Rating: 
Summary: A battle between self-importance and self-improvement
Review: Written in the style of a super-hyped fashion magazine, 'Invisible Monsters' lures its readers through glossy ad-filled pages and disjointed cover stories. Palahniuk uses the fashion mag medium to accentuate the bohemian, self-aggrandizing models whose lives we are observing. Weaving through a series of flashbacks and flashforwards we understand the feeling of being in a photo shoot with the constant blinding camera flash and a disembodied voice telling us how to pose and what to feel. We meet the narrator shortly after her modeling career has been prematurely ended by a horrible disfigurement. Clearly her goal is to see if she can truly reach rock bottom - or is she already there and only trying to pull herself out? Even now, as a mutilated mute observer, she, like the others she surrounds herself with, is constantly trying to steal the scene and grab the title roll. It is sometimes hard to tell what is real, as the narrator is not quite honest with us or with herself. She holds back facts so we won't jump to conclusions and she colors our perception to make sure she is the center of attention. Palahniuk begins dropping bombshells on us early on and doesn't stop until the novel is over. By bombshells I mean both shocking surprises and pin-up girls - with the end result being that of literal bombshells: destruction and fire and death. Some of it is hard to believe but it is all easy to like; funny and intriguing, it's almost like watching television cliffhangers, it's almost like reading a fashion magazine. (Though it has something TV and checkout-line mags often lack - brilliance.) This novel is a fight between self-improvement and self-importance, with characters trying to break out of the lives they have forced upon themselves. As in a Don DeLillo or Martin Amis novel, I was amazed at how such intense cynicism, self-disgust/love, and vicious cat-fighting could actually have an uplifting tone... Perhaps it IS possible for someone to change herself for the better. There is nothing quite as powerful as a protagonist caught up in the worst of life and the worst of herself yet somehow managing to take that next step forward.
Rating: 
Summary: violence + transgender confusion -> great read
Review: For those who have read Fight Club and thought Chuck Palahniuk couldn't possibly come up with anything as good or original, think again. Invisible Monsters is a funny yet gruesome story of a young fashion model who suffers severe disfigurement when half her face is blown off (by a gunshot). Rather than being depressing or morose, Palahniuk turns the story into a bizarre "Thelma & Louise"-type of road movie where this fashion model hooks up with folks who are seriously confused about their gender identificaiton and gender preference. Chuck Palahniuk's caustic wit and free-flowing narrative makes Invisible Monsters to be an odd, enjoyable and unforgettable novel. Invisible Monsters contains rather graphic and crude language; it is certainly not for the squeamish. However my only complaint with it concerns the leading character. She seems too much like Tyler Durden, the main character from Fight Club. Her thoughts and actions seemed were anything but feminine. Women readers might find this very off-putting.
Rating:
Summary: not as good as fight club, not as dumb as survivor
Review: Except for his blatant misogynism (better concealed in Fight Club, allowed to run rampant in Survivor, used to comic ends here), Chuck Palahniuk has to be one of my favorite contemporary authors. This novel cracked me up.
Rating:
Summary: Flash! Give me shock
Review: Palahniuk recovered from his rather slow second novel, Survivor, to create a work that surpasses his first one, Fight Club. Invisible Monsters, as with the other novels, is first and foremost NOT about shock. It is only shocking to those who read Palahniuk's novels without an open mind. If a person is looking for shock than they should look eslewhere because the material in Invisible Monsters is only shocking in some parts. What is in this novel is a graphic depiction of trying to break free of society's grasp. Unlike the previous novels, Invisible Monsters brings all three of the main characters to life with very vivid visuals and dialogue. This book is a strong critique of pop culture and achieves the subtlety of Fight Club. A must read after the other two novels have been digested.
Rating: 
Summary: Looked forward to getting it over with
Review: I know as a person born in Generation X, I should feel the outrage and disdain for popular culture that Palahniuk feels. After reading his popular 'Fight Club' and subsequently watching the movie, I was awed by his interpretation of men and their need to hit the proverbial rock bottom before they can truly live their life. A friend recommended 'Invisible Monsters' to me and told me it was one of the best books she had read and it completely changed her life. Well to cut to the chase, I didn't feel the same way about it - in fact I was looking forward to finishing it. The book this time flip flops to a woman who needs to hit rock bottom by disfiguring herself with self inflicted facial wounds. The book has similar plots and twists that Fight Club provided, but as I read the book I felt like every twist Palahniuk introduced was an expectation and I didn't feel the shock he intended. In this way the book was predictable. What made Fight Club such a wonderful book seemed supplanted in the Invisible Monsters follow up. I'd say it's an average book at best, and don't read it for it's prose - pick it up as an easy and cheaply entertaining ride. It gets 2 ½ stars from me, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and give it three for the Amazon rating system.
Rating:
Summary: This book was FANTASTIC.
Review: I didn't think this book would be as good as 'Fight Club.' It's better. Recommended reading for anyone who thinks they know anything.
Rating:
Summary: Palahniuk writes as a woman, this time.
Review: That's right: the narrator of this book is a woman, Shannon, an ex-model who got disfigured in an accident. Other characters are Brandy Alexander, queen supreme, beautiful woman - and friend of Shannon's - who makes heads turn her way when she walks into a room; Manus, Shannon's boyfriend - until she gets her accident, that is; and Evie, Shannon's ex-best friend. All great and interesting characters, who all have great interactions with each other and are linked to each other one way or another. But the most remarkable thing about the way this book is written is the way it jumps back and forth in time, from event to event. Palahniuk often uses the phrase "jump to", like "jump to the time we were modeling in a junkyard" or "jump to Thanksgiving dinner before my accident". This jump can occur once every chapter, and can occur twice per paragraph. It never feels random, though, and it's never tedious, as long as you can keep up. At worst, write down some sort of basic timeline, where you can jot down things that might serve as time reference points later on. But this isn't necessary. Anyways, the basic plot is this: after Shannon's accident, she wants to start a new life, and ignore her past. Forget about her family, her modeling career. Now, she drives around with her newly-acquired friends and visits open houses that obviously belong to wealthy people. They then create a diversion while they steal any drug or makeup they can get their hands on. (In this book, Palahniuk displays his wide knowledge of legal drugs, as he did in Fight Club. He can sometimes be pedantic, but I chose to ignore this. He tells of Demerol, Benzedrine, et caetera. You - as a reader - have two choices: either you read this book with the Physicians' Desk Reference next to you, looking up every drug mentioned in the book, in order to really know what each drug mentioned does to the system, OR you simply take his word for it. I, of course, chose the second way to go, seeing as the effect of each drug in this book have little to do with the actual plot. Just so you know.) Basically, as the book develops, you know little bits of the relatively distant past, near past, and present, which are all developped and explained at the same time as the story goes along. It's the same feeling as if many separate lines grow and grow until finally, at the last page, they all meet end to end, creating the story in its simplest form. I'd also mention that this book is very direct, raw, and hilarious - in a wry sort of way. Palahniuk will very cleverly attack the homophobia versus gay pride issue by placing both those feelings in the same characters, Shannon's mother and father. Analogies are also often made between humans and God, showing the reader how many people "become" God, by either watching TV or becoming parents, for example. Great sarcasm and wit is used throughout the book, which - along with Palahniuk's always excellent writing style - will keep you reading no matter what. This is an excellent book, and you will not be disappointed, I promise.
Rating:
Summary: Felching = Literature
Review: Invisible Monsters is something of a female equivelant of Palahniuk's first novel, Fight Club. But with drugs. Lots of drugs. And gender-reconstructive surgeries. And a straight-forward, proper definition of felching. Try finding that in Oprah's Book Club.
Rating:
Summary: Multi-leveled, freakish incarnation of "i don't know what!"
Review: Forgive my misleading title, but i don't know where to start with this review. I'm not giving a character or real story synopsis because i can't effectively do it without giving it away. Okay, here it goes: If you've ever seen the movie, "The Usual Suspects",the ending is a great 'uh huh' experience. A large realization that's fulfilling and ties the whole two hour experience together for the audience. Magnify that feeling, and place it around once every thirty pages in IM. Little mini-orgasms of realization that tie a twisted plot into a structured cobweb . This is a dark satire about what lengths people will go, not so much for attention, i feel, but more just to be acknowleged by the people that we should expect to care about us the most. This could be your parents, you're siblings, you're fiance. To what lengths will you throw yourself away to accomplish this? At what point does manipulation end and self-manipulation start? Ultimately we get what we ask for, and then we realize we asked for the wrong thing. There's so much i can reveal that would spoil this experience. One thing that clearly stands out is this idea that we try constantly to please people in our lives that we feel culturally obligated to please. It says to me, how selfish can i be to those around me that refuse to acknowledge me. How far am i willing to go to let other people corrupt my own judgement in order to fit in. How did we get so fragile to the point that any attention makes us feel obligated to the person dispensing it of their own free will? If this review is wordy, tough nookies! That's my point. A theme in this book is nothing is what it seems. We make judgements everyday by what we see externally on a topical level. We're interested in immediate gratification and instant awareness so we don't dig for the truth. We fall into this trap that the truth lies within how others perceive us, not how we live our own lives. If this is way off base, my gravest apologies to the author. This book is not about gender-bending. Gender-bending is in this case asymptomatic of being ostracized and not knowing what to do with yourself. The message is, if we can't get our needs met by conventional methods, be universally unconventional, even if that means altering your genitalia, even if that leads to your own misery or marring yourself in some way. Even if it leaves you disfigured with half a face. Yes, this book is a rollercoaster propelled by antiandrogens and progesterone. The book is jumpy, purposefully so. It mimics the lack of control we all feel sometime in our lives. Sooner or later our instinct kicks in to just go with it. Not necessarily a good idea in the real world, but this is a novel, so, get over it. A final message is that redemption takes many forms. It's important for us to seek it out when we see the grave mistakes we've made that effect the people we care about. Believe it or not guys, this is a manly book, regardless of the homoerotic situations. Again asymptomatic. Get over your machismo, grow some breasts, and , oh yeah, read the book.
Rating:
Summary: ok
Review: invisible monsters is about a model who has an accident and is forced to wear a veil as a result of her disfigurement.she meets a drag queen who takes her on the road to spiritually find themselves.While traveling across the states,they stop at houses on sale to steal the medication from the medicine cabinets.at times the book is confusing but that's what to expect from the author of "fight club".there are a lot of plot twists and the story is very unpredictable.not for everybody but worth exploring.
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