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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This one is not for the faint of heart. Gross, graphic, and often needlessly cruel. Nearly every character is some flavor of awful, and that is what made me love this book. All these people, for all their faults, want to be seen as the most ill-fated, the most suffering, and it is hard to feel pity for any of them given each of their misdeeds. It is certainly an wild ride, and touches on a lot of potentially triggering subject matter. Be careful with this one, but I heavily recommend it.
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I had to put this book down after some of the stories. It just disturbed me a lot
I honestly can’t say I’d recommend this book to anyone. I feel if I did it would have to be followed by so many warnings
I honestly can’t say I’d recommend this book to anyone. I feel if I did it would have to be followed by so many warnings
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think I realized that the reason I don't dig Palahniuk that much anymore is because his characters are such boring caricatures. I don't give a shit how awful they are because I can't believe in them, and put up against that all of his cynical aphorisms fall flat.
Anyway, I read this because it was sitting on my shelf for almost two years. I guess it wasn't awful, just more or less exactly like every other Palahniuk book out there.
Anyway, I read this because it was sitting on my shelf for almost two years. I guess it wasn't awful, just more or less exactly like every other Palahniuk book out there.
So Chuck Palahniuk is my favorite author. I loved the movie Fight Club, but I haven’t actually read that book yet. I have read many of his other books and short stories though.Although this is a kind-of collection of short stories, it is actually a novel that the short stories make up. The characters in the book all have to tell their story, because they are locked together in an abandoned theater. This book is disturbing and fucked up like all the other Chuck Palahniuk books. There are a lot of blood and guts in this book, like many of his other novels. I love how each characters story has nothing to do with each other, but they are all connected through human depravity. I’ve heard that the author reading Guts aloud has made many people pass out. I don’t get that. I guess I am pretty messed up too, cause I don’t think that story was that fucked. I mean yes it was fucked up and gruesome, but not enough to make someone pass out. I don’t think. Oh and the cover glows in the dark, which was a bit of a shock to see a scary face glowing in the dark. Surprise.
Haunted is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face, the plot began boring and for the first hundred pages I honestly worried I was going to have to sit through 400 pages of unnecessarily sexual disturbing content like so many splatterpunk novels are, but this isn’t haunted.
Haunted is the story of what people are willing to do for a new life, encapsulated by the only possibly supernatural story in the book, Obsolete. But there are no ghosts in haunted, the only thing haunting these authors is their past and the shot at a new future.
This book has a very weak beginning with Guts being front loaded as the most overtly sexual and disturbing story in the book, there wasn’t really a thematic reason for this at all, and felt like a very odd choice for a first story. Foot Work, Green Room, and Slumming all felt very similar in tone, with little of interest happening in the frame at this point.
While Swan Song was fine, the book goes into overdrive during its next few stories with Dog Years and post production both being fantastic, with ambition being the only real skip. This streak finished with the fantastic Exodus which was probably the best short story in the collection.
While the next two stories fail to live up to the previous streak the last 12 stories are just a straight shot of unique and well written story after well written and unique story.
As for criticisms while there were a lot of boring low points I also feel there were far too many characters and stories, why do we need 17 writers? By the end 9 basically just die off screen. I felt several stories could’ve been cut and characters could’ve been combined to get over their one note personalities. I feel like 10 writers and the two “hosts” would be a healthy number, maybe even pushing it.
Anyways here is my ranking of the stories from best to worst to finish this review
Fantastic
1. Exodus
2. Speaking Bitterness
3. Hot Potting
4. The Nightmare Box
Great
5. Dissertation
6. Dog Years
7. Civil Twilight
8. Obsolete
9. Cassandra
Good
10. Product Placement
11. Post Production
12. Crippled
13. Evil Spirits
14. Something’s Got To Give
Fine
15. Swan Song
16. Guts
17. Poster Child
18. Foot Work
19. Ritual
Bad
20. Ambition
21. Slumming
22. Green Room
23. Punch Drunk
Haunted is the story of what people are willing to do for a new life, encapsulated by the only possibly supernatural story in the book, Obsolete. But there are no ghosts in haunted, the only thing haunting these authors is their past and the shot at a new future.
This book has a very weak beginning with Guts being front loaded as the most overtly sexual and disturbing story in the book, there wasn’t really a thematic reason for this at all, and felt like a very odd choice for a first story. Foot Work, Green Room, and Slumming all felt very similar in tone, with little of interest happening in the frame at this point.
While Swan Song was fine, the book goes into overdrive during its next few stories with Dog Years and post production both being fantastic, with ambition being the only real skip. This streak finished with the fantastic Exodus which was probably the best short story in the collection.
While the next two stories fail to live up to the previous streak the last 12 stories are just a straight shot of unique and well written story after well written and unique story.
As for criticisms while there were a lot of boring low points I also feel there were far too many characters and stories, why do we need 17 writers? By the end 9 basically just die off screen. I felt several stories could’ve been cut and characters could’ve been combined to get over their one note personalities. I feel like 10 writers and the two “hosts” would be a healthy number, maybe even pushing it.
Anyways here is my ranking of the stories from best to worst to finish this review
Fantastic
1. Exodus
2. Speaking Bitterness
3. Hot Potting
4. The Nightmare Box
Great
5. Dissertation
6. Dog Years
7. Civil Twilight
8. Obsolete
9. Cassandra
Good
10. Product Placement
11. Post Production
12. Crippled
13. Evil Spirits
14. Something’s Got To Give
Fine
15. Swan Song
16. Guts
17. Poster Child
18. Foot Work
19. Ritual
Bad
20. Ambition
21. Slumming
22. Green Room
23. Punch Drunk
Haunted is quite complex, so I’ll do my best to describe it. The book is made up of 23 short stories inside of one larger story. The larger story is: a group of people responded to an ad for a “writer’s retreat” in which they would abandon their lives for three months and create their masterpiece. None of the characters knew what to expect... they just boarded a bus and wound up at an old abandoned theater, at this retreat, run by an elderly man named Mr. Whittier.
Each chapter of this story is followed by a free verse poem about one of the people, then some sort of story about their life that they are telling the rest of the group. All of these stories are disturbing, unusual, brilliant, and shocking.
As for the main story... as time goes on, the people are increasingly growing more disturbed and insane. Some of them begin dying and cutting off their own fingers and toes. They ruin the food and break the heater, all in hopes of being discovered by the outside world and becoming famous by having movies and shows created about their experience. They appear to be locked up and victimized, but we discover they are really prisoners of themselves.
The premise of this story is absolutely fascinating. The book is shocking, grotesque, and extremely unique. It is provocative, bizarre, and unusual. The format of the book was interesting and the writing was brilliant. I was not let down there at all. However, something about this book just didn’t completely click with me. It wasn’t as gripping as I'd expected, and that may just be a result of the character’s short stories intersplicing so often into the "main" story. While the short stories were fascinating (I particularly enjoyed “The Nightmare Box”), it disrupted the overall flow.
This book is intense and disturbing, but most definitely an interesting read. Though I was a little bit disappointed with this one, I did enjoy it for the most part. My expectations were just super high because I LOVE Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters is one of my very favorite books).
All in all, I’d say be prepared for a disturbing read! Not recommended for the faint of heart.
Read and reviewed: December 2009
Edited: May 2023
Each chapter of this story is followed by a free verse poem about one of the people, then some sort of story about their life that they are telling the rest of the group. All of these stories are disturbing, unusual, brilliant, and shocking.
As for the main story... as time goes on, the people are increasingly growing more disturbed and insane. Some of them begin dying and cutting off their own fingers and toes. They ruin the food and break the heater, all in hopes of being discovered by the outside world and becoming famous by having movies and shows created about their experience. They appear to be locked up and victimized, but we discover they are really prisoners of themselves.
The premise of this story is absolutely fascinating. The book is shocking, grotesque, and extremely unique. It is provocative, bizarre, and unusual. The format of the book was interesting and the writing was brilliant. I was not let down there at all. However, something about this book just didn’t completely click with me. It wasn’t as gripping as I'd expected, and that may just be a result of the character’s short stories intersplicing so often into the "main" story. While the short stories were fascinating (I particularly enjoyed “The Nightmare Box”), it disrupted the overall flow.
This book is intense and disturbing, but most definitely an interesting read. Though I was a little bit disappointed with this one, I did enjoy it for the most part. My expectations were just super high because I LOVE Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters is one of my very favorite books).
All in all, I’d say be prepared for a disturbing read! Not recommended for the faint of heart.
Read and reviewed: December 2009
Edited: May 2023
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
