THE LOST DAUGHTER (Elena Ferrante) - December 30/21

 There are some interesting ideas here but they're crushed beneath the weight of Ferrante's ponderous and pretentious writing style. I never really connected to anything or anyone, which is too bad, certainly, given that it's well written and full of cogent observations about motherhood. ** out of ****

THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT (Walter Tevis) - December 23/21

 Read this for the Spooner book club and I really enjoyed it. Tevis does tend to go overboard in describing the various chess games, and I generally glazed right over them, but he also offers up a really striking, sympathetic protagonist and a number of engaging periphery characters and subplots. (I really enjoyed the fact that Mrs. Wheatley turned out to be extremely supportive, for example.) *** out of ****

NIGHTMARE ALLEY (William Lindsay Gresham) - December 14/21

 I definitely enjoyed parts of this book but mostly it's way too overwritten and sluggish. Gresham does a good job of establishing that world and the central character, and I enjoyed the twist at the very end (ie geek). But the book would've been better off had it been shorter and ended a lot sooner. (Why didn't it just end after he was hauled away by the mental hospital people?) **1/2 out of ****

DUNE (Frank Herbert) - December 8/21

 Good lord, what a slog. I didn't mind the first half of this, even though I was pretty baffled through most of it, but man the second half was just so tedious. I didn't care about any of it and I could barely keep track of the various characters. *1/2 out of ****