Rating: 
Summary: Good, but no fight club.
Review: Another excellent novel by an excellent author. After reading 2 of the first 3 (haven't gotten to Survivor) Palahniuk novels I was excited to read Choke. What I found was the typical character in a typical Palahniuk novel. Not that this a bad thing mind you. As the story progresses you can see hints of Palahniuk's standout Fight Club strewn throughout from the macho attitudes of the main character to the down right lunacy of some of his behavior. You can see hints of "Joe"from fight club and Shannon from Invisible monsters. "Joe" is seen in the self help sexual addiction meetings and Shannon is seen in the self destroying behavior of choking onesself as she did with popping pills. I'm sure Palahniuk is tired of the comparisons to Fight Club but they are inevitable and well justified. You can't write a novel like that without leaving the reader addicted to your literary style/genre. Choke feeds this addiction well and leaves the reader wanting more of this author's fantastic works.
Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious and sick-- what else would you expect?
Review: The only reason I found myself laughing while reading this book less than I did when I read Fight CLub was because of the fact that I read the majority of this book at work and didn't want my coworkers pestering me about what I was reading, because of the graphic sex. The chapter where Chuck first introduces us to the Colonial village was genuinely hilarious. The bathroom chapter concerning the meeting in room 234 was sick and twisted and just over the top. I really hate to say anymore because I don't want to ruin anyone's enjoyment of this. I hear Chuck's next book, Lullabye, is a more serious work. I'm sure he'll manage to inject enough of his observations to keep it from being a somber po-faced piece.
Rating:
Summary: a fulfilling return from the author of Fight Club
Review: This may prove to be Palahniuk's breakthrough novel, following as it does the success of the film Fight Club. Critics of the movie may cite the shortage of character development and seemingly superficial responses to the complex and compelling problems of the contemporary American male. But no one can say that Victor Mancini, Palahniuk's newest protagonist, is not a nuanced and well-drawn young man. A sex addicted med school dropout with a pencant for pretending to choke on food at restaurants to solicit the help (and, eventually, the money) of his fellow restauranteurs, Mancini's mother seems to hold a dark secret about his identity. Unfortunately, she's dying of Alzheimer's. Meanwhile, Victor and his best friend work in a Colonial Williamsburgesque seventeenth century Living Hell. This is probably Palahniuk's funniest novel to date, and also his saddest. It's this accomplishment, mixing the depressing monotony of middle-class suburban life with the hilariously tragic ways we try to escape our existential crises, that makes this novel stand out from the library of absurd, sardonic American fiction. (see also: Tom Robbins) The prose itself shows more literary marksmanship than even Palahniuk's popular Invisible Monsters, and Victor's imprecise grasp of the language (Choke is largely a first person narrative) is wonderfully evocative of a 20something finding his way. Again and again, he can't find the exact word for a feeling, and settles for "the first word that comes to mind." Brilliant isn't the right word for Choke, but it's the first word that comes to mind.
Rating:
Summary: Few can survive on premise alone
Review: Few books can survive on a clever idea alone. Palahniuk is probably the only author I know who can pull this off. This is not to say that the rest of "Choke" is not clever--it is--but the premise alone is good enough. Victor Mancini is a con artists of mega proportions. By day he works in a colonial theme park and when he's not doing that, he goes to restaurants and diners and fakes "choking." This, in order to get cash to help his mother who is a nursing home. I thought the writing in this novel was simply brilliant and can't wait to tackle all of Palahnuik's works. Bravo
Rating: 
Summary: The Things We Do for Love
Review: The book begins with this warning: "If you're going to read this, don't bother." This book "is a stupid story about a stupid little boy." And many should follow that advice. The book revels in sexual addiction, fantasies, and mental illness in a way that few will find a happy experience. The story itself is very self-indulgent, because the core theme of the book did not need to be so filled with unpleasant scenes and language. I graded down the book for the degree that this takes place in ugly thoughts and deeds that were not essential to the story's development. On the other hand, the character development of Victor Mancini, the anti-hero in Choke, is masterful. Mr. Palahniuk has taken on quite a challenge, and pulled it off very well. As someone who loves character development, I was impressed. If you enjoy the type of humor in the book, savage parodies of our sex-symbol-filled society, you will find yourself laughing aloud in many places. My favorite was the section about hypnosis. The novel evolves through an alternating combination of flashback and narration of what is occuring in the current time. Obviously mixed in with the currrent narration are fantasies of an extreme nature, usually involving sexual relations. The flashbacks relate to a little boy whose Mother moves erratically in and out of his life. Victor Mancini is a drop out from medical school who now works at Colonial Dunsboro where he pretends to be an Irish indentured servant from the 18th century. His Mother, Ida, is in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's, and Victor is her guardian. Since the $6 per hour he makes at Colonial Dunsboro doesn't pay for much nursing home care, he supplements his income by pretending to choke in restaurants. He does this with great panache until someone saves him. The grateful hero often wants to stay in touch, often sending some money to help Victor out. Do this often enough, and you can pay for nursing home care. However, it's complicated because his Mother doesn't quite recognize him any more, and she's stopped eating. What should he do? Much of the story development will strike you as needless repetition, yet it is all carefully calculated . . . so be patient. If you make it all the way to the end, you will like the book and the story much better. In fact, you may find that you will want to read the book a second and third time to rethink what you believed during your first reading. Pay close attention as you go. After you read this story, you definitely should think about why you do what you do. How much of it is simply a cry for love? Can you find better ways to earn and enjoy love? Perhaps. It's worth exploring. May you enjoy even more love than you give. Be generous!
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: First and foremost if it wasn't for the movie fight club i would have never heard of Chuck Palahniuk. Now I have read several of his books. His original writing and story telling are for a lack of a better word awesome. Choke is a story of a young man who is broke from keeping his mother in a nursery home. He goes to Diners and fakes choking and whoever saves his life is forever in debt to him, so he constantly asks for cash. Between that and his job at a colonial fair he couldn't have a worse life, or could he?
Rating:
Summary: pages of good writing about uncomfortable subjects
Review: Chuck Palahniuk is a great writer, but I found Choke to be an "uncomfortable" read from beginning to end. In Choke almost every character is physically or mentally disturbed but described carefully and perfectly. The protagonist is a sex addict, written about in such detail that you many never want to have sex again. Based on his upbringing you understand why he is the way he is. YOu understand too much. His best friend is prob. the most disgusting character ever written about (the protagonist is runner-up). Their mucus, filth, smell, dirt, blocked bowels, release of blocked bowels, are described in full glory.
The plot of the book involves the main character faking his death by choking in various restaurants around town. The people that save him, pity him and want to help later by sending him checks to subsidize him. I had a problem with this. I would think that someone doing the saving would be the one getting paid back, not the other way around.
The ending of the book has a decent twist, but I was on the fence whether it was interesting or convenient for the author.
The book as stated before was very well written, but not for me at this time. I can understand the range of ratings Choke has thus far received.
Rating:
Summary: Still The Cutting Edge! - Don't Miss it!
Review: In literature today, Chuck Palahniuk is the man of the moment. No other new author in recent memory has made such an immediate and important impact. With the controversial "Fight Club" Palahniuk muscled his way into the spotlight and gave his readers an uncompromising look at the flaws in our sometimes over-glorified culture. Now with the no less controversial "Choke" Palahniuk continues to deliver.
"Choke" is an exploration of sexual deviancy, but the main theme of the novel, like "Fight Club," is the modern-day angst caused from the apparent purposelessness of our watered-down, machine assisted lifestyle. There is a certain desperation that can be felt behind the novel's sometimes witty, sometimes grotesque, always compelling escapades. More so than in any of his other novels, you can hear Palahniuk's own uncertainty behind the false bravado of his unfortunate characters. Essentially, "Choke" is a discussion on what is most important in life and a plea for some guidance as to how to achieve it. But by presenting this argument through a series of ill-conceived misadventures, the discussion is rendered light and compelling.
Palahniuk writes with a short, terse style that is always compared to Vonnegut but which also reminds me of Hemingway. He tries to write as people speak, and the often grammatically garbled, yet perfectly understandable sentences that result are given a very spontaneous feel as a consequence. The novel is obviously well conceived and well polished, but it is not tediously overworked, as most novels that try to sound literary tend to be. Although I would hesitate to call Palahniuk's style new, he does add a dimension to this sort of "free" writing that I haven't seen before and which is very refreshing.
"Choke" is a marvelous novel. If you have any interest in being on the cutting edge of where literature is going, this is the book you must read. Although many of "Choke's" themes are very similar to the ones found in Palahniuk's previous books, "Choke" provides them with a more personal touch. Palahniuk has matured, and perhaps grown more confident as a writer; he is bringing his readers further and further into his confidence. In addition to "Choke," another recent novel I picked up off Amazon -- that I really love, feel obsessive about -- is "The Losers' Club" by Richard Perez. It's hard to purchase (continuously "sold out") but pick up even a used copy if you can, this novel is great -- no BS.
Rating:
Summary: This novel cannot be ignored.
Review: From what I've read of these reviews, many did not enjoy this novel, at least not as much as they liked, say, Survivor. Well, you can like Choke, or you can hate it with a fiery passion, but this work cannot be dismissed. Palahniuk writes satire, and he does a very good job of it. His writing style is intoxicating and original, witty and dark. Choke is not for everyone, to be sure, but that doesn't mean it's not well written.
Let me start off by saying that by definition, this is "a guy book"... more so then Chuck's debut work Fight Club. I am in fact a girl, but that didn't stop me from enjoying Choke. There was really nothing I could relate to in this book, and maybe that's why I love it so much. I love it because it's from a different world... it's raw, it's sexual, it's bitter. It centers around addictions... addictions that I have never, and probably will never, be faced with. So many concepts of this work were alien to me, and because of that, I was forced to revalute my own life, and how I look at it.
Chuck Palahniuk continues to amaze me, as does Choke. Love it or hate it... but it will not dissapoint.
Rating:
Summary: 5678
Review: Choke is basically about Victor mancini and the ways he gets by in life. He lives with one of his friends, Denny. He used to go to school but he figured it wasn't for him besides that he didn't have enough money to pay for it, so he dropped out instead. He doesn't have enough money to pay for his mother's medical bills, she's in the hospital for Alzheimer's disease so she cant even remember her own son, and because he has a very low paying job, he works as a servant in an old fashioned theme park, so he doesn't have enough money he goes to restaurants orders meals and makes himself choke on the meal until some stranger can come up to him and "rescue" him having them pay for the meal feeling sorry for victor, then through out the years they send him checks because they feel that they are victor's saviors. He has tons of people sending him checks even people he cant even remember at all, some come up to him in the streets and start talking to him knowing him but he just has a blank look because he cant remember them, when victor isn't at work he is attending meetings for people who are addicted to sex just for the fun of it, even though he is one of those people. There he meets women who are just like him. One day when he went to visit his mom he found a young woman by the name of Paige. She introduced herself as a worker and later on she and victor start to spend more time together. She seems like the perfect girl for him until she starts talking nonsense to him and he later finds out that she's a patient there, she's crazy, and that she just has on the same wardrobe as the workers so she can feel like she works there. Later on victor starts to build a church and has all these news reporters around him and he tells the truth about everything and there are people with rocks and he's there with Denny then Paige comes and eventually everyone leaves and that's the end of the book. I thought this was a very interesting book although I didn't quite understand the beginning but I later understood what everything meant and it turns out that it starts talking about his childhood. This was a really great book, although some people have their own opinions, because it explained every point of victor's life. I really recommend this book to people who like someone's "action" life because it has everything in it.
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