INSURGENT (Veronica Roth) - March 31/15

Meh. I couldn't have cared less about anything that happened in this book and I couldn't be bothered to figure out the differences between Abnegation and Divergent and blah blah blah. Stupid dystopian youth fiction. * out of ****

AMSTERDAM (Ian McEwan) - March 24/15

This feels more like the McEwan I like than certain other books of his. It really gets into the minds of the two central characters, and I appreciated the inclusion of several plot twists along the way. I was less impressed with the conclusion, which sees the protagonists murdering each other with poison. It seemed weird and kinda arbitrary. *** out of ****

EVERYTHING MUST GO (Elizabeth Flock) - March 20/15

I kinda liked this book detailing the direction a man's life takes after he accidentally lets his kid brother drown in the bathtub and he's subsequently forced to care for his alcoholic mother, forcing him to abandon his dreams of football. It's interesting how much worse Henry's life gets as the time-jumping narrative progresses, and I found it really interesting how he basically wound up stalking a local girl until she moved away. Flock can't quite resist offering up a relatively ending as Henry finds love with a chatty woman, but I nevertheless enjoyed this quite a bit. *** out of ****

WETLANDS (Charlotte Roche) - March 12/15

Ummm I'm not really sure what to make of this one. The majority of the "story" occurs at a hospital where the central character is recovering from an operation, with the narrative focused primarily on her memories and flashbacks and opinions. Most of these opinions are cringe-inducing. (I had to scan over certain especially graphic sections.) But more than anything, Roche is unable to transform her protagonist into a wholeheartedly compelling figure. There's some interesting stuff involving her relationship with her parents (and her mother's attempt to murder herself and her brother years earlier), but mostly Roche is going for a shock-value type of vibe here. ** out of ****

The DUFF (Kody Keplinger) - March 8/15

At first this felt like a typical and fairly tedious teen drama populated with stock characters like the obnoxious jock and sardonic outsider. But the book really grew on me as it progressed and found myself rooting for the coupling between Wesley and the title character. A good, quick read. ***1/2 out of ****

THE HORSE WHISPERER (Nicholas Evans) - March 4/15

Very passable but incredibly overlong. I enjoyed parts of the book but spent a good chunk wishing Evans would just get on with it already. Certain passages are just way too descriptive, too. **1/2 out of ****