DEAR JOHN (Nicholas Sparks) - January 30/10

I was really digging this for about the first half, as Sparks does a superb job of setting up the two central characters' admittedly idealized romance. Both characters are vividly portrayed and I really found myself caught up in the slow-build of their relationship (although I was confused by Savannah's refusal to sleep with John again after that first night). It's only as the two separate after John goes to war, with those sections long and descriptive and comparatively boring, that my interest started to wane, and the completely unsatisfactory resolution was nothing short of ridiculous. I mean, really... Savannah breaks up with John and marries Tim? WTF. Sparks creates a romance with all the realism of a fairy tale and then doesn't afford Savannah and John a happy ending? It just doesn't work. Ugh. Frustrating as hell. **1/2 out of ****

YOUTH IN REVOLT (C.D. Payne) - January 25/10

Though I'm still not sure if this counts as a stand-alone book, Youth in Revolt is an extremely entertaining account of one summer in the life of an almost absurdly verbose teen. Nick Twisp is as original a protagonist as I've encountered in quite some time, and his would-be relationship with Sheeni is certainly quite compelling. Armed with a host of quirky supporting characters - Lefty, Wally, etc - Youth in Revolt is a breezy read that's admittedly at its best in the sequences revolving around Nick and Sheeni's short-lived relationship. ***1/2 out of ****

DARK REUNION (L.J. Smith) - January 22/10

Wow, what an ordeal. This entirely needless chapter is made all-the-more pointless by Elena's absence throughout much of the story. (She's dead, for crying out loud!) Smith instead expects the reader to care about Meredith, Bonnie, and Vickie - even though these characters were hardly developed in the first three books. (Even by the time the book ended I was still a little shaky on who was who.) It's the relationship between Elena and Stefan that kept the first three books afloat, so without Elena around, Dark Reunion simply feels like a colossal waste of time. (The ending was pretty decent, though.) *1/2 out of ****

THE FURY (L.J. Smith) - January 14/10

More of the same, though I'm curious as to how they're going to bring Elena back since she died at the end of the book. Some decent twists here - ie the revelation that Katherine was the one behind everything - but it's just not involving for some reason. **1/2 out of ****

SPIDER (Patrick McGrath) - January 11/10

Ugh. It took me several months to finish this plotless, interminable book. McGrath offers up what's probably an accurate look at the mindset of a crazy person, but fails to include a single element designed to capture and hold the reader's interest (ie there are no intriguing characters, situations, twists, etc). To paraphrase Patton Oswalt, it's well written but who gives a shit? * out of ****

UNDER THE DOME (Stephen King) - January 8/10

This sprawling novel is ultimately far more entertaining than I might've expected, as King does a superb job of introducing something like two dozen characters and subjecting them to a thoroughly horrifying situation. Though there were a few characters I was never quite able to place, King effectively manages to hold the reader's interest pretty much from start to finish (at over 1000 pages, there are admittedly a few stretches that aren't quite as enthralling as one might've hoped). The climax, involving the town's almost total destruction, is riveting and ranks with the most exciting writing I've read in years. And the ending, in which one alien takes pity on the town and removes the dome, is just about as satisfying as I was hoping. (I had feared that the book would end with the dome still on the town and everyone dead.) ***1/2 out of ****