Choke

Rating:
Summary: The Weakest of Chuck's Books
Review: Choke was, unfortunitely, too much like Fight Club and Invisible Monsters to be exceptional. The narration isn't exciting, the flipping back and forth between past and present is overused and random and the characters are 2 dimentional.

Thank goodness Lullaby will be a new story!

Rating:
Summary: If you are squeamish, this book is not for you, but....
Review: If you can stand some graphic detail of strange sex including rectal foreign objects, then you should love this book. Palahniuk has a tremendous imagination and he takes on such diverse territory. One minute he is skewering organized religion, the next minute he is taking on historical re-enactors. The plot is utterly ridiculous (like Catch 22) yet there is a gritty realism under the absurdities. The reader comes away with a little bit of insight about sexual addiction (maybe even all addictions); a little knowledge about the horrid storage spaces that we call nursing homes; and maybe some understanding how unromantic it is to live at minimum wage. I was fascinated by the realism that underlay the farce. To top it off there is a plot twist at the end that totally sucker punched me--I thought it was great.

Rating:
Summary: Not a book to get stranded on a desert island with
Review: I've been saving up CHOKE for months for a needy moment, which came this morning when I expected to be spending a couple of hours in a doctor's waiting room. After plowing through fifty pages, however, I decided it would be more fun to just stare at the walls, which is what I did. It's an ugly book about the sort of people you'd cross the street to avoid if you saw them coming in time. Maybe it gets better. I don't intend to find out.

Rating:
Summary: Weird, funny book
Review: I read this book in one night and I could not put it down. Not for everyone, but definitely one to read if you like the nihlistic humor of Fight Club.

Rating:
Summary: Very Cool
Review: I just read the other reviews of this book. There's some high and low praises, so I decided to add my two cents. I've read all Chuck's books, and his short stories in Playboy (which, as it turns out, were excerpts from Choke). I have to say I think Chuck Palahniuk is one of the hottest writers out there today. Choke is my current favorite by him, and is definitely worth the read. I'm not the only one who thinks so. My brother and his friends NEVER read, but I read them bits and pieces, and they have since all read Choke, and want to read his others. Buy this book.

Rating:
Summary: a book for those with potential
Review: first of all let me say that the satire and the provocative style in which chuck writes is simply amazing. if you want a books that you can apply to life and change your life for the better chuck's books are where its at. i give this 5 stars because, frankly, this is better than the bible. You cant read this and say it isnt a work of art. me and my friends base a lot of lives around fight club, the idea that the world we see isnt exactly the world we live in. i couldnt see giving this book with the same aspects it shares with fight club anything less than a four star rating, and if anyone does i say to them write something as profound as this work and let me read. i can be almost certain it wont be as profound as the works of palahniuk.

Rating:
Summary: Choke Requires CPR
Review: Palahniuk has created some of the most entertaining literary works of the last several years, but misses with Choke. All of Chuck's novels share nihilistic themes that start small and easy to grasp, only to lead you down a demented plot line full of exciting characters and an eventual plot twist. This worked well with Fight Club and Invisible Monsters, but seemed tired and well worn with this attempt.

Choke is based on a character that was abused by his single mother at a young age. Now, through some twisted guilt, he is forced to support her in an expensive medical ward while she rapidly deteriorates. His minimum wage job at the historical park, Colonial Dunsboro where it is perpetually 1734, does not begin to approach the mounting medical costs. To find a second source of income our main character (Victor) pretends to choke at every restaurant within 100 mile radius. Every time Victor does this an innocent bystander is transformed into a "hero" and this "hero" seems obliged to give Victor money. Not only does he get money on the spot, but on the "anniversary" of the heroic event as well. The justification behind this is that once a person has saved Victor's life then they're responsible for it and want to help out in any way they can. Pretty thin if you ask me.

Throughout the book you get a Fight Club feel as Victor attends help sessions for Sexaholics. The only reason I gave this book more than one star was for a specific chapter where Victor meets a girl at one of these meetings who likes to get fake raped. Victor tries to meet her needs only to see the event go amusingly awry.

What worked in Chuck's other books do not work here. The inevitable twist is lame and the nihilistic themes were weak. If you want a good Palahniuk book, I strongly recommend "Invisible Monsters" and "Fight Club". The only readers that will get any level of satisfaction from this book are those who have read Chuck's other three novels and can say; "I've read them all".

Rating:
Summary: 3 1/2 Stars for another good, quick read
Review: I've basically come to the conclusion that the first Palahniuk book you read will be your favorite. So if you haven't touched this guy yet then just pick one (well, my biased opinion would recommend Fight Club, since that was my first read), it will be fresh, a great read, and something that gets you to think. It will probably even challenge you towards more books and authors that put their books out with something to say, rather than the abundance of authors simply trying to catch your attention span long enough to get on the best seller list.

But none of Palahniuk's books ever quite matches the pure elation of my first Palahniuk (though Invisible Monsters did come quite close). Palahniuk utilizes gimmicks as his style, and while it seems fresh at first, the more of him you read the more it becomes derivative. Each book is your usual assortment of twists, shocks, catchy-phrases, classic losers, and then the surprise ending. And each time, no matter how challenging Palahniuk's theme may be, I get a little less interested. Don't let this mislead you, I'm still a fan of Palahniuk, I've read all four of Palahniuk's books, and they're always good reads. I'll be one of the first to pick up his next book, but I'm going to be hoping that it's not more of the same. Being fresh all the time eventually gets stale too.

To be fair, and to maybe give some insight as to where I'm coming from, I had the same problem with Vonnegut. Loved the first book I read by him, had practically just as much fun with my second book. The third one was enjoyable and just as quick a read as the others, but by the fourth one I was getting the hang of it and didn't really feel the need to read anymore. This basically mirrors my Palahniuk experience, though Chuck has still got me coming back for more.

So in summary, Choke is as good a place to start as any. For the veterans of Palahniuk, you'll like it too, especially if you haven't tired of his gimmicks yet. But, as much as you'll likely enjoy it, you probably won't get the same visceral thrills from it as you did with your first Palahniuk novel.

Rating:
Summary: Mr. Palahniuk's Wild Ride
Review: Chuck Palahniuk continues to startle us with his unique voice in literature. During a time when the world is at a peak of madness few of us ever dreamed, most of us seek solace in works of wonder, of wisdom, of elegance in writing - books such as the ones by the late, much missed WG Sebald, or Jose Saramaga, or Jim Crace, or Mark Doty. But that level of this sublime needs comic relief. And here is the wildest ride of mayhem, madness, and just plain imagination that one could encounter!

Reviewed so many times in this section, it is unnecessary to outline the characters or the plot. In ways, though they are succinctly and cleverly drawn, the people of this opus seem less important than the afterburn that follows reading "Choke". Sifted through this intricate maze of a sexaholic's dealing with his questionable heritage, his Alzheimer's stricken "mother", his meanderings through countless sexual encounters and interactions with a hooty group of friends...sifted through this are eloquent musings on where we are today, members of a world gone nuts, and what we can do to survive it. In Palahniuk's words: "Every ddiction, she said, was just a way to treat this same problem. Drugs, overeating or alcohol or sex, it was all just another way to find peace. To escape what we know. Our education. Our bite of the apple. Language, she said, was just our way to explain away wonder and the glory of the world. To deconstruct. To dismiss. She said people can't deal with how beautiful the world really is. How it can't be explained and understood". Beautiful writing like this in the background of a story of mental mayhem is indeed wondrous.......and it makes this book very much worth reading for just about any-thinking-body.

Rating:
Summary: What happened to the heart of Invisible Monsters?
Review: I am constnalty mixed in my thoughts of Mr. Palahniuk an his writing ability. His thoughts are grand, his abilities are limited.Fight Club was far better on screen then on papaer. Survivor was an interesting satire and is one of the best of his 4 books. My favorite is Invisible Monsters because it had so much to say, and said it so well. You actually begin to feel for the main character who is forced to muffle her voice because half of her face is missing. And it had plenty of twists that made me very happy. This book on th other hand was just Mr. Palahniuk trying to continue his shock-writing for one last thrill, and it has as much excitement as a low grade porno film. It seems like all he is trying to do is shock us into being interested rather then creating interesting characters. YOu have no sympahty for this pathetic sex addict with a bad mother. Boo-Hoo By the end we could care less, and are more digusted with all the graphic details that were very unecessary.

in the end, what was the point? Invisible Monsters had comments on inner beauty, our cultures view of beauty, and materialism. That was his first book written before Fight Club. It seems he has lost his sense of wanting to convey a message, and just wants to either be gross or funny.