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leelee_draws_pictures 's review for:
Damned
by Chuck Palahniuk
Ah, the quintessential Thanksgiving read. I didn't enjoy this as much as Palahniuk's earlier work (namely, Survivor), but at least it wasn't as deplorable as Pygmy or Lullaby, his worst.
There was a lot I loved about this -- the protagonist's "job" (at which she uses telemarketing to encourage people to kill themselves), the catharsis of reading her beating up Hitler and ripping his mustache off her face.
But other parts are just painful, like where the author feels a need to repeat ad nauseam about how she may be thirteen, but she knows all of these big-girl words. (Part of the joy of reading about young teenagers is the perspective that an adult brings; we don't read actual books by youngsters because teenagers are -- let's face it -- annoying and ameteurish writers, which is where a lot of this goes. I realize it's a conceit and it's supposed to make it more "believable," but come on -- it's a book about Hell.)
There's also a lot of description of Hell's various gross-out areas: the sea of dead babies, the dandruff desert, the mound of toenail clippings, the lake of masturbated sperm. There's a very, VERY bizarre and gratuitous oral sex scene with a giant lady-demon. And her parents are, yes, celebrity hypocrites, and I don't need to hear it over and over again with so many examples.
I feel like when I was younger, this sort of thing felt edgy, dangerous, and forbidden; but now that I'm older, it's repetitive. I feel like I've written this Palahniuk book before, several times before.
So anyway, in summary, some of it is great; most of it isn't. If you love Palahniuk, this is representative of his entire oeuvre. If, however, you don't like Palahniuk, this isn't going to be the work that turns the tide.
There was a lot I loved about this -- the protagonist's "job" (at which she uses telemarketing to encourage people to kill themselves), the catharsis of reading her beating up Hitler and ripping his mustache off her face.
But other parts are just painful, like where the author feels a need to repeat ad nauseam about how she may be thirteen, but she knows all of these big-girl words. (Part of the joy of reading about young teenagers is the perspective that an adult brings; we don't read actual books by youngsters because teenagers are -- let's face it -- annoying and ameteurish writers, which is where a lot of this goes. I realize it's a conceit and it's supposed to make it more "believable," but come on -- it's a book about Hell.)
There's also a lot of description of Hell's various gross-out areas: the sea of dead babies, the dandruff desert, the mound of toenail clippings, the lake of masturbated sperm. There's a very, VERY bizarre and gratuitous oral sex scene with a giant lady-demon. And her parents are, yes, celebrity hypocrites, and I don't need to hear it over and over again with so many examples.
I feel like when I was younger, this sort of thing felt edgy, dangerous, and forbidden; but now that I'm older, it's repetitive. I feel like I've written this Palahniuk book before, several times before.
So anyway, in summary, some of it is great; most of it isn't. If you love Palahniuk, this is representative of his entire oeuvre. If, however, you don't like Palahniuk, this isn't going to be the work that turns the tide.