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Invisible Monsters

Invisible Monsters

List Price: $13.95
Your Price: $10.46
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Hilarious, disturbing, and insightful all at once
Review: Chuck Palahniuk writes quite the interesting novel in "Invisible Monsters". Fair warning - it is not for the faint of heart, or those who cannot tolerate graphic sexual references and lifestyle choices. That said - "Invisible Monsters" was (in different parts of the book) one of the funniest, most disturbing, yet insightful books I have read recently.

So how can a book be all of those things? Well the humor comes primarily from the main character's interaction with her parents. Some of these meetings (particularly the Christmas morning scene) are literally laugh out loud funny.

The disturbing and insightful portions of the story come from the primary part of the plot. The main character and first-person narrator of the story is a model who has been shot in the face, completely severing her jaw and mutilating her beyond people's ability to look her in (what's left of) her face - making her the invisible monster. She joins with other people who similarly have had major changes in their lives and come to the realization that "the past is just a story, and the sooner we learn that, the sooner we can start becoming who we really want to be." This statement alone is basically the overall theme of the book, and it's a powerful statement that could really apply to all of us. Not that we'd want to go through what the characters in the story did, but just that we don't have to let our pasts control out futures.

Add in quite a few surprising revelations about more than a few of the main characters and you have a novel that will, by the end, leave you wondering how so much was packed into such a short novel. In order to get the full gist of it, you may even want to read it again.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Tyler Durden Feminized
Review: Invisible Monsters is engaging and fast moving from the very first page. Palahniuk writes with schizophrenic brilliance, pulling the reader in several directions with a blink of an eye. The style is fresh and unorthodox. What Bret Easton Ellis has attempted, Palahniuk has achieved. However, we aren't seeing anything new from chuck here. Brandy Alexander, who stresses that the only way to reinvent oneself is to make questionable decisions, seems a little too much like Tyler Durden of fight club. ('self improvement is masturbation') Basically, palahniuk has delivered the same message as his previous novel with less engaging characters. If its vintage palahniuk you're looking for, read fight club instead.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It will Make You Feel ALIVE
Review: Chuck Palahniuk writes like Rikki Lee Travolta. They both have this anger and frustration boiling beneath an unsettling calm in their words. It perfectly mirrors that sense of inner turmoil that we have all felt at some point, and some grapple with on a daily basis but peppers it with dark humor. Just as Travolta dissected and brought to vivid life the Hollywood subculture with his classic angst tale 'My Fractured Life', Palahniuk mirrors the vividness with his picture of the fashion world. 'Invisible Monsters' is a rare and fascinating, authentic and justified book that will make you feel alive with emotion.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Ideas, a little sick and twisted
Review: While Fight Club was revolutionary, Invisible Monsters is just odd. Hard to follow up the succes and brilliance of Fight Club, Chucky P. gives us the twisted supermodel tale here. The most impressive thing about this story is not the semi-engagin characters of the rehashed revenge plot, but the quick and off-balance writing. Mr. P-DiddlySpank has written a terrific sophomore novel here with a great over story. The idea of using a disfigured supermodel at the heart of a revenge story is great. However, Brandy Alexander is a little confusing and the guy in the story just seems to be there to drive the car around. Brandy seems to be another version of Tyler Durden, with her ways of persuading people to do her way and her ideas of recreating oneself, even though the aforementioned Mr. Durden only wanted you to remake yourself as he saw fit. Despite the lack of true characterization or the overtones of an original concept, Invisible Monsters is a very good book with a very hard truth to it. You don't have to pretend to be anyone you're not to just be yourself.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very Interesting..
Review: This is the first book that I have read by Chuck Palahniuk. It was a great read, very different and interesting. It is a little grotesque in parts, but I didn't find it too much to handle. The story is written a little odd, with a lot of the revelations coming at the very end, leaving you wondering the whole book why things are the way the are.. but overall, a very enjoyable read!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Another gripping page turner from the master of grotesque
Review: Invisible Monsters was a very interesting book in its manner of narrative. There is very little actually story progression; instead, Palahniuk uses a very non-linear, random method of releasing certain facts at opportune times to let the reader know what's going on. Thus the reader is surprised multiple times, leading them through a story that slowly evolves into a lot more than just a tale of lost vanity. This is a tale of sexual identity, vanity, jealousy, and truth. Everything about it is weird and yet everything is original and smartly produced.

In this it is very similar to all his other books. He displays a complete disregard for the standards of human sensibility and this makes his novels great. Combine this with his sprawling talent for quick, attack-like sentences and you have a great novel.

My only really problems with this novel were the manner in which he releases information throughout the novel. In the manner of his previous novels, it feels as if you are learning the information along with the characters. It's all really surprising and quite jolting when read. In the case of Invisible Monsters, all the realizations, while quite clever and very surprising are too convenient. The manner of narrative is such that the way he presents his revelations is too contrived. You can see the author behind the words, and that's always distracting to the grand narrative of any novel.

It all boils down in the end to whether Palahniuk is your cup of tea or not though. If you're into his type of story, all of his books are genius and I wouldn't only recommend this one but everything else he's written, but if you've got a weak stomach or simply dislike reading about human beings being horrible and wretched to one another, than this is not the book for you, as are any of the rest. (You really should check him out anyways though. He's a great writer.)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: How does he come up with this stuff?
Review: Oh, my God! Just when I thought it was safe to go back into the water after reading "Fight Club" and "Survivor," I happen upon "Invisible Monsters." The mind of Mr. P is an absolute treasure, coming up with bizarre upon birarre until you'd think he'd be depleted. But no, he just keeps going with his ideas, like the Energizer Bunny. With twisted insight like Pynchon in his "Gravity's Rainbow," or McCrae in his "Bark of the Dogwood," Palahniuk shows us human nature through a collection of some of the most over-the-top, yet believable characters ever to grace the written page. He never disappoints, and one wonders what the next book will be like. Be afraid, be very afraid . . .

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: genius
Review: where else can you find a book about transvestites traveling cross country, invading open houses and setting themselves on fire? damn good book. read it now!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Give me awesome. Flash. Give me original. Flash
Review: Invisible Monsters is definitely one of the better Palahniuk books I have read so far; Survivor, Fight Club, and Invisible Monsters being one of them. Choke was all right, but it mostly dealt with Victor having sex with his mom's doctor, and not him choking on food except for maybe one time in the book.
Invisible Monsters is about a former model, who's face is destroyed by a car accident, which leaves her face disfigured by the accident. At home, her parents grieve on the death of their only son thanks to burning the garbage when a can of hairspray blows up killing him. Now she meets Eveie; a model also but brings her into going to different cities making up her own history where she goes. So now, at home, Evie is gone to Cancun for a photo shoot, and now she is on the hunt with her trusty shotgun to Cancun to kill her for taking her prisoner at her home. So now as she travels, she makes up history as she goes until she runs into Evie. I am not going to spoil the book, this is one of Palahniuk's best work since Fight Club. Definitely worth checking out. Also there are a couple of original Palahniuk things in here; where her parents give her a female condom for Christmas, and how her mom and dad made a memorial blanket which just makes up laugh. Good novel though.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Sick and Twisted Delight
Review: Each character in this masterpiece of a novel is one of your worst personality traits magnified and given a body of it's own. These people are sick, lost, and hilarious. Palahniuk once again plays on the theme that destruction= true feeling, and it works. Perhaps my favorite of all of this author's books, it had me laughing and feeling disgusted with myself the whole way through.


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