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Summary: Incredible Book
Review: This book is very great. Survivor and Fight Club are clearly Chuck's best work to date. Once again, you will get what you expect from Palahniuk. Definitely a must!
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Summary: Just finished reading it 5 minutes ago
Review: Great book. If you liked fight club you'll love this one, guaranteed. Hope the rumors I've heard about this becoming a movie turn out to be true. Buy and read this book.
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Summary: Another work that showcases Palahniuk's unique prose
Review: Palahniuk's one of those rare voices who sees what the masses can't or won't. His vision cuts through the hypocrisy with sharp wit and stark realism that can be, at times, sickening yet strangely compelling. The main protangonist is a man named Tender Branson, a former cult member with a unique name and something of a nihilistic outlook on life. What always impresses me when reading Palahniuk's writing is analysis of details about everyday life. We learn how to maintain an artificial garden and make it look real, we learn about social case workers and how to manipulate them, we learn about the big business known as tele-evangelism, and that's not all. We also meet Fertility Hollis, a character as strange, if not stranger, than Branson with unexplainable "powers" of perception. The plot is sometimes surprising, but the strength of Palahniuk's writing isn't the plot as the ending seemed a bit contrived to me. This is one of the few times I'll say this, but the plot doesn't matter here. It's the writing. Palahniuk writes like Harlan Ellison on acid or Kurt Vonnegut's evil brother and that's what is so mesmerizing. You can't help but be moved by Palahniuk's observations about society and his observations on the nature of people that sometimes read with a touch of surrealism. Like the Fight Club, he indicts a harsh world filled with people who are unable or unwilling to see what life is really about and for chasing phantom pleasures that ultimately leave you hollow inside. Ever wonder why you can't carry on a conversation with most people? Palahniuk'll give you several reasons and answers to questions you wish you'd thought to ask. As always, I prefer not to give away story specifics, but if you want to read a moving piece of literature about the human condition, then go get this book. Go now!
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Summary: title
Review: Jesus...I just finished this book and that's all i have to say. Jesus. I'd already read Fight Club and Choke (both amazing) and figured i couldn't go wrong with this. I didn't expect it to be the best of the three, but it is. Too much of the story is already given in the other reviews, so i'm gonna keep quiet about it. Seriously, though. All aspects of this book were just great. Read it. Really.
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Summary: A must read for Fight Club fans
Review: Survivor was another example of how well Palahniuk can write. This is the story of a cult member and his downward spiral to ground zero. This book may lack the revolutionary qualities of Fight Club but it has a sureal story line an very well rounded and interesting charactersA MUST READ
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Summary: Never be content with normal
Review: This is a novel that reaffirms its author's position among the best and most interesting people to read in a long time. Never content to be categorized as "normal", Chuck Palahniuk's follow-up to his masterful "Fight Club" is just as engrossing, dark, disturbing, satirical, and downright hilarous as its predecessor. This wildly original novel about the last survivor of the imfamous Creedish death cult dictating his life into a flight recorder on a hijacked airplane during his last moments grabs you from its opening chapter and hurls you through to the end at breakneck speed, giving you tons of little Palahniukian tips for cleaning along the way. Who would've known there was one specific way to get blood stains out of a couch? The title character of this book is named Tender Branson (not so much a name as a rank), a man who is, as mentioned, one of the last surviving members of a dying religion which trains its members to be cleaning machines, then sends them off into the world to make money and send it back to th church. Basically slave labor. Here's the catch though: The ultimate doctrine of this faith governs that when the time of "Deliverance" comes, everyone must deliver themselves to God by, ya know, committing suicide. Branson is one of the few left who have not, and it is after he has all but given up on life when he meets the mysterious Fertility Hollis, sister of a man whom he told to kill himself on his own help hotline. Fertility isn't just abnormal in the fact that she requests phone sex from the same help hotline her brother called to get his judgment from Branson, but it soon becomes evident that she is extremely clairvoyant. She sees the future with such stunning accuracy that she actually begins keeping a planner filled to the brim with dates of upcoming disasters, one of which is the day Branson becomes famous. And he does, in spades, when agents recognize him as the last Creedish and set about building him into a religious leader. This transformation slowly kills Branson with all sorts of medication, requiring more and more of him in the way of predicting miracles and putting out books of prayer which give him authorship although he's never even touched one, let alone cracked it open and read a few. (The Prayer to Prolong Sexual Activity, The Prayer to Get a Large Tax Return, etc. Just what the world needs, new age prayer with a contemporary spin.) And as if Branson's life weren't out of control enough, it seems as if he may not be the last surviving Creedish. There just may be someone out there with the malicious intent to make it look like the Creedish committed suicide... but it could've been hardcore homicide. *shrug* You'll have to read to find out. Palahniuk populates this book with memorable characters, his own unique descriptions, and his even more precisely chosen dialogue. Like David Mamet, Palahniuk's choice of words is just off normal while still sounding quite right. His characters engage in so many flights of varying fancy that it's no wonder they talk as they do. This is not a fictional novel for the faint of heart, either. The subject matter and viciously detailed description definitely make it for an audience above a certain age. High schoolers, unless they are as precocious as I was, won't get it; people older than a certain age might be offended. But hey, who ever said art had to be in good taste?
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Summary: The greatest book I have ever read.
Review: This book is just pure genius. I don't even read much, it was reccomended to me by a friend. He wouldn't shut up about it so I read it and I'm soooooo happy I did. This is the greatest book I have ever read and it deserves to sell more copies than the bible. All though it probably won't do that, I encourage any one who enjoys strange and twisted tales to take a peek at this one.
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Summary: Brillant!
Review: Great book, amazing story, well written. Love how the book began at the end. Another peice of literary genius by chuck palahnuik.
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Summary: Bitter, bitter, and ever so sweet...
Review: Not at all what I was expecting from Fight Club's Palahniuk. This book was a riveting plummet straight down into the crash-landing you see coming a mile away -- but which takes you by surprise nevertheless. An enjoyable, intricate tale, well-crafted and full of delightful improbabilities. Enjoy!
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Summary: Chuck Palahniuk and His Brilliance
Review: This was the first Chuck Palahniuk novel that I read. As far as readability, "Survivor" flows with the same quotable sardonic wit as the later written "Fight Club" and "Invisible Monsters" novels that appeared first.
Chuck Palahniuk writes incredibly realistic portrayals of human endeavors and follies, in "Survivor" this is carried out through the lone surviving member of a suicidal cult. It's nothing special in the grand scheme... but as far as fiction and cognitive accomplishment go, Palahniuk's got it made with Survivor. ...
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