THE NIGHT STRANGERS (Chris Bohjalian) - May 30/12

Rosemary's Baby + The Shining + The Wicker Man = The Night Strangers. Bohjalian is, as ever, certainly a good writer and there are quite a few riveting stretches here, with the best example of this the vivid plane crash that kicks off the novel. But the storyline is just painfully familiar and Bohjalian is simply unable to shake up the conventional narrative (ie things go pretty much exactly as you would expect). It's also worth noting that the writer does a surprisingly poor job of developing the various periphery characters, as I was consistently unable to tell some of the cult members apart (and I even had difficulties separating the two twins from one another). A readable but disappointing effort. (Oh, and it's way, way, waaaay too long.) **1/2 out of ****

COSMOPOLIS (Don DeLillo) - May 27/12

Well, I don't get it. This badly-written and incredibly pretentious novel, which seems to unfold in a completely different universe from our own, is just a slog from beginning to end, as DeLillo, as incompetent a modern author as I've encountered, proves utterly unable to develop a single compelling character - with the book's problems exacerbated (and this is putting it mildly) by his terse, truncated writing style. What a mess. * out of ****

Y THE LAST MAN: GIRL ON GIRL (Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Goran Sudzuka, Jose Marzan Jr) - May 23/12

More of the same as Yorick and company get into more stand alone adventures, including a fairly tedious stretch set aboard a ship with heroin smugglers. The book picks up in its final issue, though, with a reveal of what Beth's been up to. *** out of ****

AS THE CROW FLIES (Jeffrey Archer) - May 23/12

This insanely epic book - it does, after all, chart the central character's life from adolescence to old age - certainly has its moments and it's always well written, but it's impossible to overlook the feeling that it's often much longer than necessary. Archer occasionally bogs the prose down in page after page of descriptive passages involving the running of the business, which isn't terribly exciting and results in a fairly plodding midsection. But the ongoing inclusion of irresistibly pulpy elements - eg the continuing feud with his nemesis, the revelation that his son killed himself because he learned that he was sleeping with his half-sister, etc - buoys the reader's interest on a fairly regular basis. **1/2 out of ****

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (Jane Austen) - May 11/12

Argh. I said that I would never not finish a book again, but this stupid one made me break that rule. This reminded me a lot of Jane Eyre, but the book ultimately fares so much worse since it's basically plotless. The unreasonably flowery writing style doesn't help, as I found myself reading whole passages and not understanding a single thing that occurred. I was fairly certain that I was going to finish it anyway and give it zero stars, but there reaches a point at which I was just glazing over page after page without actually comprehending a single thing. If not being able to read this makes me an idiot or a dilettante or whatever, so be it. I read for entertainment and this was like sitting through the worst, most boring movie ever. No rating.

Y THE LAST MAN: RING OF TRUTH (Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan Jr) - May 6/12

Yorick's exploits continue in this entertaining though slightly overlong installment. Vaughan's characters tend to chatter on and on past the point of logic, but I'm still enjoying this (obviously padded-out) tale. It's worth noting, however, that despite the fact that certain characters have been full fleshed-out (Yorick, Hero, 355, etc), there are still a few figures that I don't quite have a hold on (that Asian scientist lady, primarily). *** out of ****

ALONG CAME A SPIDER (James Patterson) - May 6/12

Meh. This passable thriller admittedly boasts a few decent twists in its first half - the McDonalds hostage situation, etc - but slows down considerably in its comparatively uneventful second half. Soneji is captured and Cross embarks on a torrid love affair with Jezzie. It's almost like Patterson wanted the book to end at about the halfway mark but felt pressured to make the book longer. (There's just so much padding here.) It's fine, I guess, but yeah, I wouldn't say I had a great time reading this. **1/2 out of ****

THE CORRECTIONS (Jonathan Franzen) - May 1/12

Ugh. What a disappointment. This book, which feels about 400 pages longer than necessary, was, for the most part, a real slog to get through, as Franzen overwrites things to a degree that's nothing short of infuriating. The characters are certainly quite vivid, but Franzen offers up one interminable digression after another that results in a complete absence of momentum. The guy is so impressed with his prose that many passages are rendered incoherent. (How pretentious do you have to be, for example, to diminish the impact of a sequence in which a guy jumps off a cruise ship?) I enjoyed exactly one stretch in the entire book - Denise's exploits as she traveled Europe, started her restaurant, and embarked on an affair with her boss' wife - but there's so much here that I just glazed over (eg Chip's interminable exploits in Lithuania). I could see how the final stretch might move someone (eg Denise learns of his father's true reasons for quitting his job) but I was unmoved and just happy the book was drawing to a close. ** out of ****