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A review by ncarter5069
Damned by Chuck Palahniuk
2.0
This is only my second Chuck Palahniuk experience; Haunted was my first. This book was pretty much a complete failure; I kept trying to think of ways to justify it because he has so many die-hard fans that I want to like him as a writer. I kept saying, "Well, I like his vision of hell, it's fresh" or "It's interesting as a satire piece that pits an angsty teenager against a landscape of demons" or "This would be such a great graphic novel, I can just see the visuals now!"
Are you there, Chuck? It's me, the reader. This is pretty much complete trash, but you know what? I'm going to finish the trilogy to see if it gets any better (which probably exactly what you wanted), but I'm a sucker for literary depictions of hell, I really am. And, on that front, it isn't terrible; but that doesn't justify giving us the whiniest narrator to have been penned in history, as well as her death by asphyxiation repeatedly fronted as "marijuana overdose."
SPOILER: When she starts fighting Hitler and other rulers of history in Hell is the point, where it really falls off for me. Not only am I left wondering what the hell the size differentials are during these battles (all of the dictators seem to be towering figures over her, giants even, and she takes them down, with little to description as to how or even why). And near the end we find out that she's not even real, but just a character Satan has been writing in a screenplay? You just made a turd so meta, Chuck - nice one, bro! ... All in all, I'm really hoping this story redeems itself in the next book.
Are you there, Chuck? It's me, the reader. This is pretty much complete trash, but you know what? I'm going to finish the trilogy to see if it gets any better (which probably exactly what you wanted), but I'm a sucker for literary depictions of hell, I really am. And, on that front, it isn't terrible; but that doesn't justify giving us the whiniest narrator to have been penned in history, as well as her death by asphyxiation repeatedly fronted as "marijuana overdose."
SPOILER: When she starts fighting Hitler and other rulers of history in Hell is the point, where it really falls off for me. Not only am I left wondering what the hell the size differentials are during these battles (all of the dictators seem to be towering figures over her, giants even, and she takes them down, with little to description as to how or even why). And near the end we find out that she's not even real, but just a character Satan has been writing in a screenplay? You just made a turd so meta, Chuck - nice one, bro! ... All in all, I'm really hoping this story redeems itself in the next book.