Diary

Rating:
Summary: Can You Feel This?
Review: "Everyone's in their own personal coma."

Diary is the "coma-diary" of Misty Marie Wilmot (or if you're an incompetent worker at Doubleday doing the sleeve for the hardback her name is Misty Tracy Wilmot). The diary she keeps for her vegetable of a husband Peter who has attempted suicide and failed miserably. Ending up in a coma instead. A woman doomed to repeat the past. Only she doesn't know it yet.

It's Chuck Palahniuk's latest work of gripping, fast-paced fiction. And if you don't like this book, you're living in a coma.

"You have endless ways you can commit suicide without dying dying."

Beneath the fast moving plot of a woman who finds herself caught in a trap of repeating history is layer upon layer of social statements and facts. If you don't know what the Latin names are for your facial muscles, you will by the time you finish this. If you don't know the first freaking thing about graphology (handwriting analysis). You will. Need a refresher course on Carl Jung? It's right here. Don't know about the suffering all the greatest artists went through to create their masterpieces? Read this book.

"Does anybody really know why they like anything?"

This is Palahniuk's best book since Choke. Probably his second-best book in this reviewer's opinion. Worth every penny of the $17.47 plus shipping(hardback version). Another terse, riveting book from one of the best writers in modern fiction today.

"Everything is a diary."

Rating:
Summary: No one writes addicting books like Chuck Palahniuk
Review: Like many people, I was introduced to Chuck Palahniuk's work through the movie adaptation of "Fight Club," one of his earlier novels. I eagerly read that book and the other two available at the time, "Survivor" and "Invisible Monsters," and I loved them all. I've read every book he's released since then, and they've all been intense page-turners.

It seems, though, that Palahniuk has been getting a bit more mystical and fatalistic with time, and nowhere is this more apparent than in "Diary." This is the main complaint I have with the book, as it seems to have lost a lot of the relevant social commentary that made his earlier novels so gratifying. It's still an entertaining read and certainly worth the price of admission, but if you've never read his work before, read "Survivor" or "Choke" instead. Those are the better of his novels so far.

I still consider Palahniuk one of the most important and relevant authors of our time, and all his books are excellent, but unfortunately this is the weakest of them.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book--when heard
Review: This book was my first Palahniuk novel. Diary is a great, albeit dark, romp through the mind of Misty Willmont. The first disc, I got the audio book, was a droan of loosely connected tidbits that really only make sense later in the work. Once the second disc picks up, the dribble becomes a taught narrative which compels all who stuck around to listen as a truely strange, yet, almost plausable tale unfolds.

The whole time I found myself thinking that no one could really be this crazy. Yet all who have ever left their house would say otherwise, and in a hurry.

One complaint, a small one that is hardly worth the time to type. There are no natural lakes in the entire state of Georgia.

What you don't understand, you can make mean anything.

Rating:
Summary: dead on arrival
Review: Look at the photo of Chuck Palahniuk on the back flap of "Diary," his new novel. The prospective reader can see a man who's confident in his talent, but unpretentious and affable--the face of a popular contemporary writer who is not full of himself. But what can also be seen is a facial expression that signifies a disappointed, even apologetic look, almost as if he's telepathically communicating to us: "I'm really sorry about this. I promise my next book will be better."

I should've realized this earlier and heeded the man's psychic advice.

As a fan of Palahniuk's prose (though I don't care much for his third-act narrative twists), I was, of course, happy to discover his new novel...and was considerably less happy once I battled through the printed anasthesia of this book. If this marks Palahniuk's initiation into the much-coveted "2-tome-a-year" club, it's not an encouraging sign for his future output. "Diary" is a novel stripped of the author's wit and satire, which is traded for a mostly sober tone, and the effect this has on the narrative is stultifying ("Just for the record, today's weather calls for a $25 paperweight with scattered passages of inspiration"). It's a novel filled with unexciting characters who do kooky things that fail to arouse much interest. The plot rips off a good (but forgotten) horror film from the 1980s called "Dead & Buried", but is rendered with a flatness that makes it a chore to read. After an extremely boring first half, Palahniuk manages a few glimmers of his humor and 'matter-of-fact' commentary, before diving into banality that persists until the very last page. Is there a narrative twist in the third act this time around? Dulled by the experience of reading this, I could hardly tell--that's how bad "Diary" is.

Rating:
Summary: Where do you get inspiration?
Review: "I loved you a lot more when you were dead." This is what a mother tells her daughter in Diary. It is completely in keeping with Mr. Palahniuk's tone which is dark, with occasional flurries of pessimism.

Diary continues in the tradition of Lullaby - novels that are surreal and could be shelved in the "horror" section. An important bit of information to know is that the format of this book is a "coma diary" written by a woman to her husband. It is NOT a book written in the second-person, despite the liberal use of the word "you."

The book starts like all of Mr. Palahniuk's books do, with plenty of interesting trivia. In this case it's about art history, human anatomy, and graphology. I won't go into to the plot of the novel - which is impossible to describe - but it fits into the category of "one sane person in a town full of crazies."

The best part about reading a Palahniuk novel isn't the story, but all the interesting asides and digressions along the way. There are plenty of them here to keep the reader interested. (BTW, look underneath the dust cover).

Rating:
Summary: My least favorite Palahniuk book....
Review: At first I was eager to read Diary, so when I got the chance, I was HUGELY disappointed. Diary is about a woman named Misty who is a artist, and who draws houses and people who see her work, they tell her that is their house. Then she get's calls about how their kitchen is missing, and how their closets are missing. Very strange. The book just keeps on more disappointing and more DISAPPOINTING! With the constant dialogue, I just more and more disquisted with this novel.
The reason I gave the book 2 stars because personally have read all of Palahniuk's work, this was not his best effort. If you want to read someone good by Palahniuk, then read Fight Club or even his travel book Fugitives and Refugges. Sorry Chuck, this book was not for me.

Rating:
Summary: Still in the Chuck Club
Review: This book was every bit as good as Chuck Palahniuk's other novels (except for maybe Fight Club, which is simply extraordinary). It's clever, dark, bittersweet, and strange -- the usual Chuck fare. (Trivia: Chuck was a student of Tom Spanbauer - you might try other "Tom" authors like Jennifer Lauck, Rodger Larson, Jackie Fischer, Joanna Rose, and of course Tom himself -- "In the City of Shy Hunters" and "The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon.")

Rating:
Summary: Dear Diary
Review: Like all of Chuck Palahniuk's works, Diary is funny, sad, disturbing, irreverant, dry, and above all, well written.

Misty Tracy Wilmont is the keeper of the diary, all the time her husband lying in a hospital room after an attempted suicide. As with other Palahniuk plots, this one is far too complicated to go into, but suffice it to say that myriad things come to light during Peter's (the husband) hospital stay. Seems he has (had) a penchant for scribbling things on the wall of houses that were being built, and the town is none too happy. Just one example for those who need to know.

The biggest difference in this and every other novel the author has written, is the setting--a resort town. His usual haunts are downtrodden suburbia or a ruined inner city, not some tourist-haunted island. But then, leave it to Palahniuk to find the darkness and the light in just about every situation. Once again, a stellar performance from the master.

Also recommended: McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD

Rating:
Summary: One of Palanhiuk's Best
Review: I just finished "Diary" today, and I must say that I really enjoyed it. This is perhaps his best work since Invisible Monsters. I was a bit skeptical at first, after being dissapointed with Lullaby. This book is a bit different, but in many ways it is still trademark Chuck.

The story starts off being a dark comedy, with tragic reflections on inspiration, art and hope dried up. Art is the focus of the main character, and clearly, Chuck has done his homework. As an artist, I found Chuck's statements about art to be laugh out loud funny, insightful, cynical, and well...downright realistic. There are few likeable characters in this book, aside from the main character (who is only likeable in that readers will feel sorry for her and be rooting for her to overcome circumstances), who is the "author" of the diary. As you dig deeper into Diary, you will find that these unlikeable characters are downright evil, as the story cascades into a bizarre, twisted, and frightening close.

Rating:
Summary: Aliens have abducted Chuck
Review: Nothing like his other works. I loved "Choke"...I loved "Survivor." Nine out of ten subjects blind folded and read "Diary" at bed time agree that it was written by Elizabeth Berg or Anne Tyler on crack. Two stars for the Foley bag. Although this is my least favorite to date, the man can write. I will be tackling the library clerk as she shelves his next book. My goal is to turn on more 42 year old mothers like myself on to this talent.