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A review by ngeunit1
Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk
3.0
So first of all, I guess this is a step up from Chuck's most recent Pygmy. Which places this somewhere in the area of "Okay." There were some things that I did like about the book and somethings that really got in the way of that enjoyment.
First, lets start with the negative. The bold-facing name dropping does get old really fast. The point that he is trying to make is very quickly made and could have been a lot less forced. There were just too many names, and 90% of the time had absolutely zero effect on the story itself. It just took up space and felt like it was just convoluting the story. Also the book was really really short. Only about 180 pages. And it even took a bit longer than normal for the story to pick up and get into gear, and given the fact that this was only about 180 pages, meant that there was not all that much story to speak of.
Lets move on to the good stuff now. The story, while it was exciting, was good. Even though very predictable from early on, it was still exciting watching it unfold. In addition, the normal Chuck story elements are present, like the outrageous sex/murder scenes, the really morbid and a times extremely crude humor (like Webster's jokes about his manhood), and just his overall way of describing things. And that I always enjoy in his novel. I also really like the method of narrative he used. I thought it was effective to have a lot of the scenes told as if they were acted out with elements of hollywood in them. It was effective and had a very interesting (good) effect on the story.
Overall, I think this novel had some good potential derived from the elements that I listed above that I liked. Even the dropping of the darn bold faced names and a little less of it would have really made this a much more enjoyable story. But, all of this extraneous stuff just gets inbetween the story and the ability of the reader to enjoy it.
First, lets start with the negative. The bold-facing name dropping does get old really fast. The point that he is trying to make is very quickly made and could have been a lot less forced. There were just too many names, and 90% of the time had absolutely zero effect on the story itself. It just took up space and felt like it was just convoluting the story. Also the book was really really short. Only about 180 pages. And it even took a bit longer than normal for the story to pick up and get into gear, and given the fact that this was only about 180 pages, meant that there was not all that much story to speak of.
Lets move on to the good stuff now. The story, while it was exciting, was good. Even though very predictable from early on, it was still exciting watching it unfold. In addition, the normal Chuck story elements are present, like the outrageous sex/murder scenes, the really morbid and a times extremely crude humor (like Webster's jokes about his manhood), and just his overall way of describing things. And that I always enjoy in his novel. I also really like the method of narrative he used. I thought it was effective to have a lot of the scenes told as if they were acted out with elements of hollywood in them. It was effective and had a very interesting (good) effect on the story.
Overall, I think this novel had some good potential derived from the elements that I listed above that I liked. Even the dropping of the darn bold faced names and a little less of it would have really made this a much more enjoyable story. But, all of this extraneous stuff just gets inbetween the story and the ability of the reader to enjoy it.