When the plot of your first novel partially hinges on anarchist overthrows funded by soap sales, and the narrative hook of your second work is the black box recorder of a jet moments away from slamming into the Australian outback, it stands to reason that your audience is going to be ready for anything. Which, to an author like Chuck Palahniuk, must sound like a challenge. Palahniuk's third identity crisis (that's "novel" to you), Invisible Monsters, more than ably responds to this call to arms. Set once again in an all-too-familiar modern wasteland where social disease and self-hatred can do more damage than any potboiler-fiction bad guy, the tale focuses particularly on a group of drag queens and fashion models trekking cross-country to find themselves, looking everywhere from the bottom of a vial of Demerol to the end of a shotgun barrel. It's a sort of Drugstore Cowboy-meets-Yentl affair, or a Hope-Crosby road movie with a skin graft and hormone-pill obsession, if you know what I mean.
Um, yeah. Anyway, the Hollywood vibe doesn't stop these comparisons. As with Fight Club and Survivor, the book is invested with a cinematic sweep, from the opening set piece, which takes off like a house afire (literally), to a host of filmic tics sprayed throughout the text: "Flash," "Jump back," "Jump way ahead," "Flash," "Flash," "Flash." You get the idea. It's as if Palahniuk didn't write the thing but yanked it directly out of the Cineplex of his mind's eye. Does it succeed? Mostly. Still working on measuring out the proper dosages of his many writerly talents (equal parts potent imagery, nihilistic coolspeak, and doped-out craziness), Palahniuk every now and then loosens his grip on the story line, which at points becomes as hard to decipher as your local pill addict's medicine cabinet. However Invisible Monsters works best on a roller-coaster level. You don't stop and count each slot on the track as you're going down the big hill. You throw up your hands and yell, "Whee!"--Bob Michaels
She's a fashion model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden freeway "accident" leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she is transformed from the beautiful center of attention to an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better. And that salvation hides in the last places you'll ever want to look.
I began reading reviews for this book to decide if I wanted to read it. Sadly, in the first few lines of each review, I came across various spoilers that ruined parts of the book for me. I was pissed. Here's a collection of lines taken from other reviews that do a good job summarizing the "goodness" of Invisible Monsters without spoiling anything:
"Invisible Monsters works best on a roller-coaster level. You don't stop and count each slot on the track as you're going down the big hill. You throw up your hands and yell, "Whee!" --Bob Michaels
"I promise you are going to get several belly laughs from this twisted piece of literature." -- Schtinky "schtinky"
"While I did enjoy the book, the style that Palahniuk uses to build his characters through chaos and destruction to the nth degree really is something that not many other authors are good at and even he pushes from time to time. His writing is a trainwreck, the kind that you can't look away from inspite of the carnage." --Lost High Guey
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This book is fun. It keeps you entertained and is classic Palahniuk. Have a seat in a comfortable chair and become engrossed!
"The Novel, Not the Eye, is the Mirror of the Soul"
Written By: Daniel Murphy
You don't go to India if you aren't prepared to see humans squatting like dogs in the middle of a pedestrian-laden street to defecate. You don't go to Pattaya, Thailand, if you aren't keen to experience human sexuality with such a brain wrenching ferocity (including trans-species encounters) that it might require a few chats with your psychiatrist to achieve adequate decompression. You don't read about the My Lai massacre, or the historically recorded Maori warrior practice of stabbing captive women through the feet (so that they can't run), raping them, and then murdering them in the first post-ejaculatory moments unless you are willing to go eyeball-to-eyeball with the realities of male behavior in times of war. And you don't pick up a novel by Chuck Palahniuk if you have tidy illusions about human nature. Invisible Monsters was written before Palahniuk's successful novel Fight Club, but publishers reportedly rejected it as "too disturbing". With Fight Clubs' success, it appears that financial gain overwhelmed societal scruples (shocking!): Invisible Monsters went to press. You are forewarned.
Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters is a wrenching, hilarious, nauseating, illuminating tour of the fashion world, transexuality, family, homosexuality, plastic surgery, prescription drug abuse, and love. On first pass, it might be mistaken for the deranged ramblings of an author on a horribly derailed psychedelic jaunt. One glitch with that hypothesis: Palahniuk knows that of which he speaks. His own life experiences, including volunteering with the homeless and with hospice, the brutal murder of his father in sordid circumstances, and his personal knowledge of not-heterosexual sex, give him authority to speak, and through Invisible Monsters, speak he does.
Palahniuk (per Wikipedia) keeps a running total of people that have fainted at readings that he has given during book promotion tours and lectures: over 80 people have reacted to his writing by publicly losing consciousness. Invisible Monsters relegates Bonfire of the Vanities to the same category that Little House on the Prairie lives in. Do we NEED writers that rub our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems into quivering rawness? I'm thinking....yes. If you live in a comfortable world, and like the good guys clearly separated from the bad, go get Tom Clancy's latest blatherings. If you prefer books that go down as easily as vanilla wafers and milk, skip this novel. If you love Jane Austen (I do), but periodically need a blood, pus, semen, vaginal fluid escape from tea and biscuits (ditto), buckle your seat belt, pick up this book, and hit the ignition.
"good!"
Written By: Alex
it was a really confusing book at first, like all of Chuck Pahlaniuks storys, however it came together and had a strong ending!
"One of my favorites ever"
Written By: Kryn Palmquist
This is by far my favorite Chuck P. book. I saw it didn't have a 5 star review and decided to add my 2 cents. This book, fight club, survivor, and lullaby are by far his best work. Read those. I'm convinced Haunted was just created for the shock value. This book was created out of pure genius. It has it's funny dark moments, many "ah ha" moments, and a great twist at the end. Plus, who doesn't love pain killers? Read the book and you'll know what I mean.
"Great Company to purchase from"
Written By: G. Norris
This is a great company to purchase from! However the only down side to my purchase is the fact that I didnt really enjoy the book itself. It is in excellent condition, I am just not a fan of the actual material.