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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
This book is fantastic! The oral biography style is not a gimmick, it is a great writing style. Be ready for twists, turns and the standard Palahniuk irreverence.
As with as any good Chuck book, the end takes you for a complete 180 degree spin around to show you everything in a totally different light. And when the jacket blurb says "blazing insight into the desperate and surreal contemporary human condition," that's really what it means. The truths that Chuck imparts are incredibly depressing to most, but incredibly truthful (also biblical) to the fans.
I will tell you the same thing I told my best friend after we watched Donnie Darko for the first time (these are the words that launched a hundred jokes - mostly at my expense - that are still, three years later, going strong) - "It's about time travel".
I think this was supposed to be [book: Diary], reworked to target men. The 'Entourage' to his 'Sex and the City'. It's a lot of rabies and car crashes and spiders and futuristic ports in the base of your skull (the ports I pictured like the one in "Brainscan", which if you haven't seen, you're not missing anything). Boy stuff.
It was enjoyable enough. Not as good as some of his other work, not as bad as [book: Snuff]. I read it over the course of yesterday, so it's pretty quick. There are plenty of small WTF moments before the big WTF in about the last sixty pages, not enough to even out the all the medical/conspiracy theory "paragraphs", but enough to keep it going.
I think this was supposed to be [book: Diary], reworked to target men. The 'Entourage' to his 'Sex and the City'. It's a lot of rabies and car crashes and spiders and futuristic ports in the base of your skull (the ports I pictured like the one in "Brainscan", which if you haven't seen, you're not missing anything). Boy stuff.
It was enjoyable enough. Not as good as some of his other work, not as bad as [book: Snuff]. I read it over the course of yesterday, so it's pretty quick. There are plenty of small WTF moments before the big WTF in about the last sixty pages, not enough to even out the all the medical/conspiracy theory "paragraphs", but enough to keep it going.
Chuck's latest book. He seemed to be waning a bit in his creativity and writing, so when Rant came out I was excited but also a little nervous. What if it was just another jumbled for-shock-value-only mess like Haunted?
Thank goodness it wasn't. This one ranks in my top 3 favorite Palahniuk books. Reminiscent of Survivor and Invisible Monsters this story was so clever and so uniquely unraveled, its packed full of great one liners.
One of the reasons I love Chuck is that he can write the most disgusting, insane passages, yet he does it so well that rather than slam the book shut and proclaim "why would anyone write something like that?!" you are more likely to lament "why didn't I think of something like that?!"
Thank goodness it wasn't. This one ranks in my top 3 favorite Palahniuk books. Reminiscent of Survivor and Invisible Monsters this story was so clever and so uniquely unraveled, its packed full of great one liners.
One of the reasons I love Chuck is that he can write the most disgusting, insane passages, yet he does it so well that rather than slam the book shut and proclaim "why would anyone write something like that?!" you are more likely to lament "why didn't I think of something like that?!"
dear chuck palahniuk,
slow down. you do it better that way. Choke is still my favorite.
xo,
stephanie
slow down. you do it better that way. Choke is still my favorite.
xo,
stephanie
2007 review:
Alright, the new book by my favorite author. This book is told in the style of oral interviews with different people, all focusing on telling the story of a boy named Buster Casey, who was said to have started a rabies epidemic/plague in America.
I wasn't exactly fond of the style of this book-being told by so many different people, it was hard to love any of them. There were so many times in the book that I also wondered where all these weird details were going-so I dare say, a few times, this book lost a bit of my interest. About 3/4 through the book I was ready to say it was the worst Chuck book I had read, even though it was by no means a bad book. Of course, I didn't have enough faith in him. As soon as I made that comment, the story really started to get interesting, really started to make sense, and really started getting good. Once again, it has a twisted interesting ending, in many sorts (I knew one of the bigger "surprises" before it was pointed out, but it's still fun to see it work itself full circle-and I hadn't figured it out to the full extent.)
Chuck's books have started to become very...BIG. As in, the implications for the society we live in are big, and the plots are very deep, layered. His books used to be about characters and now they're about the world, in a crazy way.
His books used to be driven by characters, and this one was driven by plot. I liked the character driven ones more-but this one was still pretty amazing by the time I was done with it. It's just a book that needs to be stuck with until the end, or else you'll miss A LOT. Though I do think it was kind of a mix of Fight Club and The Butterfly Effect put together in one crazy plot.
Alright, the new book by my favorite author. This book is told in the style of oral interviews with different people, all focusing on telling the story of a boy named Buster Casey, who was said to have started a rabies epidemic/plague in America.
I wasn't exactly fond of the style of this book-being told by so many different people, it was hard to love any of them. There were so many times in the book that I also wondered where all these weird details were going-so I dare say, a few times, this book lost a bit of my interest. About 3/4 through the book I was ready to say it was the worst Chuck book I had read, even though it was by no means a bad book. Of course, I didn't have enough faith in him. As soon as I made that comment, the story really started to get interesting, really started to make sense, and really started getting good. Once again, it has a twisted interesting ending, in many sorts (I knew one of the bigger "surprises" before it was pointed out, but it's still fun to see it work itself full circle-and I hadn't figured it out to the full extent.)
Chuck's books have started to become very...BIG. As in, the implications for the society we live in are big, and the plots are very deep, layered. His books used to be about characters and now they're about the world, in a crazy way.
His books used to be driven by characters, and this one was driven by plot. I liked the character driven ones more-but this one was still pretty amazing by the time I was done with it. It's just a book that needs to be stuck with until the end, or else you'll miss A LOT. Though I do think it was kind of a mix of Fight Club and The Butterfly Effect put together in one crazy plot.
my little enemy of the state my little uh menace to society my little uhh um bioterrorist
Maybe Fight Club was the only book Palahnuik could actually write that was understandable and easy to follow. I haven't read any of his other works besides these 2, but I absolutely hated every second spent reading this one.
As usual with Palahniuk novels, this has some quirky characters but the first half is relatively "normal." It's the second half the messes with your head... especially the final 30 pages or so. In anyone else's hands, the story would have veered off track and gotten completely lost. But Palahniuk finesses every little string so it all ties together, though doesn't exactly resolve completely, by the end.