Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot. Thin. Stupid.

John Fowles, The Magus

John Fowles, The Magus. Just horrible. Another self-centered, privileged asshole is not narcissistic enough, so he goes to a Greek island where a sociopathic millionaire makes the entire world actually revolve around him. Really well written, but so full of nasty people I felt bile rising at the finish.

Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City

Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City. I thought it was a novel about the world's fair in Chicago, judging by the cover, but instead it was a novelized non-fiction account of a disgusting and ingenious serial murderer operating in Chicago during the world's fair. Maybe it was good, and it was certainly fascinating, but I wanted to bathe in sand and bleach and remove my mind after reading.

Jonathan Dee, The Privileges

Jonathan Dee, The Privileges. Ew. What crap people. I though at first it was going to be a witty social comedy and then I thought it would be a financial thriller, but it fell flat on all fronts.

John Updike, Toward the End of Time

John Updike, Toward the End of Time. All right, John, here's the deal. I love you, but I can't keep doing this anymore. I don't know why I keep reading your often mediocre and sometimes horrible novels. This book was generally muddled and and sort of limping along, but it was the combination of lazy interpretations of cosmology and particle physics and the absolutely florid and often astoundingly gross descriptions (you deserved this award, and let's leave it at that) that forced me to this. Your lovely language and gift for recognizable and heartbreaking description (and let's face it, when you're good, you're really really good) just aren't worth it right now. I'm not reading anything of yours for a year. Not even that nice volume of short stories I found. A year from now, I'll pretend like this never happened and start over again with your Rabbit books.