Rating: 
Summary: Rare and Well Done
Review: While we could argue about whether or not society is headed down the right path, Fight Club makes its point: any of us could get stuck in the world of materialism in this capitalist society. Once you're there, you too could end up like the main character in this book: stuck with insomnia, boredom, and a refrigerator full of nothing but condiments. The answer: Fight Club. Forget about name brands and become a mindless monkey working for Tyler Durden. Somehow, it's appealing to so many in this book. To the reader, the idea of Fight Club is appealing.... so read on.
Rating: 
Summary: economical analysis of American male angst
Review: For those who've seen the film, and especially for those who haven't, Fight Club is a terrifically told story in only 200 pages. Fight Club is such a complex story which, surprisingly, isn't all about fighting. It would be useless, as other reviewers have tried to before me, to try to explain the story. But the story does raise questions about American life, especially frustrations of men coping with constrained masculinity (..constraints imposed by society).The novel deviates from the film (..actually, vica-versa). The novel is tighter, with the stunning revelation of the main characters towards the end of the story being smoothly explained in the novel but comes off jarring in the film. It's a shame the film did not reflect the novel exactly since it would have made the film more successful. The novel has both the leading characters, portrayed in the film by Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, meeting initially on a nude beach. Surely such a scene would helped at the box office. :-) I believe Fight Club will become a classic, along the lines of A Clockwork Orange. I am looking forward to reading other works by Palahniuk.
Rating:
Summary: A Unique Snowflake-A bible of self destruction.
Review: Fight Club is an intense and querky read. Palahniuk captivates the reader through the inventive flashback that the majority of the novel is told through. The narrator, Jack, is a great character in a pro-longed downward spiral whilst Tyler Durden is a personification of the anarchaic spirit in all of us. The dialogue is full of brilliant phrases that stay with you afterwards. It is deliberatly provocative and in my opinion, is a Clockwork Orange for the modern era. All the ideas and themes are thought provoking(in many ways similar to the film 'American Beauty')and whilst not for all tastes, a must read. It has references to varios things, and the inventive style makes it impossible to put down. A bible of self destruction.
Rating:
Summary: Distrubingly Provacative
Review: I unfortunately came to Fight Club via the movie. After seeing the movie I was agitated. Concepts were introduced and not developed, the story telling was haphazard. Fight Club became a reluctant memory. Then a friend started to feed me propoganda about the greatness of fight club. Not really swayed by his viewpoints, fight club again became a memory. Until the book came into my life. Where and how I do not know. But the fact of the matter is I acquired a copy of Fight Club the novel. And I read it. My friend was right, fight club is powerful. The problems I had with the movie were aleviated by the book. Fulfilled concepts and a story that didn't have holes, and thankfully there was quite a bit more ambigity. Fight Club assualts all that you know. Read the book, then watch the movie. If you can be so lucky.
Rating:
Summary: Darker than dark, but very humourous.
Review: I bought the book thru Amazon last week after having seen the movie the previous week. I must say, rarely has a story connected with me on such a level. Not to say I'm a raving lunatic with a split personality, nor am I into making soap with human fat, but the very raw emotion of the characters in "Fight Club" appeal to me on some sort of primal level. It's the place in your soul where you know that the world is slowly choking itself, and that there are many bad things in the world, and that you should probably do something about it, but don't. I loved the way it was written, from start to finish, and unlike the movie, which was great too, the book gives you so much more insight into the lives of the Unnamed main character and his counterpart Tyler Durden. And also into Marla's... It is similar to Palahniuk's newer book "Survivor", in that the main caharcter is slowly destroying themselves without knowing it, and at the same time, needing to do so in order to continue at all. Anyway, looking forward to much more brilliance penned by the hand of Palahniuk.
Rating:
Summary: Fight Club
Review: It's difficult to summon up words, or for that matter, confusing and difficult to delve deep enough into the levels in which Fight Club willingly takes you to describe how this book will make you feel and how it will effect you, and why it will effect you through simplistic review. In fact, trying to describe something I've yet to get a firm grip on is a uniquely strenuous task. Chuck Palahniuk, in genius form constructs excitingly compacted high energy driven concepts intertwined with originally materialized ideas in powerfully overflowed and provocative fashion that leads Fight Club to insightfully empowering narrative, and overwhelmingly creepy nature, seeming as if to almost make it live and breath in a certain depth that can't be easily described. It's a book full of lies and truths wherein the paradoxical arena of meaning, ugliness and beauty rear their controversial heads. Fight Club tells the story of the everyday man who is what the narrator is in the book: a young man dying and suffering, piece by piece, minute by minute, second by second, (tick tick tick) who's not what he seems. The narrator, who doesn't have a name but does, is literally depressed with his day to day grind of life, uncured with insomnia and working a greed infested job that he loves to hate with a hilarious passion. Our narrator has a flowing tone in his voice that sounds subliminal of all his doings which makes his particular character realistically complex in subtle sort of way. It's in the second chapter of the book when the narrator starts attending self help support groups to try and cure his insomnia, and, to cry. The narrator says, "This is when I'd cry because right now, your life comes down to nothing, and not even nothing, oblivion." It's at the Remaining Men Together support group where the narrator meets the bummed out chain smoking Marla Singer, a she devil whom he despises because she's a tourist, a faker who crashes the support groups when she really doesn't have reason to be there, or so he thinks. Marla really doesn't have any disease or isn't suffering of cancer, just like the narrator; but when Marla's lie reflects our narrators lie it turns out, he can't sleep, therefore, he can't get any relief. Enter the charismatic soap salesman/movieprojectionist/ banquet waiter, Tyler Durdern, who our narrator meets on a beach. What Tyler's doing is, making the shadow of a human hand out of wood drowned up from the beach. Tyler stands the wood up at a certain angel, so the sun will shine on it at a precise moment of the day to form the shape of a human hand in shadow, so Tyler can, "lie in the palm of perfection that he created himself," as only the narrator can say it. The narrator finds a demented form of comfort and self importance in Tyler, something he's obviously never seemed to find in himself. Soon after, Tyler and the narrator become best friends and start an underground cult that entitles itself "Fight Club," where young men form together in dark basements to take out violent aggressions by beating each other to a bloody pulp. But Fight Club isn't what it seems. Then the story's taken up a notch by Marla meeting Tyler, and as the three progress in their relationship Tyler and the narrator decide to take Fight Club up a notch, calling it "Project Mayhem," where the underground society of Fight Club form together to start what they call, "The end of civilization;" where human beings will be ancient, living in zoos wearing animal skin, as animals roam freely and the human species become hunted & wild, living in cages made for animals. Now along with the creation of Fight Club and Project Mayhem Tyler displays some unusually frightening behavior such as, making his soap out of human fat, ( I suppose being reminiscent of Nazi's) splicing single frames of X-rated pornography into kiddy flicks while working his movie projectionist job and tainting and contaminating peoples food with, you don't want to know, as a banquet waiter. Now as the story progresses, the plot thickens even deeper with enormously evolved complexities of textured character analysis, and the story starts weaving in and out of a mesmerizing crafted structure of visually exhilarating realities, and stimulating dreams and discoveries for the narrator. The story and characters start becoming awkward through the creepy nature of the story that seems to be nightmarishly real and delusionaly authentic making the intense visuality of the film seem paranoid and keeps Palahniuks narrative urgent and intensely metaphoric in relating back to the characters that form it brilliantly. The story as a whole is exceptionally crafted with passion, and through all of this, something lurks underneath Palahniuks original novel that makes it feel compelling, moving, unheard of & profoundly deep; and in truthfully artistic levels too. Tip of the iceberg subliminal messaging, strongly described visual textured painting, dream like worded codes and zombie like exact narrative displayed in almost slow motion that has a knack for humor seem to awake your senses to intuition while making you aware that what your reading might have some significance in your own life. And amazingly, Fight Club is never a distortion through the many orderly levels of the inventively abrasive aspects it flawlessly creates. Fight Club seems to choose in making no crystal clear statement about anything; yet it seems to run so deep, so full of thought and ideas in it's excessive telling, that you grasping something meaningful, important or quite interesting, to say the least, is completely and totally unavoidable. Fight Club has an energy filled significant deja ve feeling about it that seems to give you a mentally sustained high, thus making the reading of the book seem like a dream in and of itself; and through this fascinating element comes exhilaration in a higher form of satisfaction. Fight Club is dark and at times, very unsettling. It's also thickly atmospheric and a subliminally charged psychological enterprise with odd visual overtone, creepy surrealism and witty humor. Ugly, menacing, beautiful, truthful, involving, paradoxical, humorous, significant and meaningful for our times, Fight Club is beyond interesting, and artificially real in it's dream like state. If you read it, your going to feel as if your head's in the clouds. I once heard an author say, "I don't write a book, I get written..." Well, be prepared because you don't read Fight Club, Fight Club reads you.
Rating:
Summary: Everything's going as planned, Mr. Durden!
Review: Yes, I saw the movie first. Yes, I read about a half a book every three years. But I must say this is the best book I ever read. It offers some alternate scenarios than the movie. For example, the narrators first meeting of Tyler, the aquisition of fat, the quiting of jobs, the working of jobs, night car ride, the veterinary student "hold up" , the Angel Face pummeling, the we have to get your b_lls confrontation, and the much more fitting than the movie ending. There is more but one can only recall so much. The writing style is just like the narration of the movie, which make smooth, quick reading. Seeing the film first helped me a little because a had a clear picture of the characters and Edwards Nortons voice in my head. Oh no I must be crazy too! Chuck Palahniuks writing style is very vivid and "insane" in a good way. This is a fairly short book which is well worth getting enthralled into. Five and one half stars!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This book has to be my absolute favorite. Why? you ask? Well, here's why: Action Level: 7/10- There is a fair amount of adventure and peril strewn throughout the novel. Romance Level: 8/10- There is a well developed relationship between the characters. Satirical Value: 9/10- This book has hilarious satire value. Plot Twist: 10/10- This was the *best* twist possible in a novel. Character Development: 7/10- The characters underwent a major transformation that is highly described. Writing style: 8/10- Chuck writes with a unique fluidity much similar to Vonnegut that many will enjoy. Overall, I advise *everyone* to read this novel...
Rating: 
Summary: Auto-cannabalizing satire
Review: I came to this book by way of first seeing the movie, which is unusual for me. The movie itself was stunning, one of my top three favorites of all time... in my opinion, it was better than the book. I would like to say though, that this isn't because of any short-comings in the writing itself. The story, though born from the mind of a fiction writer, lent itself much better to the medium of film imho. Both the book and the movie offer some savage critiques of an overly consumerist society and its under-pinning values. At the same time, however, it satirizes its own critique, not allowing us the comfortable distant smugness which so many works like this fall prey to... it leaves the audience without much ground to stand on. If you walk away from either the book or the movie without feeling at least a bit dis-oriented, then you've missed something. The writing itself is sleek and polished, with moments when a certain phrase or emphasis is timed brilliantly, causing an almost involuntary and at times uncomfortable laughter. At the same time, the form of the writing itself is geared towards an audience conditioned by the exact consumer culture which it satirizes, reading much like the film that it was eventually made into. I doubt that this irony escaped Palahniuk, whose insights are at times painfully sharp. In the end --whether you find yourself offended or somehow even identifying with the characters-- if you aren't also laughing at yourself and your own reaction then you have, again, missed something.
Rating:
Summary: A book that knocks your teeth down your throat & you love it
Review: I think it might not be completely offbase to say that no one who is considering reading this book now DIDN'T see the movie, and that's kind of problematic, since I spent the entire book with Ed Norton's voiceover telling me everything. What does this book add to the movie experience? A slightly different ending, a little more about Marla, very little scene changing, some more interaction between the narrator and his boss (including what Tyler Durden thinks about that boss). Not much else. However, this is a very cool book. Like it's characters it is abusive, crazy and full of mayhem and it's one of the best adreneline rushes in modern literature. At 200 pages it took me 4 hours to read and I would have done it in one sitting, but I was at work. I also have my review colored by the fact that I read a book by Christy Brown where he spends paragraph upon paragraph describing lush beautiful scenery and his character never does anything and after that kind of Harper's Magazine prose, I NEEDED this book. Read this book. Buy this book. Buy several copies. Give it away as presents. This is one author that deserves all the praise that's being heaped on him.
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