THE RED HOUSE (Mark Haddon) - June 24/12

Wow and I thought Little Bee was disappointing. This is seriously one of the worst books I've read in a very, very long time. Haddon employs this weird, persistently off-putting narrative style in which the story unfolds in impressionistic chunks, but the guy's arty sensibilities ensure that the majority of the characters remain hopelessly underdeveloped. (By the time the book ended, I had a clear handle on maybe a third of the characters.) Haddon's "poetic" style ensures that large swaths of the book are nigh unreadable and it's ultimately difficult to recall a more pretentious and obnoxious writing style. There are a few passable chunks here and there - eg Daisy, the religious girl who discovers that she's gay - but by and large The Red House is nothing short of a complete disaster that made me angrier and angrier as I read it. 1/2* out of ****

LITTLE BEE (Chris Cleave) - June 21/12

I had extremely high hopes for this book, since I absolutely adored Chris Cleave's debut, Incendiary. But this one, while well written, is simply not terribly interesting for much of the first half. The author presents the dual stories of two women, a British reporter and a Nigerian refugee, that are connected by a horrifying event that we don't learn about until 100 pages in, with this choice making it impossible to really care about either of their stories up to that point. (It doesn't help that the Nigerian's narrative is particularly tedious, with her stay at a detention center, her escape with other girls, etc). Having said that, the book does improve substantially in its final stretch and I'll admit to getting a little choked up when it turned out Sarah had gotten on the plane with Little Bee. (The impressively bleak conclusion, in which Little Bee is seemingly captured and killed by soldiers, is good, too.) But yeah, this mostly feels like a short story that's been padded out to 266 pages. **1/2 out of ****

PANDEMONIUM (Lauren Oliver) - June 12/12

I didn't mind the first book in this trilogy, Delirium, but this one is just a slog virtually from beginning to end. The narrative consists of two competing storylines, the past and the present, and they're both rather tedious. Oliver offers up yet another YA post-apocalyptic narrative that's just dull, for the most part, and I honestly didn't care what happened to Lena for most of it. The book does, admittedly, pick up in its final stretch as Lena attempts to rescue Julian from his execution, but the inclusion of hackneyed elements - Alex is alive! Love triangle! - doesn't really do the book any favors. I'll read the final entry when it comes out, but yeah, I've really, really had enough of these YA Twilight/Hunger Games knockoffs. ** out of ****