Canopus seems a bit like the Hotel California, with some permanent and some transient residents who consist of an odd assemblage of characters: a Zuni architect, a Pythagorean mnemonic expert, a meteorite hunter, and an Atlantis scholar, to name a few of the "regulars." Some of those passing through include Tibetan monks, an arachnologist, and a vampire hunter, an exceedingly strange amalgamation. Unlike the Hotel California, Enzo does find he can leave - he tests this to make sure - but comes back the same day. (Canopus, by the way, is the name of the second-brightest star in the night time sky after Sirius, the Dog Star, which is the name of Enzo's dog - just a sampling of the many star allusions.) Enzo receives an intensive classical education from Labusi, the memory expert, and lessons in desert survival from the Zuni, while Samax reveals bits about Enzo's real family and his own unusual past. Enzo is exposed to esoteric, if not arcane, knowledge, and Samax, whose motives are unclear, seems a benevolent and generous, albeit idiosyncratic, guardian.

Meanwhile, Alma, devastated by the mysterious disappearance of Loren, changes her name to Mala, Latin for "bad". She drops out of her Classics studies and starts a pilgrimage of her own, encountering the Ummidia Stlellarum trap-door spider (of the stars), whose bite, the Zunis believed, could 'strip away all that is false, illusory, or fearful.' She joins the Navy as an X-ray technician and is sent to Viet Nam. There she meets and falls in love with the navigator Cassiel, who soon disappears from her life as mysteriously as Loren had. Adrift again, she wanders through the islands of the Pacific in search of her own destiny.

While original and entrancing, the book is not perfect. At 499 pages, it is a bit long, including many references to ancient classical treatises, which can be fascinating if you studied Latin, but rather tedious if you did not. Also, quite a bit of backstory is given through long narratives, and since the book is written in first person, these are usually filled in by another character as told to the narrators. The point of view changes only once (though still first person) to allow another character to speak, filling in his story, and this is done satisfyingly through a letter. Some events near the end involving Samax and the Hotel Canopus just didn't work for me. There are a lot of preposterous things in this book I was happy to go along with, but this one seemed to come from left field, and needed a better development or foreshadowing, and not a rather perfunctory explanation given by another one of the characters.

Despite these minor flaws, the book has a dynamic force compelling you forward. Are Enzo's and Mala's entwined fates set in the stars? Once sent into different orbits, will the intersections of their lives ever converge? Their journeys reveal the truths of their being and the power of love and destiny. A Trip to the Stars is simply an amazing book. I would never have found it if a friend hadn't recommended it. So I'm recommending it. Read it.(less)

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Jan 26, 2011 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This book was like a magical journey: captivating at times, slow and searching at times. When I read it, it was like I was slowly transporting into another world, which is part of the fun! I definitely enjoyed the experience, however, it could be an acquired taste for some.

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Jun 26, 2009 Rebecca rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, sci-fi-fantasy, coming-of-age

A Trip to the Stars is billed as a story about people who are lost or who have lost things. It begins with the separation of ten-year-old Loren--who has already lost much--from his young aunt, Alma, at a planetarium in Manhattan in 1965. From there, Christopher traces Loren's and Alma's paths for the next fifteen years, as each wanders in seemingly far-fetched situations, navigating unlikely relationships.

This book isn't quite sci-fi or fantasy. It's more of an exploration of some extremely unli...more

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Jan 14, 2009 Andrea is currently reading it · review of another edition

I'm a little befuddled by some of the rave reviews of this book. I'm not sure if I'll finish it. I was enjoying it as some very light reading, but moving very slowly though it, and not really caring that much about the characters. Mala's love affair is pretty standard man-fantasy stuff (incredible sexual connection, woman doesn't have emotional needs, they don't need to talk) but it's not the amazing connection that NC apparently wants us to believe. I mean, they don't feel comfortable talking t...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Annie Fyfe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: stars, epic, lost, child, almost, fantasy, vietnam, las, vegas

This was a very good and interesting book. I loved that the overall theme kept relating back to stars and space, but very subtly. I loved the stories about both characters and trying to figure out when their paths would cross and how everyone fit into the story. Althoguh it might not look too long it felt very epic and so much happened so I think you have to be ready for that type of book. Just an overall great book I'd recommend to anyone who has even a slight interest in fantasy (although this...more

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Jun 23, 2009 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars

The first time I read this, it was the kind of thing where once I finished it I had to lay back on my pillow taking deep breaths for a while to soften the transition back to reality. Really fun to read, pretty thoroughly a magical rich indulgent escapist kind of thing with a guy protagonist that I still sort of have a crush on (in jr high I used to dog-ear one or two love scenes and read them at school and feel really subversive cause it was a Catholic school) and another really attractive prota...more

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Mar 15, 2011 Miranda rated it 5 of 5 stars

The novel "A Trip to the Stars" is a startling find, especially given that I found it on the bargain table at Chapters for 2.50. The novel chronicles Mala and Enzo an aunt and her 10 year old nephew who are seperated one fateful day at a planetarium. The remainder of the book follows their seperated paths and their various quests to get back to one another. The book is filled with lost people, who are seeking lost things. It was this description of the lost people looking for lost things that dr...more

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Oct 03, 2011 Erin rated it 5 of 5 stars

In short, this book is about a young boy whose adoptive parents die, and his 21 year old adoptive aunt takes him under her care. After only a couple weeks, he is kidnapped. This book covers the next 15 years of their lives until they finally see each other again.

There is not a single wasted word in this book. The story is told in alternating chapters out of each of their lives. Just when you get completely wrapped in her story, you're plunged into his. Everything is tied together. Parts of his...more

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May 31, 2013 Keri rated it 5 of 5 stars

WOW, what an interesting read. This is something of an earthbound mystery fiction. This book is as much of an ode to fictional writing as it is to science, art, and the supernatural. I have read no other book with such a wide supporting cast, including: memory palaces, Astronomy, Radiology, Arachnology (don't be scared), Pomology (cultivation of fruit), Quincunx gardening, mixology ("white angels = iced gin with a dash of bitters"), Geography, cartography, meteorites, architecture, vampires, Atl...more WOW, what an interesting read. This is something of an earthbound mystery fiction. This book is as much of an ode to fictional writing as it is to science, art, and the supernatural. I have read no other book with such a wide supporting cast, including: memory palaces, Astronomy, Radiology, Arachnology (don't be scared), Pomology (cultivation of fruit), Quincunx gardening, mixology ("white angels = iced gin with a dash of bitters"), Geography, cartography, meteorites, architecture, vampires, Atlantis (Atlantology), mind reading, time travel, shamanism, classical philosophers/astronomers (Pliny, Cicero, Manilius), classical literature ("The Travels " by Marco Polo, "The Voyage of Magellan" by Antonio Pigafetta, "Arabian Nights", "The Journals" of Captain James Cook), Morton Jelly Roll, and Cook's Islands. Have I got your attention yet? This book has a little bit everything in it. Oh, I forgot about the war, intricate family relationships, death, and drugs.

But that is all just the supporting cast to this phenomenal book. This is the framework which supports the main players through a unique journey that begins with a kidnapping and ends with a reunion. How does it keep the reader involved from page 1 to 499? The story is back-and-forth between a boy and his aunt; odd chapters mostly devoted to him, and the even ones devoted to her. Their stories are different, but become linked through the story-telling process. One is lost while the other is found, one is grounded when the other is spinning out of control, one has "many" while the other "none", etc... There is also the underlying theme of losing yourself, abusing yourself, forgiving yourself, finding yourself, loving yourself and sharing yourself.

"He (Plotinus) held that if you trace the stars' movements in relation to a revolving earth, the map you get is utterly chaotic. No neatly inscribed words of frozen Zodiac, but a jumble of circles, ellipses, crisscrosses, and zigzags - which is what he proposed a cartographic transcription of our lives would truly resemble if we mapped them out."

This book makes us believe, that even if you hold the above quote to be true, there is STILL the possibility that out of that chaos we become who we are and find who we are meant to love BECAUSE of that chaos. It is quite simply ... beautiful.

"A Trip to the Stars". I can't think of a better title - for it is a fantastical voyage!
(less)

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Apr 15, 2013 Robin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Just getting into this book but it reads well. If I am correct, it is a build. Story starts in the 60s and continues through the Vietnam war. Only thing so far I find hard to believe is that Loren accepted his new family so easily... but maybe that will change.

The Las Vegas hotel/palace is a bit unreal...but okay...I'll continue for now
It is dragging at points. Could have done without a lot of excess detail.
Things start to pick up with Mala. She is island hopping and getting into trouble. Loren...more

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Oct 09, 2011 Vanessa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Entertaining. Interesting notions of fate and choice, what's written in the stars versus individual determination. A very complex web of choices can somehow still lead you to exactly where and who you are supposed to be. I enjoyed reading about Mala's and Enzo's quests, how their stories intertwined, how they shared various people in their lives without even realizing it, too often for it to be mere coincidence. Despite the pain of the journey, in the end they were meant to be exactly where they...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Julie by: Jeanette

Shelves: imagined-worlds, read-2011

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Leaving a Manhattan planetarium in 1965, 10-year old Loren grasps the gloved hand of a woman he mistakes for his aunt, Alma. It will be fifteen years before Loren sees Alma again. Her name will be Mala, his name Enzo, and the separate journeys they take before they are reunited are the focus of this epic, fantastical story of love, betrayal, spiders and stars.

It is a pleasure to suspend belief as A Trip to the Stars unfolds. Mala and Enzo relate their stories in alternating sections and a world...more Leaving a Manhattan planetarium in 1965, 10-year old Loren grasps the gloved hand of a woman he mistakes for his aunt, Alma. It will be fifteen years before Loren sees Alma again. Her name will be Mala, his name Enzo, and the separate journeys they take before they are reunited are the focus of this epic, fantastical story of love, betrayal, spiders and stars.

It is a pleasure to suspend belief as A Trip to the Stars unfolds. Mala and Enzo relate their stories in alternating sections and a world of characters pours forth. Mala begins a quest- first searching for her nephew, then for a vanished lover, and ultimately for her soul- that takes her from New Orleans to Vietnam, then through island archipelagos that represent her loose connection to earth. Enzo is cocooned at a sprawling hotel outside Las Vegas, surrounded by a Gothic cast of permanent and transient residents who serve as tutors of his eclectic education. Mala and Enzo are connected by a cleverly rendered combination of star-crossed fate and merciless human manipulation.

Much of this novel is ravishing diversion. Much of it is grinding tedium. Nicholas Christopher infuses Mala's storyline with tremendous passion and feeling. You soar as she discovers deep, abiding love and crash when she loses her way. Her journey, both mystical and maddening, is fascinating.

Most of Enzo's life is related as expository detail. Told in first person by Enzo, it drags on and on, with a voice that never varies, no matter what Enzo's age. It reads as one long flashback, like an interminable movie voiceover. Christopher mires this storyline in so much exhausting detail that he loses all sense of urgency, suspense, and relevance. The threads that weave together to form the complete tapestry of Enzo's and Mala's destinies are found throughout Enzo's narrative, so resist the temptation to skim. But be prepared to suffer boredom at the eye-rolling conceit.

Christopher's prose can be so achingly beautiful, his imagination vast and astonishing, his characters warm and profound. Despite my frustration with the author's style choices A Trip To The Stars will stay with me. And the night sky will hold deeper wonder.(less)

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Aug 29, 2011 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Lisa by: Jeanette

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, 4-and-5-star-reads

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 04, 2010 Lori rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was a mixed bag for me. I was compelled to get through it to see what happens to the Alma/Mala and Loren/Enzo characters, but I also was frustrated with the overkill of the astrology theme. There was so much star imagery and symbology that I felt like the author was hitting us over the head with it. I would have liked that to be more subtle.

A few other odd things: Naming of characters - many of the characters were commonly referred to by their last name, OR there were times when the n...more

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Apr 06, 2009 Elaine rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

Shelves: best-books-ever, rereads, strong-women-protags

The title is no lie-- you surely will take a trip to the stars, and to the end of the universe and beyond, through reading this book. It's my second favorite book ever ("The Elegance of the Hedgehog" being my favorite). Full of rich description, metaphor, themes, beautiful prose, and a whole lot of obscure subjects that are interesting if for no more reason than their uniqueness, Christopher has, simply, written a perfect book. It is not an easy read, but it is extremely enjoyable. It may even b...more

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Nov 04, 2008 Kerfe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Right from the start, the author lets us know that the characters, events, and physical items in the parallel stories of Loren/Enzo and Alma/Mala, which diverge in the first chapter, will fit together like a puzzle at the end. The reader can easily figure some things out; yet that did not keep me from wanting to follow all the paths as they moved to their inevitable conclusion.

On one level this book is a soap opera about several interrelated dysfunctional families falling apart and colliding in...more

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May 02, 2009 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Jennifer by: Syl

Oh! I love this so far...

Now that I am finished I still love it. The last third got a bit slow for me, and I was left still peckish at the ending until a friend pointed out that perhaps NC was making room for a sequel. Harrumph. I still feel there was a key meeting missing, but I'd be willing to forgive this if NC delivers more of this world and its people.

The story is imaginative and just plain fun. The bazillion star references mostly made me smile. Only a few were ill-placed, causing some s...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Marlena rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: old-favorites, grown-up

I first read this book in college. I had just moved out of my parents house and was living on mac and cheese. In fact, there is a photograph of me sitting in front of the stove with this book open before me while I stir the noodles. At the time, this book opened a glimpse into another world. It was believeable, yet magical. I felt like it could really happen. There could really be a spider whose bite shows you signs in the stars. There really could be a man squirreled away in an enormous library...more

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Oct 14, 2011 Adrienne rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of my favorite books. The story spans a couple decades, set in many different places, and it's filled with quirky characters and cool facts about spiders and stars and other random subjects that do manage to tie together and be relevant to the plot, which is tinged with a little mysticism, without a heavy hand. At points, I wanted to live the characters' lives (I stress "at points"...). I can't wait for enough time to pass to read it again.

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Dec 26, 2008 Heather rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I absolutely loved Christopher’s The Bestiary so I was really looking forward to this book; this might explain why I was less than thrilled by it. I really enjoy his imagination and the unusual characters he creates but something in this book just fell flat for me. I kept thinking to myself, ‘this could be amazing.’ And I don’t think this review will be helpful at all because I can’t exactly decide what was wrong with the book because on a lot of levels it was captivating and exciting (I loved t...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Brita Beyerlein rated it 4 of 5 stars

A ten-year-old boy and his young aunt who has just become his guardian are separated from each other at the planetarium. The novel weaves back and forth between the two over the next fifteen years as you see what happens to them and how they are affected by the separation. For about the first half of this book, I would have given it three stars. I liked the story but it was very dense with detail at times about somewhat esoteric topics and it just seemed like I was making very slow progress. How...more

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About Nicholas Christopher

Nicolas Christopher was born and raised in New York City. He was educated at Harvard College, where he studied with Robert Lowell and Anthony Hecht. Afterward, he traveled and lived in Europe. He became a regular contributor to the New Yorker in his early twenties, and began publishing his work in other leading magazines, both in the United States and abroad, including Esquire, the New Republic, t...more

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Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City

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Quotes from A Trip to the Stars

“It was Calzas who told me that your life is a road along which you leave many markers-points in time and places on the map.The ones in time you can only revisit in your mind, and they never change. The places can be revisited firsthand, but they're constantly changing. To keep a place the same , he said, you can no longer return to it-and then it becomes a point in time.” — 2 people liked it

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