Rating: 
Summary: I gotta read Fight Club now
Review: I have to admit. It was Fight Club (the movie) that drew me into purchasing & reading this book. trust me, it's very good! now, reading Fight Club is a must. If only I could find a copy!
Rating: 
Summary: A creepy mouthful of broken hopes
Review: How can you go wrong when the narration starts from the black-box recordings made by a lunatic in the cockpit of a crashing 747? Thank you Chuck for another beautiful kick in the head. Buy this book just to read about the suicide hotline.
Rating:
Summary: One of Chuck Palahniuk more accesable books
Review: Survivor is a good first book for someone who isn't sure if they are going to like Chuck Palahniuk or not. Not as in your face as Fight Club (a personal favorite) and certainly not as wacked as Invisable Monsters, Survivor is an excellent commentary on our society and the messed up role of religion and role models. In all a good read that is very well written.
Rating:
Summary: A Postmodern Goethe on Acid...
Review: Is the best way to describe the themes and dark satire of Palanhiuk's books. However, where Fight Club gave us a merry romp through a subjective world where nihilism is law, and culminated in a final understanding and enlightenment (the defeat of the "Mephistopheles" figure represented by Tyler Durden), Survivor has no happy ending. Instead of tantric liberation, we're just dosed with more and more destruction and an ever increasing condition of slavery. In the end, this book, although brilliant, is depressing rather than exciting. Where Fight Club left me wanting to go out and change the world (and my life), Survivor only left me wondering what the meaning of all the fire and noise really is.
Rating:
Summary: I hear the man's a genius.
Review: Chuck Palahniuk's second novel killed me. Haunting and evil, this book even tops Fight Club ( which I love)in the fact that its storyline is actually plausible, and it actually has characters that you can feel sorry for. For those of you who don't follow Mr. Chuck, catch him now before the weight of his genius catches up with him and makes his work pretentious and boring.
Rating:
Summary: Journeying into the heart of darkness
Review: Palahniuk's sophomore effort may lack the punch that Fight Club delivered, but in a more specific way the message is conveyed in Survivor. Once again there is the surface story of a cult survivor that changes his life into something he is not. The most interesting character in the novel is Fertiility, as she seems to echo how all of us appear to be desensitized to the world. Nothing is shocking and we're all looking for a surprise. This novel is easier to read than Fight Club and Invisible Monsters, but is more blatant than subtle, the only real fault of the novel.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Fight Club
Review: "Survivor" sorta stands in the shadow of "Fight Club", most likely because "Fight Club" was made in to a movie with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. This is sort of a shame, as "Survivor" actually is a better book than "Fight Club" in many ways. From the sarcastic humour, to the general creepy feeling that haunts you while reading it, this is a book that shouldn't be missed if you're a "Fight Club" fan.
Rating:
Summary: not as clever as Fight Club, but still a winner..
Review: Chuck Palahniuk is in the unfortunate situation of having written a stunning debut novel, Fight Club, with everyone expecting him to come up with an equally good encore. Well, Survivor: A Novel doesn't quite measure up. But you would be silly pass it up. Survivor is in many ways similar to Fight Club: the story is bizarre, the leading character is a man who is just a bit psychotic, and the author boldly dismantles elements of modern US society (..in this case, cultism and TV evangelism). However unlike Fight Club, Survivor is full of caustic comedic moments. Unfortunately Survivor runs out of steam towards the end (, whereas Fight Club actually got better in the closing pages). While it never got boring, I sense the author didn't quite know how to tie the story together. A mild disappointment in this regard. Bottom line: Survivor should be mandatory reading for those who have read Fight Club. For those new to works of Chuck Palahniuk, read Fight Club first. Those who are devoutly Christian and/or are easily offended by crude language/activities should avoid both books at all cost!
Rating:
Summary: A good book dealing with the same themes as Fight Club
Review: This book is basically a satire which analyzes the power that media has over public opinion and also the inclination of the public to be followers instead of making decisions for themselves. A good part of the book is about how people really don't want to solve their problems because most people feel that their "issues" are part of their identity - without them they would be nothing. So instead of dealing with things, people turn to false prophets to tell them that everything will be OK. The most interesting thing about this book is the fact that even though Branson (the narrator) can identify these charactistics in others, he can't seem to break the cycle for himself. He has always had someone else telling him what to do - the Creedish, his employers, his social worker, etc... But how is Branson supposed to shake off all of these influences and create his own value system based on nothing but his own beliefs? And aren't his beliefs just a result of cultural influences anyway? If you take this book too literally, then you're only going to get half the story. Try to find the irony in each page. Also: After reading, check out the Chuck Palahniuk website to get the real ending!
Rating:
Summary: One, two, three... testing
Review: By Chuck Palahniuk, just like Fight Club, and with much the same theme: a man who is different from everybody else, who is placed outside society (in this case, a member of a religious sect), becomes famous and powerful by saying what people want to hear, only to give it all up in the end. To be more precise, there's a man on an airplane that is going to crash, and he is telling his story to the black box of the airplane, leaving titbits here and there (like on how to get blood off of ivory, or on the history of fake flowers), before the plane finally crashes into the ground on page 1. Seriously, as this book as its pages backwards: it starts with the last pagenumber (248) and ends with the first (1) while the story goes in both directions (forwards and backwards) at once. Confusing? Not at all. Let's do a short recap. The main character is a member of a religious sect that has sent him -together with many other members of the same creed- into the world to work as cleaners and maids - that sort of job. While he is happily cooking away and telling people how to eat lobster (one of the most shocking scenes I've read since American Psycho), the whole of the sect he is a member of commits suicide. All of them? Well, almost all of them. Those who don't kill themselves for one reason or another all end up dead sooner or later anyway, until the main character is the only one of that particular sect who's left. The only one? Well, perhaps not, as it looks as if a number of sect members didn't off themselves, but rather were offed by someone else. At the same time, the main character 'helps' people who are depressed in making the decision to kill themselves by pretending to have a helpline for people in need, and telling each and every one of those people to end their lives. Very tempting. Through this 'helpline' he meets a woman who knows what is going to happen way before it happens. Some kind of clairvoyant. And she, in a roundabout way, guides the main character towards his destiny. Which is ending up on a plane that is going to crash. How, what, why and when I'll leave up to you to find out, as I implore you, much the same as I would with Fight Club to read this novel. Please?
| 
