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Diary

Diary

List Price: $34.95
Your Price: $22.02
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not as good as his other works
Review: I am dissappointed to say that this title by Chuck is not of the same quality as his other works. It seems that many of the reviews here are inflating the rating of this book because of their respect for his other works. Yes, the first page lures you in, but he quickly loses momentum within a couple of chapters. If you are a die-hard fan, read a couple of chapters before purchasing. Chuck-- take a breather and take your time to craft another masterpiece.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bypass
Review: I first heard of Palahniuk when he was the coverboy for Poets & Writers magazine a few years ago. They asked him to recommend some writers, and one name he mentioned was Jo Ann Beard. Take my advice, read Jo Ann Beard if you like good writing. The fans of Chuck Palahniuk are guys who wear yellow sunglasses. The world doesn't need more Palahniuk right now.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: When a desire to express style supercedes all else
Review: Chuck Palahniuk is the messiah of Nihlism in contemporary literature. His sixth novel finds him trying to assert his style while hampering a plot and character analysis. He ditches the urban setting, that showed itself in his first four novels, in favor of a lonely island. The action centers around Tracy Wilmot, a decaying citizen of the island. The book procedes to twist and flounder about with philisophical musings of Palahniuk -his trademark. THe difference between this book and his finer four is that this one can oft be seen in the mind's eye as a hodgepodge of recent horror movie plots. Palahnuik seems desperate and dire to set himself apart from the conglomerate of modern authors, but only further buries himself by trying. The novel is worth a read to experiance the raw black styling of Chuck's writing but should not be the benchmark to judge Palahniuk by.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Palahniuk is God
Review: Goooood book. I have read all of this offers works, and i suggest reading all of them.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Interesting but slooooooow
Review: Before "Diary," I wanted Palahniuk to branch out more, because his novels were starting to seem awfully similar. I love his work, but I felt that he was losing his impact by sticking so closely to the style, themes, and characterisations.

Well, he's done it in "Diary" -- to an extent, anyway -- but I'm still not happy. It's an interesting read, but no match for Palahniuk's other works.

Our protagonist is an older woman (something new for a Palahniuk novel), and there's not a whiff of sexual tension to be found. While it does feature Palahniuk's trademark nihilism and dark fantasy -- and, as usual, features a hapless hero trapped in a surreal world with a menagerie of grotesque characters -- it's much less violent and considerably more introspective than his other novels.

It's also more passive, and, for me at least, less interesting. Misty, the protagonist, spends a lot of time complaining and feeling depressed, but not much time actually doing anything useful. There's not much plot impetus from the other characters, either: the townsfolk drop a lot of ominous hints, but are content to wait for "the inevitable" to happen. This makes for a slow plot, which, while it unravels an interesting mystery, doesn't contain many shocks, twists or revelations.

Palaniuk is a brilliant writer and I will continue to buy everything he puts out, but "Diary" doesn't show him at his best.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Amateur Night at Tarzan's Bar and Grill
Review: It is often said that the publishing world is a difficult field to enter.

Quite the contrary. "Chuck Palahniuk"'s DIARY proves that absolutely anyone can publish absolutely anything.

The author is a very average, very typical human being who worked as a diesel mechanic and thought, like many others like him, that it would be "cool" to be a writer. He ripped off the ideas of fellow Oregonian John Zerzan and put them in a book called FIGHT CLUB and achieved notoriety when the novel was made into a flashy and interesting Hollywood film that is far better than its source material.

DIARY demonstrates, even to his die-hard fans, that Palahniuk is a man of limited linguistic ability and limited intelligence.

There is nothing profound with DIARY's repetitive assertion that "everything's a diary." What Palahniuk means by this is that all writing refers back to the life of the author. This, by the way, is the book's "meaning" and "main theme." Yes, the book is really that stupid and trite.

With the greatest prentiousness and arrogance, the subeducated author throws references into DIARY that any first-year college undergraduate would pick up on with ease. And he throws out these references as if they were erudite!!!! And he misunderstands them (take, for example, his butchering of Plato's allegory of the cave)!

Palahniuk thinks, in DIARY, that Athena is the goddess of love (!!!!).

Along the way, there are also frequent references to excrement. Is this self-referencing at work?

DIARY would have been better titled AMATEUR NIGHT AT TARZAN'S BAR AND GRILL.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Can you feel this? Because I can't.
Review: I like Palahniuk. I just think he's playing himself out. Up until this point, "Choke" was the only book I hated. I wouldn't say I hate "Diary," but I sure as hell didn't like it. The one good thing about it is that at least it is a little different. But he does rewrite his own dialogue and reuse little repetitive techniques that have been around since his first book. When I first read his books, they were new and great, original and raw. Now...yeah, he's overplayed in his own way. I can't feel this. Not even if you put a needle through my arm. I recoomend his earlier works ("Fight Club," "Survivor," "Invisible Monsters") and of his most recent works, "Lullaby."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Of Course Awesome
Review: Awesome....i mean come on its Chuck Palahniuk..did you expect any less?? great twists in the book, keeps you guessing til the end...youll never guess whats goin on.... and of course the added dark humor!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Buy and Decide!
Review: Be prepared for plenty of biting social commentary. No Palahniuk book would be complete without this element. However, this book continues the trend which began in Lullaby, with far more subtle ideas interlaced within a fantasy/horror storyline. This appears to be a distinctive second stage in the works of Palahniuk, apparently having moved beyond the transgressive fiction that originally gained fame in such books as Fight Club and Invisible Monsters. I highly recommend this book. That being said, this is a Chuck Palahniuk book, and is probably not suitable for kids or anyone who wishes to avoid writing that touches upon unpleasant subjects. Also recommended: Doggy Bag by Sukenick, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not as good as his other stuff, but still good
Review: Now that I've read all the fiction that Chuck Palahniuk has to offer thus far, I have to admit, though this one was very good, it's not as good as his older stuff. The story is told in the form of a "coma diary" written by the main character, Misty Marie Kleinman, to her husband, Peter, who is in a coma after trying to commit suicide. Her dreams of being an artist now put off by this, Misty lives with her daughter Tabbi and her husband's mother, Grace, working in a hotel as a waitress. As usual, the story just goes all over the place, like most Palahniuk novels, taking the reader with the character to hell and back, but this time, there isn't as much social commentary as usual. There still is, just not as much. However, the book is still nonetheless a very good one, and I recommend it anyway, because let's face it, you can't go wrong with Chuck.


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