Invisible Monsters: A Novel 1st (first) Edition by Palahniuk, Chuck published by W. W. Norton & Company (1999) by Chuck Palahniuk
Invisible Monsters follows the story of a glamorious fashion model who gets into an accident that leaves her horribly disfigured afterwards.
The greatest thing this story has going for it is Palahniuk's terrific ability to make a story simultaneously horrifying and yet also gleafully entertaining. Invisible Monsters doesn't glumly dwell in the vileness, instead it relishes it, mocking our shallowness and stupidity, and it's Palahnuik's ability to do this that maked this novel a worthwhile read.
Unfortunately though, there were other stylistic choices that didn't work so well for me. Palahniuk has always liked to go into surreal and painstaking detail for each of his scenes, as does he love to hop around chronologically, but here it proves more of an annoyance rather than an asset, killing the story's momentum and making it increasing hard to follow.
In short, Invisible Monsters is signature Palahniuk, and for those of you already on his wavelength, this is a must read. If you're new to him however, this may not be the best place to start
The greatest thing this story has going for it is Palahniuk's terrific ability to make a story simultaneously horrifying and yet also gleafully entertaining. Invisible Monsters doesn't glumly dwell in the vileness, instead it relishes it, mocking our shallowness and stupidity, and it's Palahnuik's ability to do this that maked this novel a worthwhile read.
Unfortunately though, there were other stylistic choices that didn't work so well for me. Palahniuk has always liked to go into surreal and painstaking detail for each of his scenes, as does he love to hop around chronologically, but here it proves more of an annoyance rather than an asset, killing the story's momentum and making it increasing hard to follow.
In short, Invisible Monsters is signature Palahniuk, and for those of you already on his wavelength, this is a must read. If you're new to him however, this may not be the best place to start
The Patient is an upcoming novel by Jasper DeWitt and my copy was given to me by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Patient is a novel of intrigue and mystery that gleefully hops between genres on multiple occasions, and that in there lies the trickiness in reviewing it. A lot of the positive things I have to say about it would contain spoilers, and with a twisty novel like this, it's best to know as little as possible going in.
I won't say anything about the plot besides that horror fans will love it, though admittablt i'm not even a horror fan myself and I still enjoyed this novel, thanks to an overall tight pacing, a strong sense of originality, and an exceptional use of language. DeWitt's prose won't win any awards, but what he has is an exceptional ability to know when and how to use prose to his advantage, creating several striking passages on multiple occasions.
My only real major complaint with the book comes near the end, in the finale, where the author decides to loss the ambiguity and ends up choosing a narrative that, while shocking, weakened the overall narrative for me.
Recommended for... anyone who likes the idea of an Exorcist and Silence of the Lambs mash up.
8/10
The Patient is a novel of intrigue and mystery that gleefully hops between genres on multiple occasions, and that in there lies the trickiness in reviewing it. A lot of the positive things I have to say about it would contain spoilers, and with a twisty novel like this, it's best to know as little as possible going in.
I won't say anything about the plot besides that horror fans will love it, though admittablt i'm not even a horror fan myself and I still enjoyed this novel, thanks to an overall tight pacing, a strong sense of originality, and an exceptional use of language. DeWitt's prose won't win any awards, but what he has is an exceptional ability to know when and how to use prose to his advantage, creating several striking passages on multiple occasions.
My only real major complaint with the book comes near the end, in the finale, where the author decides to loss the ambiguity and ends up choosing a narrative that, while shocking, weakened the overall narrative for me.
Recommended for... anyone who likes the idea of an Exorcist and Silence of the Lambs mash up.
8/10
The Last Conversation
What has been your best quarantine read?
A man wakes up in isolation with no memory and is told that he's being kept inside because his immune system's compromised and there's been a horrible pandemic outside.
No, this is not our story. This is actually the plot for a sci-fi novella by Paul Tremblay that Amazon published last year.
Where the story goes from there is intriguing, but it nonetheless feels hamstrung for two major reasons.
1- It takes too long to get where it's going (the first half of this story could have been shaved down noticably)
2- I could see the reveal coming from about twenty pages away
This doesn't ruin the intrigue or the mystery for me, but it does hinder the narrative, so in the end i'd only recommend this for previous fans of Tremblay's work.
7/10. Good.
What has been your best quarantine read?
A man wakes up in isolation with no memory and is told that he's being kept inside because his immune system's compromised and there's been a horrible pandemic outside.
No, this is not our story. This is actually the plot for a sci-fi novella by Paul Tremblay that Amazon published last year.
Where the story goes from there is intriguing, but it nonetheless feels hamstrung for two major reasons.
1- It takes too long to get where it's going (the first half of this story could have been shaved down noticably)
2- I could see the reveal coming from about twenty pages away
This doesn't ruin the intrigue or the mystery for me, but it does hinder the narrative, so in the end i'd only recommend this for previous fans of Tremblay's work.
7/10. Good.
How you feel about this one will entirely depend on this: King has this habit of bloating his novels and Cujo is the best example of this. It's a novel even he himself can barely remember, thanks to his severe alcholism at the time. Cujo would have made a great short story, but at 400 pages it doesn't know how to sustain itself.