THE WISHBONES (Tom Perrotta) - June 28/09

Tom Perrotta's first book, The Wishbones might just be the most conventional of all his works, yet there's little doubt that the novel is jam-packed with all the attributes one has come to expect from the brilliant author. It's got compelling characters, well-placed bursts of comedy, and a surprisingly relatable vibe. And, it's worth noting, the romcom-type storyline doesn't feature a single fake break-up! ***1/2 out of ****

MY SISTER'S KEEPER (Jodi Picoult) - June 23/09

Though it's often bogged down in superfluous elements and overly descriptive passages - which admittedly does seem to be Picoult's M.O. - My Sister's Keeper is an extremely engrossing novel that moves at a brisk clip and even got me choked up a few times. The ending is... weird, but I guess I don't have that big a problem with it, although it would've been nice if Anna had given the kidney AND survived, but oh well. ***1/2 out of ****

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (John Ajvide Lindqvist) - June 18/09

The comparison I would make here is the book version of The Shining versus the movie version of The Shining. Both tell essentially the same tale, yet the book version is so much more fleshed out than the movie. Same case here. The film remains a haunting experience while the book definitely feels inspired by the work of Stephen King. There's an epic sensibility that was hardly evident within the film, as the movie focused almost entirely on Eli and Oskar (whose friendship remains the highlight within the book). But novelist Lindqvist offers up a whole host of subplots and subcharacters and generally develops them all to an equal extent. It's sort of an all-encompassing portrait of everyone whose lives are directly and indirectly touched by Eli's arrival. It's quite entertaining, sure, but it's never as engrossing as the movie. (It's also worth noting that the conclusion, featuring Oskar on a train with Eli in a trunk, is written so obliquely that it's easy enough to miss that Eli is in fact in that trunk.) *** out of ****

THE INFORMERS (Bret Easton Ellis) - June 10/09

This collection of inter-connected short stories admittedly gets off to a fairly involving start, yet there reaches a point at which the whole thing just becomes aggressively repetitive. In Bret Easton Ellis' world, everybody is overprivileged, spoiled, addicted to drugs, and just flat-out aimless. It's initially a pretty intriguing peek behind the scenes of a world that I would certainly never see otherwise, but it inevitably becomes impossible to care as Ellis introduces the 10th, 11th, etc character that suffers from the aforementioned attributes. ** out of ****

THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (John Godey) - June 4/09

Well written but overlong, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three certainly possesses a good amount of exciting and compelling sequences but it often seems to possess just as many interludes that are overly descriptive and dwell in the minutia of uninteresting things. Still, the characters are awfully vivid and it's impossible not to get caught up in the ongoing efforts of both sides to resolve the increasingly perilous situation. The ending was pretty great, too ("surprise.") *** out of ****