THE LOWLAND (Jhumpa Lahiri) - November 29/13

This is a good yet overwritten and overlong novel that features several extremely vivid characters. I was occasionally caught up in the narrative, but Lahari's weird style - coupled with a continuing reliance on flashbacks - kind of held me at arms length. I don't know; it's definitely a solid book, but I was never as riveted as I wanted to be. **1/2 out of ****

GEOGRAPHY CLUB (Brent Hartinger) - November 22/13

Though it's not especially well written, Geography Club is a pretty decent little YA book. I liked the characters and the whole "geography club" idea was an interesting one. **1/2 out of ****

DOCTOR SLEEP (Stephen King) - November 19/13

It's definitely overlong but I really enjoyed Doctor Sleep. The middle kind of drags a bit but there are certainly some very exciting and engrossing stretches here. This is that rare sequel that continues the storyline laid out by its predecessor without treading the same ground, which is impressive in itself. I especially enjoyed the climactic showdown between Dan/Abra and the True Knot. Dan and Abra are extremely well defined characters, to be sure. ***1/2 out of ****

THE LONGEST RIDE (November 11/13) - Nicholas Sparks

Sparksy does it again with this overlong but engaging novel. At first, I was a little thrown off by the dual storylines but I eventually found them both quite engaging. And although it's not terribly difficult to figure out where all this is going, I was still moved by the incredibly upbeat finale. A solid read, to be sure. *** out of ****

HOW I LIVE NOW (Meg Rosoff) - November 4/13

This incredibly boring novel tells the first-person account of WWIII (I think) from the perspective of a completely irritating teenager. Rosoff writes the book in a rambling, train-of-thought style that's instantly grating and the book is full of long, absolutely pointless paragraphs that are endless and absurdly descriptive. I was skimming over stuff towards the end and I had absolutely no idea who any of the periphery characters were (and I obviously couldn't have cared less when bad things happened to Daisy's friends). What an infuriating mess. * out of ****