Rating: 
Summary: Different
Review: Choke is a good read, but some of the sex stuff was a little to weird for my taste. I especially liked the commentary on the behind the scenes stuff at Victor's job in Colonial Dunsboro. I also liked Victor's friend, Denny and how he overcame his addiction.
Rating: 
Summary: As Beautiful as a Disturbing Book Gets!
Review: I have, thus far, read all of Palahniuk's novels. If I had to pick a favorite, this would be it. The movie of "Fight Club" aroused a lot of odd interpretations: that is was fascist, that is was all about macho-posturing, that it didn't make sense two-thirds of the way in... Well, I guarantee you there's a reason so many people in Hollywood got behind that movie: it comes from a great novel. Palahniuk specializes in very sharp, rather trashy, and ultra dark humor. Choke is about about a man named Victor, and what's fascinating about him is not that he leads an out-of-the-ordinary life. In fact, the only thing unique about him is that he is addicted to faking choking attacks in restaurants. He does it to be taken care of, but in the back of his mind her realizes he likes making people heroes as they "save him". The whole idea of this book is that the most amazing, fantastic, and disturbing stories come from a man who is by all definition a loser. It's not a heroic story that makes him so interesting: it's that he lives a terrible life and is determined to continue living that way... even when he has the chance to become a great or successful person. Victor is pressured to become a great martyr, and does his best to avoid it. He holds many aces up his sleeve, and when it all comes crashing down at the end you have an ending as good as any I've read in recent fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Fight Club is one of my favorite books; thus, I was quite disappointed after reading Choke. The book is entitled Choke because the main character, Victor, has set up a scam in which he pretends to choke in restaurants. By doing so he gives some would-be heros the opportunity to save his life. Now, here's the part that is completely inane and unbelievable: the people who supposedly save Victor's life become permanently indebted to HIM!! They send HIM money! Come on, Chuck. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Ok, I realize we're not supposed to take everything in this book literally, but that's just one example of many within Choke that are either just plain silly or pointless (See also: rubber balls and impacted bowels). Fight Club is a cool book with a clear message and a decent plot. Choke is neither cool nor does it set forth any kind of message and it is almost completely devoid of plot. I can't help but think that Mr. Palahniuk's aim in writing Choke was simply to shock the reader with graphic depictions of sex that border on the pornographic. (I guess I should have been forewarned after reading on the book jacket that portions of Choke have appeared in Playboy -- not exactly a literary magazine). I've read Fight Club several times; my copy is filled with underlined and highlighted passages. My copy of Choke, I'm sorry to say, is headed for the trash. It was just too much for me to choke down.
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Summary: Where brave men fear to go
Review: No, it's not a novel for everyone. Perhaps it should be. To those who say the author's voice, style and subjects are repetitive, perhaps it is because the author has a voice, a style and subjects that deserve revisiting. If I may suggest that most great authors seem to exhibit this trait. This is hardly a commercial, middle of the road novel, anymore than were the author's other works. I won't compare one against the other, each has and deserves a life of its own. I have yet to be dissappointed by any page in any of his novels. If you want a safe comfortable read, look elsewhere. If you are willing to risk experiencing perhaps one of our generations most valid, creative and adventurous voices, buckle your seatbelt and open the cover.
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Rating: 
Summary: Dumb book.
Review: The book is about a guy who likes eating jaw breakers, but would often choke on them. Despite his affliction, he continues to eat jawbreakers. The story ends when he ate his last jawbreaker and it went through his ears which caused him to be deaf. After becoming deaf, upon leaving the hospital he got ran over by a New York taxi.
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Summary: It's a trip
Review: After reading CHOKE, I noticed I felt the same way after watching some of Stanley Kubick's harsh social commentary. In both cases they kind of end where they started, although, not without going through some searching and fighting against the machines of society. It's pretty hard for me to like a story where you end at the same beginning, only more depressed (some would say enlightened) about the situation surrounding you. If you can look past that, Choke is pretty entertaining. By far the style and bluntness of the words and characters is the winner (like in Fight Club too), yet if the novel didn't apply those attributes it's hard to say where the book would end up for enjoyment. In this age and experience of middle-age philosophy, it seems standard that Chuck's insight into the psyche is delivered in such a movie and music video format; which would explain the cult following that praises it. Maybe he's invented a new genre, the pop-philosophy workbook for many, but maybe it's a genre that will start and end with our generation. Whatever the case, it's definitely a trip for it to be sharing the same shelf space as The Great Gatsby.
Rating:
Summary: A must read!!
Review: This was one of the best books that I have ever read, with it's perverse sense of humor and an extraordinarily different outlook at the world, you feel like you have actually acquired knowledge after reading it. It's a book that you just can't put down. Unquestionably a must read!
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Summary: My first Palahniuk book.
Review: I actually picked this book up in the "How To" section of my local bookstore. No lie. I could spend hours trying to decipher the accidental or intended implications of such a placement, which stinks of either conspiracy or revolution, I can't tell which. Anyway, seeing as Fight Club is my all time favorite movie, it only seems logical that I'd gravitate towards ol' Chucks work. Why it took me so long I can't say. Having read none of his other books, I can't really compare them. I can say that I will be purchasing them shortly. Choke is brilliant and extremely funny. It's not often that a novel can make me laugh hysterically in public, but this one did. The premise of the book and one of it's strengths is the theory that if you make someone else into a hero, they'll love you forever. The protagonist repeatedly fakes choking to death in restaurants to pay his dying mothers hospital bills, but at the same time, he demonstrates that even the most ordinary people have the capacity for the extraordinary. It's sick and beautiful at the same time. Peppered with addiction, sex, insanity, medical references, urban legends, and a ton of Oedipus issues; Choke is about confronting your past, or being consumed by it. Like Fight Club (the movie that is. I know, I blaspheme.) it's about tearing down who you think you are to find out who you really are. It's about rebirth and redemption, perception and illusion. It's about all that stuff and more, but bottom line, it's just a blast to read. If you like Vonnegut, Irving Welsh or David Foster Wallace, chances are this book is for you. It will probably make you laugh, it might even make you think, but it will definitely entertain you.
Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: Good read, nowhere near as good as Survivor but still entertaining.
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