THE BLACK STALLION (Walter Farley) - February 28/12

This unabashedly old-fashioned story generally held my interest, although there were a few lulls here and there. The episodic narrative works well and there's no denying that the buildup to the big race (and the race itself, of course) is quite exciting. It's a good but not great book. Seems like the movie might be better... **1/2 out of ****

FALSE IMPRESSION (Jeffrey Archer) - February 25/12

This typically verbose thriller from Archer is certainly quite the page turner, despite a few lulls in the narrative and a plot that occasionally seems a little too thin to support such a long book. But Archer includes a number of exciting passages, including a too-soon 9/11 sequence and an impressively tense stretch involving a character following another character following another character. (The latter almost felt like a De Palma-esque interlude.) *** out of ****

Y THE LAST MAN: UNMANNED (Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan Jr) - February 20/12

The first few pages kind of had me saying "hmm, I'm not sure about this" but once all the men died, I was hooked. From there, Y the Last Man is a fast-paced and thoroughly entertaining comic that suffers from very few missteps. (I'm not sure about the whole Amazons thing, but I'm willing to give the writers the benefit of the doubt.) A good start to a promising series. ***1/2 out of ****

THE MINUS MAN (Lew McCreary) - February 20/12

This pretentious, sporadically interminable book does contain a few admittedly tense moments - eg Vann swaps out a food-court patron's Pepsi for his poison, Vann assumes he's poisoned someone but it turns out she didn't drink, etc - but is ultimately felled by McCreary's hopelessly ponderous writing style. The inclusion of flashbacks upon flashbacks doesn't help, and it's impossible not to wonder just what McCreary was hoping to do here. He's a good writer but sheesh, the dude needs to learn how to write for other people (ie it's just maddeningly over-written). ** out of ****

THE FUTURE OF US (Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler) - February 15/12

This incredibly entertaining and breezy book takes an inherently engrossing premise and generally exploits it to tremendously readable effect. The novel may occasionally be a little too YA-like for its own good, but I really came to like and relate to both Emma and Josh and their ongoing shenanigans. A fun, easygoing read. ***1/2 out of ****

THE BURNING MAN (Phillip Margolin) - February 13/12

This surprisingly entertaining legal thriller isn't exactly super well written, but it moves fast and contains a genuinely interesting case at its core. The main character does possess a few one-dimensional traits, but Margolin otherwise does a nice job of handling the supporting characters. (It's worth noting that the guy I was sure would be the killer wasn't, though he was just as sleazy as I assumed.) I'll definitely be checking out more of Margolin's work in the future. *** out of ****

THE PASSION (Jeanette Winterson) - February 10/12

This interesting yet pretentious novel details the off-kilter exploits of two Napoleon-era characters, and there's little doubt that some of this stuff is admittedly pretty interesting. But Winterson clearly loves the sound of her own voice and there are subsequently plenty of poetic passages that were, for me, somewhat meaningless. It's a brisk read, though, and I did enjoy certain sections quite a bit, so I'm glad I read it. **1/2 out of ****

BRIGHTON ROCK (Graham Greene) - February 6/12

This incredibly disappointing and downright boring novel contains an admittedly interesting story, but Greene bogs it down time and time again with overly descriptive passages and an emphasis on subplots and subcharacters that couldn't possibly be less interesting. I found myself glazing over whole paragraphs and it was just a real struggle getting through the last 100 pages. It doesn't help, either, that the protagonist is a fairly underdeveloped and reprehensible figure. I'm not writing Greene off yet, but yeah, this was shockingly bad. * out of ****