Pulse - Julian Barnes

A collection of short stories about how we get together or how we fail to, how we try to stay together but can't,  how we are connected but fail to connect.  The thread that holds most of these stories together is a series of dialogue-only scenes about three couples that meet at dinner parties and talk about love, marriage, sex and politics. Some of these scenes made me feel as if I showed up late and hadn't enough to drink to fully enjoy myself.  The second half of the book are stories set in the distant and near past.

The best story is also the title of the book, a first-person story about a man who cannot keep his relationship together, a sharp contrast to the way his parents endure through hardships.

Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson

Starts strong, get a little too soap opera-ish in the middle, finishes as you think it will. The best parts are about the Straight Edge scene in NYC in the late '80's and those bits are what kept me moving through a somewhat conventional plot of teenage pregnancy, unrequited love in all it's different forms, the passing of the generational zeitgeist, and a Indian deus ex machina (Krishina?) of sorts that helps wrap everything up.

The writing is solid, but at times threatens to collapse under it's own weight - everything is described in detail, every sentence has had the hell written out of it. In some parts it works, but in others you wish the things would move forward.