The Last of Her Kind

The Last of Her Kind (2006) by Sigrid Nunez. In 1968, two young women who are strangers to one another become roommates at Barnard. They pass through the turbulent times together, and form a deep friendship. For anyone who lived through the '60s and '70s, especially at college age, this book will have a certain nostalgic quality, a certain ring of truth, mixed with relief that those times are past. Grade: A-

King Dork

King Dork (2006) by Frank Portman. Mostly absorbing, well told story about a "dork" who makes good and sneaks across class lines to hang with somewhat cool girls. Grade: A

Gallowglass

Gallowglass (1990) by Barbara Vine. Barbara Vine, a pseudonym for Ruth Rendell, reminds me vaguely of a British Elmore Leonard. She gets inside the criminal's mind, and it's frequently an amusing, if macabre, view. In this book we are confronted with Little Joe, a simpleton who has hooked up with a brooding criminal named Sandor. Sandor is obsessed with kidnapping a woman he refers to as The Princess, but we are only slowly made aware of his motives because we see and hear everything through the lens of Little Joe's perception. It's a good read, but I found the ending a little disappointing. Grade: B