Reviews with content warning for Excrement - Haunted

This was not it. I really like the concept of horrible people sabotaging themselves and hoping for something awful to happen so they'll become victims and achieve fame. But the book takes every single thing about this set-up too far, and any possible reflections on the dark side of humanity gets lost in the ridiculousness of these characters' actions. It's all cartoonish and by the time one of the characters begins casually

ripping off her own fingernails while calmly telling a story,

I was done. Willing suspension of disbelief can only go so far.

As for the short stories... First of all, I don't think the book's format worked. All the stories were very clearly written by the same person; all the characters have the exact same writing style. I also didn't think the stories gelled very well with the main narrative, and the shifts between them felt abrupt, but that might just be a personal preference. That said, I overall preferred the short stories to the main narrative, though I still can't say I liked them, mainly because of how disturbing some of the content was. And while I obviously understand that disturbing is what Palahniuk was going for here, there are much more refined ways of going about it. Haunted is a book devoid of subtlety, with the vast majority of the disturbing scenes and situations mentioned seeming tacked-on for shock value. To give an example, one scene mentions child pornography, a subject disturbing in and on itself without need for further detail; despite this, Palahniuk not only offers further detail, but chooses to portray particularly grotesque instances of it for no reason other than to shock and repulse. This happens throughout the book: every single time he's given the chance, he crosses the line from "disturbing" to "gratuitous".

It's all gross-out and incredibly distasteful, as well as juvenile, like a teenage boy trying to make you squirm by coming up with the most vile shit he can conjure up.

I rarely DNF books, especially one I've been meaning to read for so long, but if I'm going to read a book that makes me feel bad and puts horrible shit in my mind, it better have something to offer in return. This doesn't, and I just don't feel like putting myself through anymore of it.

Content Warnings