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A review by stewreads
Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread by Chuck Palahniuk
4.0
Palahniuk has become the kind of author that everyone loves to hate. Admittedly, I haven't read many of his newer books, but what I have read has been decent at best, awful at worst. So as I read his latest, a short story collection (like Haunted but without the narrative), I didn't have very high expectations.
The majority of the stories in here are good, some very good, actually. As with any short story collection, it's hit-and-miss, and there are some major misses ("Eleanor", "Tunnel of Love"). But overall, the good outweighs the bad, and a few stories ("Knock Knock", "Zombies") even feel like the old Palahniuk that most of us really miss. Speaking of the "old Palahniuk", what has really changed with his writing lately? Personally, I think that the main problem with his new stuff is that he relies too much on shock value. After the gross-out short story "Guts" became insanely popular, people started to expect more of these cringe-inducing horror stories, and sadly enough, Palahniuk caved and started writing them. In Make Something Up, we see a few of these ("Cannibal, "the Toad Prince"), but even if they are more shock than substance, they are still fun to read and often hilarious as well.
All in all, this is the only thing that Palahniuk has put out lately that I can really recommend, and I hope that soon I'll be able to say that about some more of his books. But for now, it seems that Chuck works better in 20 pages or less than he does in a novel.
The majority of the stories in here are good, some very good, actually. As with any short story collection, it's hit-and-miss, and there are some major misses ("Eleanor", "Tunnel of Love"). But overall, the good outweighs the bad, and a few stories ("Knock Knock", "Zombies") even feel like the old Palahniuk that most of us really miss. Speaking of the "old Palahniuk", what has really changed with his writing lately? Personally, I think that the main problem with his new stuff is that he relies too much on shock value. After the gross-out short story "Guts" became insanely popular, people started to expect more of these cringe-inducing horror stories, and sadly enough, Palahniuk caved and started writing them. In Make Something Up, we see a few of these ("Cannibal, "the Toad Prince"), but even if they are more shock than substance, they are still fun to read and often hilarious as well.
All in all, this is the only thing that Palahniuk has put out lately that I can really recommend, and I hope that soon I'll be able to say that about some more of his books. But for now, it seems that Chuck works better in 20 pages or less than he does in a novel.