Geek Love
Katherine Dunn
Frankenstein meets Lord of the Flies meets Heart of Darkness. Is it creepy? Yes. Is it over-the-top? Yes. Is it wonderful? Yes. A dysfunctional family is brought to concrete life as a traveling show of sideshow freaks, led by Arturo, a Machiavellian nightmare who recruits followers by suggesting some rather extreme body modification techniques. And that's only a bit of the bizarre story in these pages. Sheer audacity alone makes this work brilliant, but Dunn is also a gifted writer: the pages come to life with wonderful descriptions. Wow.

Neuromancer
William Gibson
Yes, it's a modern classic. Yes, it won the Hugo award. Yes, it coined the term "cyperspace" and launched the whole cyberpunk genre. For all these reasons, I felt I should check this out and give it a spin. Unfortunately, I had to give up after 150 pages: I had a hard time figuring out why I should care about the main character, and all the technobabble made me stumble. Others may love this, but it certainly wasn't my can of soda.

Lullaby
Chuck Palahniuk
My first Palahniuk novel, but it certainly won't be my last. Yeah, Palahniuk's writing style is a little too "Hey, look, I'm skydiving without a parachute" at times: his snarky, postmodern voice tends to clang through a little too loudly at times. But at the same time, Palahniuk's unique voice is a great benefit: the prose is oddly poetic in its sparsity, and the characters and situations are refreshingly original. I felt the whole story got away from Palahniuk at the end--he let go of the tiger's tail--but damn, the ride was fun.

Middlesex
Jeffrey Eugenides
Eugenides is a skilled and witty writer--I found myself smiling at his inventive turns of phrase throughout the whole novel. And overall, the book is a nice exploration of identity--cultural identity, racial identity, professional identity and sexual identity. The book is so grand in scope and scale, however, that I felt the main character (Cal/Calliope, a hermaphrodite) managed to get overshadowed by other characters--most notably her grandparents. My favorite passages centered around the early auto industry (Eugenides's descriptions of "The Rouge" and early Detroit are vivid), and Desdemona's work for the Nation of Islam. See what I mean? The supporting characters tended to be more memorable than Calliope, the narrator and protaganist. Still, a great read. Excellent craft.

The Land of Laughs
Jonathan Carroll
I liked this book. Really, I did. Now that I have that out of the way, let me say that I didn't like this book as much as I wanted to. I have a friend who loves Jonathan Carroll, and who told me I really must read all of his stuff. So, I started with this. The writing has a nice rhythm and punch. The dialogue is witty. As I said, I liked it. My only real reservation was that it seemed to take forever to get to the real conflict, the real premise, of the book (a rather ingenious premise, mind you). And the ending was, well, pretty abrupt. I felt like I ended up reading an excellent 100-page story spread across 300 pages.

The Dogs of Babel
Carolyn Parkhurst
Now, how can I not like a book about a man trying to teach his dog to speak? The answer is: I can't, especially when it also throws in telephone pyschics and underground societies filled with creepy men who do oddball surgeries. I suppose I like the book even more when I hop over to Amazon and see people whining about it. Seems like some people don't like the character of Lexy (Hello? She's manic depressive. Am I the ony one who figured that out?), while others complain about animal cruelty. (A woman dies in this book. No dogs die. Gee, do some people have their PC priorities a little out of whack?)

The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown
Dan Brown does everything wrong in this book, and I mean everything. He lets his main character stay passive and get overshadowed by other characters. He writes horribly (every other sentence begins with a participial phrase). He makes characters give long-winded soliliquies describing what's going on. And yet, here's my secret shame: I liked the damned thing. I know I shouldn't, but I did. I feel so cheap.

In His Image
James BeauSeigneur
I'd read glowing reviews of this and the other two Christ Clone books a few years ago; now, with Time Warner printing paperbacks, I thought I'd pick up the first one. Great premise: Scientists clone Jesus from cells on the Shroud of Turin. BeauSeigneur treads much the same ground Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins walk in their Left Behind series, but BeauSeigneur's work is more believable, less preachy, and more stylish. High marks.

From a Buick Eight
Stephen King
In my universe, there is no more admired writer than Stephen King. Yes, I have an English Lit degree. Yes, I've read a lot of the classics. Yes, I read contemporary Lit Fic. But damn, no one pulls me into a story like King. I thought "From a Buick Eight," was a fun read as always, exploring new questions and territories for King. And here's what I loved: King has the balls to leave lots of questions unresolved in this book. He forces you, as the reader, to draw your own conclusions. Keep 'em coming, Mr. King.

Tishomingo Blues
Elmore Leonard
Elmore Leonard never disappoints. Real, actual, living characters you find yourself liking--even if they're criminals or scum. (Come to think of it, just about all of his characters are criminals or scum.) And, no one has written dialogue as well since Hemingway.

The Eyre Affair
Lost in a Good Book
Jasper Fforde
Sometimes, imagination wins out over craft. No one will accuse Fforde of being a 21st century Dickens, but he writes a good, funny yarn. It's hard, damned hard, for me to dislike a novel in which one of the characters is named "Jack Schitt."

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Michael Chabon
Nope, I haven't read "Wonder Boys," but I think I may have to track it down after finishing this one. Chabon has the balls to break normal writing conventions--his descriptions can be downright long-winded and breathtaking at the same time--and that's a good thing.

The Lovely Bones
Alice Seybold
Evidently, I'm the only living person who thought this book was a complete waste of my time. Interesting hook and angle, but it aggravated the hell out of me. Wrapped up loose ends WAY too tidily. Blecch.