Rating: 
Summary: A twenty-two swimming through your thoughts.
Review: So you are at the essence of what makes a person go on... You have a character whose religion is laid against the religious beliefs of our world. Instructions: do what we say, the word of the so-called God? and you'll be fine.\Instructions: follow our instructions in life, have a good eternal life. You make one decision on your own against what you are bred to do. This decision is one we all face whether apart of a suicide cult or not. Well what happens when the instructors and instructions change? What happens when you don't have the strength to think for yourself? What happens when you finally think for yourself? Are we all just golems? Take what the suicide cult stands for as a metaphor for organized religion in the world and take Tender Branson as a normal everyday person on Earth. Now break religion down into Marxist terms. Now take a society where the new world religion is television culture and your supposed television god is just a pawn whose sole purpose is to fleece you of your money, and the new holiest day is the super bowl. Now take these questions and metaphors and surround them in the hyper-real world and events that make up this shotgun-blast-to-the-face of a story. The chain of events are dizzying in an enjoyable, intoxicating sense. What this book leaves the reader pondering is dizzying in a scary, confusing way. Now read the novel and think about it. Recycle.
Rating:
Summary: drday
Review: I am quickly becoming a big fan of Chuck's novels. I have read a lot of good books out there by a lot of great authors, but, none have had the impact of "Survivor" or "Fight Club". His style is truly brilliant. His books leave me thinking about them for days. His is such a dark, twisted, and Realistic description of the world. This book had me guessing until the end. I had no idea what to expect. Especially after reading Fight Club. It's an original story line with very original characters. Read this book!!! It may be disturbing at times, but it all makes sense in the end and is well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Strong and down-to-earth... in a weird sort of way
Review: Much like as in Fight Club, Survivor provides characters and a plot that becomes more and more outrageous as the story unfolds, well past the point of outrageousness. I would like to think that this technique is much less rooted in gimmickry as it is in trying to beat the reader over the head with the point he is trying to make. I think Palahniuk is making a parallel to many of the techniques used by the mass media to attract the attention of the general populous. More importantly this is serving as criticism for both the media companies and the mindless that follow step. Long story short, I think if you read this book and can look through to the heart of what the author is trying to say, you will find that Survivor is a very, very good book.
Rating:
Summary: Not another Fight Club...and yet it's his best
Review: A warning to anyone who's unsure of whether to try this out: if you read Fight Club (or more likely, saw the movie) then you know it had one of the greatest surprise endings in entertainment history, or at least in recent memory. His third book, Invisible Monsters, has a similar, though less mind-blowing, surprise, and yet his second book, Survivor, about the last remaining child of a death cult, all grown up and lost, doesn't appear to have this kind of Palahniuk ending we've come to expect. There are a few things I have to say to this. First, ending aside, this book is really a brilliant satire of so many aspects of our life these days, from the creation of a celebrity, to what people really want as their entertainment, and the role religion plays in our lives. The main character is all messed up, that's a Palahniuk staple. The "love interest" is even MORE messed up, and again helps the hero to see things in a different perspective, and help him towards redemption. This is all fine and dandy, but when i got to the end, i scratched my head, dropped the book and said "dammit." I expected another mindblowing surprise, and it didn't come. I later found out that there was sort of a surprise ending, but it's impossible to see this in the book. If Palahniuk intended the ending i've read explained, then he did (gasp!) a poor job in setting it up. My theory is that he just didn't intend one specific thing, and left the end pretty open to interpretation. So please, try this one out, love it for what it is, not what it might or might not be, and see what you can figure out about the whole thing. While not necessarily my favorite Palahniuk book, it's easily, EASILY, the most memorable, and the one i hold dearest.
Rating:
Summary: How to Anger a Crowd
Review: Chuck Palahniuk, I believe, is fostering a new literary age. Along with Kurt Vonnegut and David Foster Wallace, the old tricks of literature have been thrown out the door, replaced with novels which resemble a Maelstrom: turning in on themselves, repeatedly hitting hard, and raising a mental storm. I am eager for the future. _Survivor_ is my preference of Palahniuk's works. It is much better than _Invisible Monsters_, and I enjoyed a tad more than _Fight Club_ (I can't say for sure; the wonderful film and book are intermixed forever in my mind). This novel is interesting from the beginning. The characters, especially Fertility, are consistently entertaining and persistently disturbing. I particularly enjoyed the singularity of Tender's superiors and Fertility in their obsession with the future. Tender, meanwhile, represents all forms of religious fervor: he creates it, elicits it, abuses it. The book begins, twists, and obsesses into self-destruction.
Rating: 
Summary: Remind Me to Sleep
Review: Chuck Palahniuk does it again with this brilliant novel. While Fight Club still tops my list as his best written novel, Survivor will not dissapoint you in the least bit. His satire and overwhelming attention to detail bring this story of a cult survivor to life. Simple characters with not-so-simple personalities that intertwine all the way to the end. The story will shock you and humor you - a very entertaining addition to Chuck Palahniuk's satirical collection. Just remind me to sleep nect time - I couldn't put the damn thing down.
Rating: 
Summary: Long Way Down (One Last Thing)
Review: Chuck Palahniuk is a very gifted writer of first-person narration as displayed here and in "Fight Club," but his ideas are little more than gimmicks. Sure, I was enthralled by "Survivor" most of the way, but it all depended on gimmicks to keep our attention. Did this book really need to count down from page 289 to page 1? No. The book builds and builds and builds...and then goes nowhere. The ending left me very empty and indifferent; the book is great until the last 40 pages or so. Once we hear about the PornoFill, it's all over. Palahniuk needs to focus his ideas better and stop the gimmickry, for God's sake! But for a short, cheap read, it works.
Rating:
Summary: A Thinker
Review: Okay, to start this novel is amazing, well-written, it makes you feel like a part of it, but most of all, it makes you think. As the pages flew back (the pages are numbered in reverse)I began piecing together the puzzle. Thinking I had it, my theories would then be thrown to the side in a completely different series of incidents. I know this sounds corny, but i seriously couldnt put it down, but what else do you expect from the author of FIGHT CLUB.
Rating:
Summary: Not Fight Club, but it'll keep you entertained
Review: After being thoroughly floored by the incisive wit of Fight Club I was hoping to find something as equally sharp. I was a little let down by Survivor. It felt as if it was trying too hard to shock me, forcing various twists and building up teases for character revelations that simply weren't all that shocking (or perhaps I'm just a bit too desensitized). Still, I find that the bait-and-hook approach to suprising the reader rarely appeals to me, course I could be all wrong and maybe Palahniuk never intended to suprise me. At any rate the bite-sized scenarios and quick witticisms don't make up for the lackluster story. But the biggest gripe for me personally is I've just grown a bit tired of the various satirical looks at media and celebrity, its a bit overdone, even from a writer as fresh as Palahniuk. But don't misunderstand, I'm still a big fan of Palahniuk, and this book wasn't horrible, most of its fun and it's a quick read, but compared to the hugely entertaining Fight Club (and even Invisible Monsters) this book feels trite, a little lazy even.
Rating:
Summary: Not "Fight Club", but wielding equally sharp teeth
Review: "Survivor" is, essentially, a novel about the two extremes of religion. We see the bad side of both being in a cult and being part of a massive, media-machine religion, much like "Fight Club" shows the bad side of both mindless materialism and a rejection of materialism so complete you reject yourself. The similarities, really, end there. "Survivor" is not necessarily a novel about how religion is bad, but rather about how religion taken too far can be a very dangerous and destructive thing. It has some really deep points to it if you take the time to think about it. Of course, it can also be read just as a black comedy; Palahniuk is funny enough for that. "Survivor" is a display of inventiveness and some excellent writing. Buy this, you won't regret it.
| 
