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3.23 AVERAGE
3.23 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
My first Palahniuk book. Yes, I knew he was going to be disgusting. I knew he would be rude...
...but I'm still shocked.
Maddie is a 13 y.o. girl that goes to hell after her rather questionable death. Here she makes friends with a typical "The Breakfast Club" cast of characters and tries to get by her new life.
Y'know, there's reason why authors include disturbing scenes in their books but when Chuck does it, it feels like he does just for the sake of it.
TW - if you're disturbed by dandruff deserts, seas of unwanted semen and chopped off heads licking demonesses "woo-hoos", as our MC likes to call vaginas - then I guess this book will be a hard pass for you.
And, to be quiet honest, it was almost for me too.
So why did I kept reading then, you may ask?
Whilst clenching my jaw tight I kept on listening to the book in order to grasp this so called "genius of Palahniuk."
As I've mentioned above Chuck's writing style is rather crude and pretty unconvincing. Perhaps it has to do with that Maddie is actually .
Yet after countless hours of listening and trying not to barf all over meself, I was kinda rewarded with handful of funny jokes and great "redemption" arc.
The plot twist absolutely brilliant!
What made it worse was that we truly get to know our main character only by the end of the book, which makes almost 70% of the story useless crappy filler. And that's why, IMHO you can't forgive this kinda writing.
2/5 stars from me. There's part two to this story but I can't be bothered tbh.
...but I'm still shocked.
Maddie is a 13 y.o. girl that goes to hell after her rather questionable death. Here she makes friends with a typical "The Breakfast Club" cast of characters and tries to get by her new life.
Y'know, there's reason why authors include disturbing scenes in their books but when Chuck does it, it feels like he does just for the sake of it.
TW - if you're disturbed by dandruff deserts, seas of unwanted semen and chopped off heads licking demonesses "woo-hoos", as our MC likes to call vaginas - then I guess this book will be a hard pass for you.
And, to be quiet honest, it was almost for me too.
So why did I kept reading then, you may ask?
Whilst clenching my jaw tight I kept on listening to the book in order to grasp this so called "genius of Palahniuk."
As I've mentioned above Chuck's writing style is rather crude and pretty unconvincing. Perhaps it has to do with that Maddie is actually
Spoiler
a character in Satan's play and she's basically no one in this story, she was made to convince other people to kill themselves or do some mischief to get 'em in Hell.Yet after countless hours of listening and trying not to barf all over meself, I was kinda rewarded with handful of funny jokes and great "redemption" arc.
The plot twist absolutely brilliant!
What made it worse was that we truly get to know our main character only by the end of the book, which makes almost 70% of the story useless crappy filler. And that's why, IMHO you can't forgive this kinda writing.
2/5 stars from me. There's part two to this story but I can't be bothered tbh.
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really tried with this but oh my god I forgot how insufferable the 13 year old girl inner monologue is.
my favorite palahniuk review i’ve ever read, ended with the sentiment that the reviewer liked Choke because they weren’t supposed to. i was a bit upset after buying Damned because I didn’t read any reviews before, and it universally bombed with other Palahniuk fans. It’s almost always in the bottom four when people rank his biblio, and even the premise seemed a bit stupid to me. i don’t have much of an interest in Hell, and I’m not really a fan of gorey shit for the sake of gore. so I thought a book exploring what hell could be under the guise of a fucked-up The Breakfast Club would be a total snoozefest that lasts me for the seven hour roadtrip to Virginia I had to take this past week.
Needless to say, reality totally decimated my expectations. I loved this book, so so much. it’s the first novel by Chuck’s from a child’s POV, and it’s such a brilliant set up for exploring how the death of hope releases you from the punishment of expecting Earth to feel like Heaven. There’s an expectation that life is about maximizing happiness (I guess for Maddy, it’s the quest for validation and acceptance), but without struggle life is not beautiful! What makes Earth such a Hell is that we expect it to be Heaven, but through self acceptance and self love we can reach a state where life just becomes an experience we’re grateful to have been a part of.
The best portion of this novel is at the climax, when we get more information about the nature of Maddy’s death, searching for some sort of a higher purpose in her adopted brother in a similar fashion that her parents search for atonement for their sins through their spiritual entrapment of Maddy. The commentary that Chuck makes in this book on having Hope, particularly being trapped within the confines of hoping for a “way out”, is his most meta yet! When you look at Fight Club and Invisible Monsters, you see this death of hope happening without being named. The main characters decide enough is enough and take matters into their own hands, destroying themselves so they can rebuild their realities and find their souls. For the first time, we see this gradual destruction of Hope happening realtime with Maddy.
Archer puts it perfectly after Maddy comes to term with her death, and I’m going to type it out here in an effort to let Chuck’s own beautiful writing to implore you guys to read some of his cool shit yourselves: “Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. And your anger about investing a lifetime and learning s*** and loving people and earning money, only to have all that crap come to basically nothing. Really, your physical body dying is the easy part. Beyond that, your memories must die. And your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and Hope, all that Personal Identity Crap can take centuries to expire. All people ever see is how the body dies. The truth is, you stay in hell until you forgive yourself. You f***** up! Game over, so just relax.”
We spend our lives fixated on the past so we can try to change our future, but we never recognize why we are presently exactly where we need to be. We escape our own personal Hells by forgiving ourselves and moving on. It’s a beautiful, gracious message that takes such a turn from the character studies and self destructive adventures his other characters take on. It’s been so freeing to read a book that at every page just reminds me that there is the death of my ego to comfort me, and help me unravel my soul.
This is also the first book of his that I’ve read which isn’t standalone, and as much as people hated the whole Hell concept, I thought it was a nice touch on his part. The existential adventure that Maddy goes on to find her own purpose through fixing her Hell rather than mising about not being in Heaven wasn’t super fleshed out, but it helps round out her story and also set up for the next novel. The reveal with the driver and the script actually seems pretty off the wall to me, although I’m starting to get kinda lost in the sauce. We’ll see if Doomed is able to follow up on this one, but I’ve learned that maybe our hopes aren’t always answered. And that’s OK, whether things turn out for the better or for the worse. We’ve always been OK in the end, haven’t we? So why get ourselves down?
Needless to say, reality totally decimated my expectations. I loved this book, so so much. it’s the first novel by Chuck’s from a child’s POV, and it’s such a brilliant set up for exploring how the death of hope releases you from the punishment of expecting Earth to feel like Heaven. There’s an expectation that life is about maximizing happiness (I guess for Maddy, it’s the quest for validation and acceptance), but without struggle life is not beautiful! What makes Earth such a Hell is that we expect it to be Heaven, but through self acceptance and self love we can reach a state where life just becomes an experience we’re grateful to have been a part of.
The best portion of this novel is at the climax, when we get more information about the nature of Maddy’s death, searching for some sort of a higher purpose in her adopted brother in a similar fashion that her parents search for atonement for their sins through their spiritual entrapment of Maddy. The commentary that Chuck makes in this book on having Hope, particularly being trapped within the confines of hoping for a “way out”, is his most meta yet! When you look at Fight Club and Invisible Monsters, you see this death of hope happening without being named. The main characters decide enough is enough and take matters into their own hands, destroying themselves so they can rebuild their realities and find their souls. For the first time, we see this gradual destruction of Hope happening realtime with Maddy.
Archer puts it perfectly after Maddy comes to term with her death, and I’m going to type it out here in an effort to let Chuck’s own beautiful writing to implore you guys to read some of his cool shit yourselves: “Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. And your anger about investing a lifetime and learning s*** and loving people and earning money, only to have all that crap come to basically nothing. Really, your physical body dying is the easy part. Beyond that, your memories must die. And your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and Hope, all that Personal Identity Crap can take centuries to expire. All people ever see is how the body dies. The truth is, you stay in hell until you forgive yourself. You f***** up! Game over, so just relax.”
We spend our lives fixated on the past so we can try to change our future, but we never recognize why we are presently exactly where we need to be. We escape our own personal Hells by forgiving ourselves and moving on. It’s a beautiful, gracious message that takes such a turn from the character studies and self destructive adventures his other characters take on. It’s been so freeing to read a book that at every page just reminds me that there is the death of my ego to comfort me, and help me unravel my soul.
This is also the first book of his that I’ve read which isn’t standalone, and as much as people hated the whole Hell concept, I thought it was a nice touch on his part. The existential adventure that Maddy goes on to find her own purpose through fixing her Hell rather than mising about not being in Heaven wasn’t super fleshed out, but it helps round out her story and also set up for the next novel. The reveal with the driver and the script actually seems pretty off the wall to me, although I’m starting to get kinda lost in the sauce. We’ll see if Doomed is able to follow up on this one, but I’ve learned that maybe our hopes aren’t always answered. And that’s OK, whether things turn out for the better or for the worse. We’ve always been OK in the end, haven’t we? So why get ourselves down?
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Premise and delivery were superb, a very gross rendition of Hades that I really enjoyed discovering. The narrator, Maddy, is a masterclass character piece of naive and insufferable but also kinda sweet.
The writing lent itself to being repetitive, on purpose, but after 200 pages or so the witty gag was a drag. I had hoped the story finished with this book, but the last 30 pages or so decided to keep it going - like an after thought. Now it seems Chuck wants to do a divine comedy of his own, with just as much social commentary and more modern references to people in their respective planes of existence.
I do not think I’ll be perusing Maddy’s journey further though.
An enjoyable and funny read all round, but let down by what felt like a last minute serialisation.
The writing lent itself to being repetitive, on purpose, but after 200 pages or so the witty gag was a drag. I had hoped the story finished with this book, but the last 30 pages or so decided to keep it going - like an after thought. Now it seems Chuck wants to do a divine comedy of his own, with just as much social commentary and more modern references to people in their respective planes of existence.
I do not think I’ll be perusing Maddy’s journey further though.
An enjoyable and funny read all round, but let down by what felt like a last minute serialisation.
dark
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes