Haunted

(3.5) Most definitely not for everyone, but I can't lie, I enjoyed this book so much. Very depraved, sometimes very hard to read, but like watching a bloody car crash, I couldn't keep my eyes off it anyway. However, Palahniuk's voice is so strong that the short stories and the characters are all clearly written by the same person—it just seemed like a cartoonish guy with DID (like James McAvoy in Split). Largely hit or miss collection, too, but the hits are great. Favorites: Foot Work, Dog Years, Exodus, Product Placement, Swan Song, and Speaking Bitterness.

This is a collection of 23 short stories. Its only natural some of them are going to be hits, and some are going to be misses, but overall it was quite a consistently good read throughout, with fast paced writing and entertaining stories guranteed to make you laugh, squirm and feel left peturbed.

Favourite short story: Guts
Least favourite short story: Green room

3/5

Started off well but couldn't get myself to finish. Got heavy & quite boring for some reasons

edit : finished it 2yrs later, very immersive & interesting book. very disgusting and appalling at time. a bleak and lugubre aux derives de la victim mentality, & how we can become notre propre bourreau, juste pour inspirer de la pitié et de la sympathie aux autres

Rreat concept, great execution. Best short stories are Hot Potting, Guts and Exodus. Main plot is good too, interesting and gruesome but foes drag on and then ends abruptly and unfulfilling but makes sense thematically. Some short stories are a bit abstract for my taste but really showcases the full extent of Palahniuk's creativity. Awesome awesome book, second of his read after Fight Club and it holds up.

“The most beautiful women you see in public, none of them are for real. They're just men perpetuating their perverted stereotype of women. Just the oldest story in the world. There's a penis on every page of cosmopolitan magazine if you know where to look.”

Not a descriptive summary of the book, although it's definitely my favorite quote. This one gets at it a little better:

“In ancient rome, at the coliseum, the “editor” was the man who organized the bloody games at the heart of keeping people peaceful and united. That's where the word “editor” really comes from. Today, our editor plans the menu of murder, rape, arson, and assault on the front page of the day's newspaper.”

Overall the story felt like Chuck's exhausted his visceral formula and relied on shock value to carry this one over the finish.

This is so nauseating to read that I have a headache, right this instant, only moments after putting down the book. I have been reading this in fits and starts for 6 months, having to reread the short stories to get back up to speed on who everyone is and why they're in there. And then I'd have to put it back down to digest it, and just keep putting it back down for my own health. This was incredible. I love this kind of gore and shock horror that relies on those everyday fears that rumble in this novel. This is what I want from a Palahniuk. This is why I put up with his terrible persona, and why I keep reading his newer work, hoping for this kind of gut-wrenching and saliva-producing work. I want to have to stand up and pace my room to make sure I don't actually have to throw up, I'm just thinking about it. That's what I got.

“Guts” is legendary, so much so that my copy had an afterword regarding the sheer amount of people who pass out at public readings of it. All the short stories are great, I'll say it. The poetry is clever, especially as a way to keep the form and keep you trudging. The genius of interspersing this kind of shocking, random violence and self-harm with such a tight structure is something I dream of being able to write. The expectation of the poems and the short stories coming to act as a really fucked up buoy... wow. Incredible stuff here. 

If you're going to read it, make sure you either have an iron stomach or that you're nearby a bathroom and a glass of water. Good luck.