CUJO (Stephen King) - July 17/05

Though it's occasionally a little too verbose for its own good (did it start off as a short story?), there's no denying that Cujo is an exciting little book. King develops all these little subplots that pay off in the end, which is just as gory and thrilling as one might expect. ***1/2 out of ****

HAUNTED (Chuck Palahniuk) - June 25/05

I really wanted to like this one, but I couldn't quite make it past the 70-page mark. Palahniuk's grim world view has finally become overwhelming, and while some of the short stories are pretty interesting (particularly Guts...Ew), the wraparound storyline is tedious, pointless, and pretentious. No rating.

PREY (Michael Crichton) - June 20/05

Overlong but exciting thriller by Michael Crichton. As expected, Crichton spends waaaaay too much time describing various scientific things - but there's no denying that the novel becomes quite engaging and thrilling in its last 150 pages. *** out of ****