Rating: 
Summary: from an artist
Review: I loved that Chuck really researched about art - right down to the weight of the paper, hot press, pigments, sable brushes, the artists who copied from mirrors. It shows how dedicated he must be. That really impressed me. His writing style and the story are both excellent, too. I loved how graphology is used to explain some things and the stating-the-facts way that Misty writes. It's extremely interesting, a little funny, and becomes very eerie toward the end. The thing that is horribly creepy, is people always tell me "You will be a famous artist one day." Everytime i hear that now, my skin crawls.
Rating: 
Summary: He improves
Review: I grudgingly admit that Palahniuk is one of our best living authors. Grudgingly, because I think his cult status allows him to get away with too much sometimes, resorting to cheap cleverness in his style, blasting his message without caring who's listening...when I heard him read from Diary (which was a definite experience), he mentioned a desire to be more subtle and to stop 'preaching to the choir' so much, which I applaud, and which I think has been succesful. With 'Choke,' he told a surprisingly down-to-earth and excellent story, but followed with the unfortunate, completley over-the-top Lullaby, and now comes Diary, which is back in the same groove as Choke. The protagonist and other characters seem much more human, and the setting much more real (probably because, for the first time, he pays considerable attention to setting). His trademark style - repetition, fragmentation, the occasional fine-tuned sentence - works to better effect than ever, and when the plot finally begins to swell to more grandiose proportions near the end, it actually seems interesting instead of just, 'oh, there he goes again.' There are moments, though, which still seem indulgent. For instance a certain character's sideline in the porcelain business: this grandmother labors to find rare, outdated patterns for her customers, and at one point ponders: "Why is it that people only want a pattern after it's been discontinued?" This kind of blunt social commentary can't really be seen as anything else. In the end, I think he still has some ways to go, but Diary is promising, not to mention a good book on its own terms. It's not as funny as Fight Club or Survivor, but I like to think that with books like this, Palahniuk's cult status will endure past this century.
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: Chuch is Chuck
Review: Chuck Palahniuk is if anything predictable. His books seem to always explore the big picture through details. He seems to take the normal and dissect until it is absurd. Lullaby is his standard example and innovated brilliance in as much of a combination as you can get. For those of you who watched Fight Club and enjoyed figuring out how soap making could degrade social destruction by way of the essence of male bonding; you will enjoy how a the muscels in your face can describe three different ways of dealing with suicide. This was Chuck's most inspring book, as it looks at where the seeds of our own creativity lie. However, reading three of his books in six months became a little repetitive for my tastes.
Rating:
Summary: "what you don't understand you can make mean anything"
Review: Every time I delve into a Chuck Palahniuk novel I am left in complete awe. His prose is so truly unique and yet so terribly common. Diary, like all of his novels, has an outlandish twist that somehow remains very familiar and relatable. He is quite good at making the very mundane seem remarkably complex and perverse. Chuck has something to say, and he is clearly not afraid to say it. Fortunately, his message never comes across as preachy. Instead, he uses sarcasm and humor (along with completely absurd plots that become second nature to the avid Chuck reader) to convey his message. To say the least, Diary is a very good (and quick) read.
I would like to comment, however, on how this novel truly isn't his best work.
It is undoubtedly representative of his style-a nihilistic plot exacerbated by a group of demented characters. Nevertheless, it is not his best work.
Therefore, if you are unfamiliar with Chuck's work, I highly recommend you start elsewhere (perhaps with Fight Club). On another somewhat random note: there has been talk about turning this novel into a film. Something to look forward to...
Rating:
Summary: A Fulfilling Departure
Review: Diary is a departure for Chuck Palahniuk. Best known for his bleak urban dramas, Palahniuk has set out to capture the mindset of a Coma Diary of a woman who's husband lies unresponsive in the hospital after attempting suicide. Similar to how Rikki Lee Travolta set out to capture the mindset of the downfallen Hollywood actor addict in My Fractured Life, Palahniuk really delves into giving the reader the full experience of seeing the world through the eyes of Misty Tracy Wilmont. The picture is sometimes bizarre, as anyone who read Palahniuk's Fight Club would not be surprised by. It is definitely a good book, but you need to go into it with an open mind. Those looking for a recreation of Palahniuk's previous work (Fight Club, Choke, Lullaby) will be taken off guard by the new surroundings he has chosen for this story and may be better served with trying on The 25th Hour by David Benioff, American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis, or My Fractured Life by Rikki Lee Travolta. But for those who can trust Palahniuk to introduce new territory, Diary will surely fulfill.
Rating:
Summary: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
Review: The writing of a diary is often a personal and highly private endeavor. A diary's privacy and confidentiality free the diarist from the constraints of concerns about how others view them, leading to an opportunity for unadulterated honesty. The need for privacy is why some diaries are sold with locks affixed. Humans want control over how others perceive them; this is why many people lock their diaries in storage chests. Many a parent/child relationship have been damaged when the parent reads the child's/teen's diary and the parent reads of deviance committed. Sometimes diaries directly result in divorce after a spouse reads about their partner's infidelities. Some diarists do not seek privacy, rather they write 'diaries' (memoirs, notebooks) in hopes of publishing their work. These works I don't consider diaries because they don't allow absolute honesty. The diarist will censor the material in order to manipulate their image for readers. Enter the ever-inventive, ever-energetic Palahniuk. He turns the notion of diary on its own head. He allows the diarist (Misty Traci Wilmot) to unload bitter, unadulterated truths for an audience of one: her husband: Peter Wilmot: who vegetates in a 'botched suicide coma.' Misty pens a 'coma diary' comprised of many parts: stream of consciousness venting, self-reflection, historical documentation, sociological analysis, self-loathing, love letter, literary exercises, paranoia, private investigation, etc. Palahniuk, like in _Fight Club_, also utilizes literary tricks to blur conventional lines (of art, diaries, love, family, schooling, tourism, citizenship, etc.). Palahniuk is my favorite living novelist, but I find his voice drowning out Misty's. Some of Misty's entries (for example: 133, 189, 95, etc.) don't feel realistic based on her academic and occupational background. There are many points where the 'coma diary' appears written for others (excluding Misty and Peter). I give this novel a high rating due to energy, suspense, inventiveness, poignant prose, enjoyment, intimate knowledge, and social criticism. Even as I argued with the believability of the medium, I delighted in every page and celebrated many of the snippets of quotable brilliance. This review ends with two quotes that helped inform and guide my reading (as well as inform my investigations into symbolic interactionism). "No detail is anything in itself," (p. 135). "What you don't understand you can make mean anything," (p. 136).
Rating: 
Summary: Chuck is channeling Anne Rice
Review: I wish I would've trusted the negative reviews and at least waited till this came out on paperback, but I've loved every previous Palahniuk novel.
Of course, the writing style is still great, but the storyline is so contorted that you're fully half way through the book before you begin to realize that this novel has a plot closer to something Anne Rice would have thrown away as an early manuscript in her Lasher series than anything Chuck has written before. You keep thinking that some ridiculous plot twist is going to turn the story back into something really intriguing, instead of a sad paranormal misadventure.
One of the things I love about Palahniuk novels is how he makes an interesting story about really screwed-up people trying to make sense of a world they don't fit into. This story is about a fairly normal woman living in a town of screwed-up people waiting for a savior.
Not a horrible book, but by far the worst Palahniuk novel.
Rating:
Summary: Congratulations, Chuck. You're the coolest.
Review: I just finished reading this book about ten minutes ago and I really did love it, but I don't know how to rate it really. I've only read bits of Chuck's earlier works - the beginning of Lullaby, which I intend to read more of starting tomorrow, and most of Invisible Monsters. I loved Invisible Monsters' edge, Chuck's ruthless plot twists and what not. But, while it fit the story, I wasn't a huge fan of all his sexual this and that, which was basically the main topic in Invisible Monsters. For me, reading Diary was a nice refreshing escape from that style that I both loved and didn't love. Only, I can't quite decide what I think of Diary as it's own individual novel. Some of his repetitious statements showed up way too much, though I enjoyed the 'weather' forecasts. The plot is still kind of blurred for me, too, but what seemed VERY odd to me was just how sad it all is. I wasn't as excited to turn the page as I was depressed. I wanted to see it through, but I was so sad for Misty through the second half or so. But, I guess that shows a connection that Palahniuk was able to make. And, despite the strange surreal sadness it's brought about me, I think that Diary is one very fabulous book that should at least get a look from any Palahniuk fan. Congratulations, Chuck. You're the coolest.
Rating: 
Summary: rather disappointing
Review: despite all the hooplah surrounding palahniuk's writing, i never quite got around to picking up one of his novels until i tripped across DIARY in a border's, read the first page, and was hooked. i loved what he was doing there. and i continued to love it for the first fifty or sixty pages. totally got what all the fuss was about. then i started to run into the problems. the first problem DIARY has is its protagonist, mistie marie, who, while being smart enough and well read enough to have a fact and/or anecdote related to every event in her life, is too stupid to realize what is going on around her, despite the fact that she's making it perfectly clear to the reader, who is supposed to be reading her diary. as a reader, it's hard to be a sympathetic toward a character who is smart but behaves idiotically. it becomes comic when mistie marie is led to a woods by her daughter, where they find mistie's mother in law waiting with a picnic basket for mistie. in the basket are sandwiches. mistie takes a bite of one and says it tastes funny. granda tells her, it's just the cilantro. okay. then mistie offers some sandwich to her daughter. the reply? grandma told me not to. how do you have sympathy for a character so idiotic that in the face of a funny tasting sandwich that her own daughter was advised not to eat by her grandmother, eats the sandwich anyway? the novel is full of such idiocy on the part of our protagonist. the second problem is the story itself. as this is the first palahniuk novel i've read, i can't say whether it's standard of him, but in DIARY he makes the story interesting by holding back information on what's happening, making events seem very intriguing -- "a man called from long beach to say his bathroom has disappeared." the problem is, when we finally find out what's happening, it's a let down, it's so prosiac you don't really care. he does this with small details, like the disappearance of several rooms, to major details, like the entire plot, which, in the end, is nothing. so much of DIARY is sizzle without steak, smoke without fire, etc. it's almost worth reading for the prose alone. for little bits and pieces that are interesting in and of themselves. but taken as a whole, there's so much that's disappointing about DIARY that i can't give it more than three stars, and those more for the potential than the results.
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