Choke

Rating:
Summary: A glimpse into the mind of an addict!
Review: Chuch Palahniuk has captured the true essence of being a sex addict. He accurately describes the mental games and justification of all sexual acting out. What's more he explains how the addict got that way. A true treasure to read.

Rating:
Summary: Definitely Not Anything Different
Review: I think the concept of 'Choke' is really interesting and definitely had potential to be a great book. You'll find remnants from previous books, leftovers he thought were sharp and witty, among plots that are very far-stretched.

I read another review in which the reviewer found the characters very empty, impossible to relate with. I agree with this, but to an extent I think this was almost Palahniuk's intent. He's an amazing writer but his ideas are carbon-copies of previous books. Throw in a slightly different setting, change professions and names, and add actions that are "out there" or disturbing, and you've got yourself the same book you read last year with just some different names.

I don't consider the book a waste of my time. (In fact, only one short story has earned the right to be considered such in my book.) As far as I'm concerned, Chuck is a one-hit wonder who was glorified through an excellent movie. Because of that, every book he writes will eventually bear "National Bestseller" on its cover. His abilities as a writer have yet to be proven through any of his writings I've read. You want writing that has the attitude and grit of Palahniuk, but is far more original novel-after-novel, pick up Alex Garland. It's definitely much more worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Not Palahniuk at his best
Review: Chuck Palahniuk has written some great books over the last few years. In Choke his skill with narration is still top notch. Choke is a quick read full of hilarious and gross moments. The main character Victor Mancini is a con artist that fakes choking spells to capitalize on people's generosity and finds sex by going to sex addiction anonymous meetings. The characters that Victor encounters along the way are just as depraved.

There is no doubt that Mr. Palahniuk keeps coming up with clever ideas, but Choke lacks the intriguing story lines of his previous works. Even so the writing is good enough to make the book enjoyable. Choke is required reading for all Palahniuk fans, but for those trying to introduce themselves to his writing there are better places to start.

Rating:
Summary: Chuck's Absolute Best
Review: I know many of you like Survivor, as is your due. It is a rockin' book. However, I am sticking with Choke as my favorite Chuck book. The rampant honesty about sex expressed in such a shameless way as only Chuck can write is freaking hilarious. The fact that he categorizes sex-addicts as losers and demonstrates the sad lengths to which they go to get off is perfect tearing down of the glamorized image of sex that American culture seems to defend.
Similarly his use of colonial settings for the other half of his novel tears into another aspect of American culture, our over-glorified history. The actual choke plot of "Choke" is incidentally pretty minor. Rather than parodying events in recent history as in Survivor, he turns his eye to two major facets of American culture, our addiction to sexual activity and our fantasy of a perfect and pure historical origin as a country. The whole time he is never preachy, he shows rather than tells. This is my favorite Chuck book. There, I've said it.

Rating:
Summary: Just didn't get it
Review: Palahniuk probably achieved his fame and reputation by writing the book that led to the movie that became the anthem for angry, young, white, middle-class men working in boring office jobs: FIGHT CLUB. And that right there probably explains why I didn't really like CHOKE. The main character is, again, an angry, young, white man -- not so middle class, this time -- who works days as living color in colonial "Dunsboro" and has a second job as the guy who almost chokes to death in a restaurant until some well-meaning person saves him. How does he make money from this? Well, he really does adhere to that adage that if you save someone's life, you're responsible for that person for the rest of your life -- and he makes his saviors adhere to it, too. And he thinks he's doing some good by giving these people a great story and a sense of accomplishment that they can dine out on for years to come.

The reason why this young main is so angry? Because his mom was crazy and was in jail a lot when he was a kid, and kept kidnapping him from his foster homes the moment she got released from jail, only to get locked back up shortly thereafter for some inane stunt or another. Now his mom is in a mental institution and won't eat, and he's become convinced that she conceived him by using the DNA of Jesus' foreskin -- in other words, he's the son of Christ. Whether that makes him the Second Coming or the Antichrist I could never figure out.

The reason why I didn't like this book? It's so aggressively male, even more so than FIGHT CLUB. The main character, besides being angry, is also a sex addict who spends his free time conquering and debasing every woman he comes across. There are no realistic female characters in this book, not even the woman he ends up worshiping to the point [...]. There are no sympathetic male characters, either. The whole thing seems designed to make the reader feel slightly sick in the stomach. But Palahniuk must be doing something right, because all my male friends who read this book loved it. Me? I just didn't get it, I guess.

Rating:
Summary: Great writing, never comes together as a story
Review: This is an unforgettable book, and that's why I found it somewhat disapointing. It's the story of Victor Mancini, a sex-addict developing a con scheme to pretend to choke in restaurants to pay for the medical care of his dying mother, and the author certainly pushes the envelope hard. Victor had a wild childhood which consisted of his mother escaping from prison or metal institutions to teach him important life lessons while engaging in reckless activities such as stealing school buses. Palahniuk creates a number of memorable scenes, especially those when he visits his dying mother. A few chapters about Victor's sexual exploits come across as Penthouse letters taken to the highest possible art form. There are numerous witty and scathing observations throughout the book.

The problem I found is that it never came together as a story. The characters are effectively without much further dimension than their various dysfunction's. Various scenes barely connect. It becomes hard to care about these characters with a plot that barely hangs together, and the slightly gimmicky ending has a muddled payoff. So as with Victor's countless sexual encounters, something is missing which prevents satisfaction at the climax.