RANT (Chuck Palahniuk) - June 24/07

Further proof that the whole "oral history" thing just doesn't work in fiction. I got up to about page 54 before I stopped, because the whole thing just felt so irredeemably pointless. I was glazing over paragraphs about gold coins and missing teeth before I finally gave up. Who cares? No rating.

ON CHESIL BEACH - Ian McEwan (June 20/07)

This story about a couple on their wedding night is as deliberate and rambling as one would expect from McEwan. And although the author occasionally gets a little too carried away with the backstory - who cares about their respective families, really? - there is simply no denying the power of the conclusion. On Chesil Beach eventually reveals itself to be an absolutely heartbreaking and admittedly depressing story about how one choice affects the rest of the central character's life ("This is how the course of a life can be changed - by doing nothing.") It would have been nice to find out what happened to the girl, though (did she ever find love again? Was she able to get over her revulsion towards sexual intercourse?) *** out of ****

HEART-SHAPED BOX (Joe Hill) - June 5/07

While this undeniably had a bunch of really interesting and inventive sequences - the whole thing with the blood-painted "doorway" near the end, for example - the book is simply far too long. Trimmed by 200 pages or so, there's little doubt that Heart-Shaped Box would have been as thrilling as the best of Stephen King's work. Still, as a debut, it's quite impressive. **1/2 out of ****