Reviews tagging 'Deadnaming'

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

14 reviews

venidasdemarzo's review against another edition

dark funny tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body shaming, Deadnaming, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Medical content, Transphobia, Body horror, Suicide, Self harm, Outing, Misogyny, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Dysphoria, Adult/minor relationship, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Mental illness, Death, Eating disorder, Drug use, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Incest and Gun violence

rachellosacco's review against another edition

challenging funny mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What a great and crazy dive into ideas of beauty and hyper-femininity. There are plenty of twists, some you might be able to guess, others that are truly shocking. Consumerism and spectacle are criticized throughout, and the line begins to blur between hate and love.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Outing, Medical trauma, Toxic friendship, Drug abuse, and Sexual content

Moderate: Car accident, Deadnaming, Cursing, and Body shaming

Minor: Fatphobia, Sexual assault, Transphobia, and Rape

grunbean's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Whenever I read a book by Chuck Palahniuk I can only describe my reaction with that one clip of Brian David Gilbert going ‘What the f***’?!’. For me this picked up over half way, but it’s not a bad read. Definitely interesting with plenty of surprises, which is what you’d expect! It just didn’t have its hook in me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gaslighting, Drug use, Dysphoria, Body horror, Adult/minor relationship, Toxic friendship, Outing, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Mental illness, Infidelity, Homophobia, Deadnaming, Child abuse, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Gun violence, Emotional abuse, Body shaming, Addiction, Transphobia, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Drug abuse, Death, and Car accident

anicemyth's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

This is the most hateful book I have ever read. I get the feeling Palahniuk hates women and despises trans women especially. I don't recommend this book. Scrolling through kiwifarms will have a similar effect. The ending simply sucked shit. It felt like he got to the climax of the story, when "oh god oh fuck i need to end this somehow" and farted out the most pitiful ending of any novel I've read - ZERO payoff for having read 300 pages of nigh-hatespeech. Disappointing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Homophobia, Sexism, Transphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Ableism, Medical content, Body shaming, Deadnaming, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, and Gore

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Incest

seethinglloron's review against another edition

dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I love Chuck Palahniuk. I love his prose, his obsession with the filthy and the gory and the absolutely batshit insane. This is all of that wrapped up in a tale about femininity, beauty, desire, gender, sexuality; and unfortunately, it did not land for me. I was with Chuck for much of the novel. Chuck lost me at the end.
I am willing to acquiesce a lot to the theming, the unreliable and unlikeable narrator, the terrible characters and their terrible ideas and their terrible lives. I do it all the time! This just crosses that fine line of absurdity into nonsense. If this novel was a work of art like some of Palahniuk's other work, perhaps I could look past the absolute gall of Palahniuk to write about trans women the way he does. Yes, it's transgressive. Yes, it's not really about trans women, but about something else. No, it doesn't save this train wreck.
Some of it is very fun in the fucked-up way Palahniuk's bullshit is fun, but not enough of it, and not for long enough.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, and Deadnaming

updownwrong's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Invisible Monsters is the best Chuck Palahniuk novel I've read yet. It's full of twists and turns, awful yet loveable yet loathsome characters, and outlandish yet almost plausible situations that make your jaw drop. While I don't think the book is as shocking as it would have been 20 years ago, I think it's an essential read for anyone who enjoys modern satire. Bonus points if you're a former emo kid who underlined all of the lines AFYCSO references. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Gore, Toxic relationship, Violence, Self harm, Body shaming, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Medical content, Addiction, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Death, Deadnaming, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Transphobia, Ableism, Child abuse, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Sexual violence, and Outing

eyesofcrows's review

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Confusing to start with because of the nonlinear timeline but God does it reward you when you start connecting the timeline. Though there’s stuff about homophobia and transphobia, it doesn’t pedal it as the center. There’s so much more and you honestly have to detach from it all to get to what this story is: people connected like vines and weeds around each other. What a fun book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body shaming, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Homophobia, and Body horror

Moderate: Gore, Grief, Drug use, and Dysphoria

Minor: Deadnaming, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Transphobia, and Gun violence

hunkydory's review

adventurous dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Self harm, Blood, Violence, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Drug use, Alcohol, Cursing, Gore, Homophobia, and Medical content

Moderate: Infidelity and Emotional abuse

Minor: Deadnaming, Dysphoria, Outing, Adult/minor relationship, and Transphobia

sphinxofblackquartz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Drug abuse, Transphobia, Medical content, and Deadnaming

Moderate: Body shaming

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

spookyspice's review

challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I know people think Guts from Haunted is the most messed up thing Palahniuk has written but from what I’ve read of his work this is actually the most disturbing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Body horror, Violence, Transphobia, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Mental illness, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Gore, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Drug use, Drug abuse, Domestic abuse, Dysphoria, Sexual content, Self harm, Medical trauma, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Deadnaming, Gun violence, Homophobia, Car accident, Death, and Grief