Reviews

Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk. I have no idea where to even start with this. It is novel of revolution and devolution. It is extreme in every aspect, holding familiar conspiracies under a microscope in a world that is dressed like a medieval fair or as the incarnation of an Ancient Aliens documentary (without the aliens). In all honesty it is worth the read for the brief moment of Palahniuk poking fun at his own work. Not an easy read and I’m still trying to wrap my head around what on earth I just read. But if you’re looking for something unusual or just completely off it’s tree, this might work.
Trigger warnings for basically everything. As the blurb says Palahniuk is an equal opportunity offender.

its_kievan's review against another edition

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challenging dark fast-paced

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

1.0

At one point in this story, one character injects another character's penis with spider venom, which causes it to rot and eventually fall off. This is a good analogy for Adjustment Day as a whole, except replace the penis with my attention span and the spider venom with one of the most toothless, incoherent attempts at satire I've ever read. It's just... it's bad. It's bad and it's not particularly clever or interesting. Good satire comes from caring about the subject, at least a little. You need to know a lot about something to criticize it well, and that's doubly true when you're trying to be funny in the process. Palahniuk, as far as I can tell, doesn't really give a shit about... well, about anything, and it shows. Adjustment Day is the sort of equal-opportunity mockery that you'd find on South Park, and as a result it reads like a high school student's report on a book they didn't even read. It's lazy, and it's boring. I'm sure somewhere there's an Adjustment Day fan - probably the same person whose response to Fight Club was "whoa dude that's so sick" - but personally I couldn't care less. I couldn't care less what Palahniuk thinks about masculinity, or about liberalism, or about identity politics, and I couldn't care less about his book.

Also he has two characters in this book talk about Fight Club, which is so blindingly obnoxious it nearly killed me.

Content Warnings

henrymarlene's review

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3.0

@chuckpalahniuk writes interesting stories. 'Adjustment Day' is no exception as my travel companion over the last few days. But it does lose a little steam in the middle. The new dystpoian worlds created did not seem to be as surprising or scandalous as they could be. And there were a couple of characters that left me scratching my head in relation to the power they acquired. There was a hint of how this could have been the next step of the world after the apocalyptic Fight Club destructions let loose across the world. I was left wanting more.

radbear76's review

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5.0

The angst of Fight Club steered by a mixture of conspiracy theories and identity politics creates a scary near future. Palahniuk's typical mix a thought provocation, humor, and disgusting moments.

cyclysm748's review

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4.0

What did I just read? Not sure I quite understand the message but the story was entertaining.

loonyboi's review against another edition

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3.0

This book is a mess. It's Palahniuk, so it's a hot mess, but it's a total mess. I've read everything he's published, and even his misses are somewhat entertaining, but this one was a slog at times. The biggest issue is that rather than pick a single narrator, Palahniuk made the choice to take a shotgun approach to storytelling. Nobody gets very well defined, events are told, not depicted, the whole timeline is murky, and the ending came completely out of left field.

Adjustment Day reminded me of Palahniuk's other recent hot mess, [b:Fight Club 2|25614994|Fight Club 2|Chuck Palahniuk|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1440449755s/25614994.jpg|45760867]. It's not quite as meta, but there are references to Fight Club (the novel/movie) and even Palahniuk himself. I get it, but I really hope he's gotten that out of his system.

I don't recommend this for any but the most committed of Palahniuk completests. He's written better. Go read those instead.

philibin's review against another edition

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4.0

(4.5 Stars)

This book was another Palahniuk classic. Absurdist, satirical, uncomfortable, and most of all... compelling.

It's like The Purge, Atlas Shrugged, The Handmaid's Tale, and American History X all shoved into an industrial-strength blender and someone left it on for too long.

Palahniuk's command of character building and environment building are unsurpassed. If you like Palahniuk, you will like this book, if you don't... you'll hate this book. If you haven't read him yet... start with something easier like Fight Club.

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