vaunpilled's reviews
2 reviews

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Gripping from start to finish. I feel like you'll know in the first page whether this book is for you. Gay people;You will love this. The non-linear storytelling is framed neatly in a nice little wrapping of photoshoots for a magazine. Since it's established from the very beginning, you carry that idea that this, the plot, each flick of the page is a spectacle to be marvelled at for the entirety of the book. That makes the reader the imaginary photographer commanding the 'appropriate' reaction from the protagonist. Give me something that matters.

Said protagonist is the worst. I love her. So narcissistic and deluded to think being disfigured is at all desirable. Then you start seeing it as a way to put your old life behind you and start again. Baptism of fire in all its pain and agony and surgeries and hospital visits. I loved the parallel between her physical attractiveness and the beauty (or lackthereof) in her soul. It all seems so vapid. The idea of self mutilation as a means of rebirth to liberate yourself from the confines of your past really stuck with me. 

Serious Weakness by Porpentine Charity Heartscape

dark funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 A deep dive into the male psyche from the vying scope of the Fujoshi. You’ll understand if you read it. THE Toxic yaoi. I don’t know if i’d even call this yaoi though. Something far more sinister. Insun spoke to a deep crevice of my soul i leave trapped in a little box somewhere. I want to hold him in my arms and Fix him. Then peel all his skin off and throw him away after I get bored. He’s unloveable. Hes Me. I really love stories that confronts you with what your trauma can shape you into. Shlocky and disgusting , made me want to kill myself after.

I'm insane about the entire book. Every sentence. Every concept. I wanna peel it apart word by word for the whole 539 pages. But. The part I liked most was Insun's backstory. The parts that're shown directly and the parts that're hinted at to his kidnapping victim uke boyfriend + by extension the reader. the psyche shattering experience of being groomed and molested and turned into something depraved with your neurodivergence as the vessel to feed evil into spoke to me.

 

 

  Killing the dog was completely unsympathetic and therefore a necessary step into revelling in the depraved. Blake is Depravity, as a concept, and depravity is embodied by a societal connatation every reader will understand immediately, a school shooter. to join blake's side is to clean his slate of his pitiability and weakness as a snivelling pepperoni faced teen who gets beaten+Touched in exchange for power. Hilariously, being a school shooter is only really considered powerful in the juvenile zoomerslurried-mindscape of a snivelling pepperoni faced teenager who gets beaten+Touched . and then insun's trapped in that mindscape forever because that point in life was when he made the trade off. Forever irreedeemable and forever broken. Hes gone past what society's willing to reform and society's failed him past what he's willing to return to.

  I think the audience makes the metaphorical decision to kill the dog, too. You spend 500 pages reading about a cripple getting kidnapped and tortured in exceedingly horrible ways after all. There's something enlightening at the end of the tunnel, something powerful, but it comes at the trade off of revelling in the depraved. Blood of the doggy which you thought was cute all on your hands. Was it worth it to Insun? I found myself asking that even though there was no turning back for him at that point. I liked his aphantasia. The fact he couldn't remember Blake's face seems like it rendered it all worthless to him. I wonderr if he could ever be normal. Probably not. 

 

 

  Im glad he got a happy ending, even though he doesn't deserve it. Maybe it means I can get a happy ending.