Rating:  Summary: Not the best Palahniuk Review: I was quite bored with Invisible Monsters and I was a little dissapointed in Palahniuk,although there are some excellent funny moments in this book. Survivor and Fight Club are much better reads with more solid storylines and better characters.
Rating:  Summary: clearly the work of built of thought Review: ok....ok, works that describe this book "couple" be (gripping, wierd, choatic, unbelievable) but words that "do" describe this book are (relevant, insightful, humanistic). See, you could read this book and simply look and gaze at the surface and be a little freaked out, but than you are reading it purly as entertainment, and that is fine. But, if you like to read a piece of literature and perhaps, if I dare, take something from the book you just read, than you will see beyond the "creapyness" and see that we are just a few valiums shy of becoming these characters. Read, absorb and perhaps be changed....or perhaps not.
Rating:  Summary: chuck writes in an almost cinematic way! Review: I am not a regular reader, but chuck has made me one. i ussually prefer to watch a good film (such as fightclub, being my favorite) cause i am a more visual kind of person, but after reading the way chuck writes it made me prefer one of his books better than a flick. Invisible Monsters is written in such a way, its amazing how you can visualize it as a film. he writes with an undefined timeline, in which he makes the flashbacks and flashforwards his own timeline, aligning the future or present of the story in an almost perfect way. i may not know a lot about books, but i sure know a lot about films, and this book is perfect if you are the kind of person as i am.
Rating:  Summary: A man in a dress can teach you alot Review: I don't know if i've ever been compelled so strongly to rush through a book. I picked it up Saturday Evening and had it finished by dinner on Monday. This is the first book i've read by Palahniuk. First of all the interesting thing about the novel is that its not told cronologically, It's more like its done conceptually. The story feels like dozens of anecdotes tangled together. they over lay each other at odd angles as you flip between different threads of thought. He uses different parts of each anecdote to drive the point home for another. In the end Invisible Monsters pulls together and you end up w/ an intricate quilt instead of the pile of random thoughts you started with. His characters are powerful in this story. I think Queen Supreme Brandy Alexander is one of my favorite characters ever. She reminds me of Fight Clubs Tyler Durden, and She has her own great little one liners. This book was very entertaining, and it made me think. I'll definately be picking up another book by this guy soon.
Rating:  Summary: My Fave... Review: This is my favourite book by Chuck. I like how everything is revealed to you backwards and forwards all the way up until the end. Plus, who doesn't like drag queens? I suggest playing Lou Reed's "Transformer" in the background while reading this.
Rating:  Summary: My theory on 'Invisible Monsters.' Review: My theory on why people are so hard on this book--even Chuck's fans seem to regard it as his 'worst'--is because it has a lousy opening. The opening chapter tosses you into chaos, it's a little confusing (the tone doesn't quite match the rest of the novel), and then Chuck goes on to explain how the book is going to be written. Unneeded, pointless, and it disrupts things. My guess is it annoys people and they never get over it. Because, besides the opening and the one-time-too-many twist in the end, this is Chuck's best book so far. All of Chuck's books are basically thinly plotted social critiques. This isn't much different, but Chuck finds his most deep, rich character in our disfigured heroine. She doesn't quite feel so much like Chuck's mouthpiece. Chuck's strong point has never been structure, but here there are some true surprises as the story unfolds. The fractured, disjointed narrative lets him alter the relationships midstream, and the recursive nature of the plot allows our heroine to learn facts along with us--'Invisible Monsters'' world is one of unknown connections.I just want to congratulate Chuck on being so talented. Clearly he must be brilliant to inspire such frustrated, petty animus. If the hate spewed in these reviews by his childish detractors (because Chuck definitely writes like a fourteen-year-old) is any indication, he must be one of the best writers working today. For someone to get so harshly attacked--when his fans are lowered to that dark, stinky depth of 'movie fans'--he's doing something right. Anyway, if all he has to compare to is 'Revolutionary Road' by Richard Yates, 'The Elementary Particles' by Michel Houellebecq, 'Glamorama' by Bret Easton Ellis, 'The Verificationist' by Donald Antrim and 'The Unconsoled' by Kazuo Ishiguro, he has nothing to worry about. 'Monsters' is, as they say, 'pure Chuck'--it's about hate, self-mutilation, violence, neediness, confusion. And like his other work, it's about trying to figure out what the hell you're supposed to want, and attaining it or avoiding it.
Rating:  Summary: Great book, worth the read Review: I think this is one of his best books. If you like Chuck Palahniuk, definitely get this book!
Rating:  Summary: Wow Review: The whole book was crazy and made me want to read more and more. There were so many surprises and they were so unlikely that I was simply blown away. Chuck Palahnuik is a great author. Invisible Monsters to some is his weakest but I must say the most shocking... I can't wait until more of his books come out because they are all a 2 day read; for the reason that they are so good!!!
Rating:  Summary: A jaw dropper.............. Review: Wow I love this crap. Many people criticize Chuck for his dislexic pre-pubescent writing style but I think they are just jealous because he has made millions off it. Having read all of his books except Lulluaby, I agree that he doesn't vary much from his winning formula so if you don't like one, you probably wont like the rest. The fact of the matter is these books are funny, absurd and surreal and that is what I like about them. No need to cover the plot. Its your standard indentity crisis finding yourself fluff. The plot sequence works becuase it is as amazingly ridiculous and absurd and surreal as the characters and the setting. The one liners, the language, the vanity, the valiums, the violence, the sex, the gender switching, the irony, I love it all and this was one of those books I read in two days. Bottom line: A must read for Chuck fans, aspiring models, lovers of pulp noir garbage the sick & perverted and people in love with themselves. Not appropriate for bedtime reading for the kiddies!
Rating:  Summary: More than exceptionally dyslexic! Review: If you think (as Palahniuk's blind, sheep-like followers do) that INVISIBLE MONSTERS was deliberately written in an illiterate style, you've been had by a real con-artist. All five of his books are written in the same way, despite the change in character and gender. He speaks in this way, as well---see his astoundingly stupid interviews, in which he expresses his sincere desire not to write "s---y books." In other words, he has nowhere proven that he can write in the way that real writers write, EVEN IF HE WANTED TO. No one is suggesting that INVISIBLE MONSTERS should have been written in "scholarly" style or that the author should have avoided ordinary language. Hubert Selby, Jr., Irvine Welsh, and Bret Easton Ellis are all very great writers who use ordinary language to great effect. No, the problem here is that INVISIBLE MONSTERS was written at one go, and it shows. Palahniuk may claim that INVISIBLE MONSTERS was rejected by publishers because it had an "unpleasant" or "offensive" content. I don't believe that for a second. It was rejected because it is sloppily written and childish. I get the impression from the man that he knows that he is writing opportunistic garbage, but didn't want to waste his life away as a diesel mechanic. So he decided to become a "popular writer" without ever taking the art of writing seriously. As a result, he's vomited out several very silly, easy-to-read and easy-to-write books. Reading INVISIBLE MONSTERS is fine if you're between the ages of 12-16. If your older than that, you might want to carry this one around in a brown paper bag.
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