Rating: 
Summary: This book won't leave your hands
Review: Normally, when I see a movie before reading the book it's based upon, I find myself very disillusioned. I will find that the movie is far less superior to the book (ie - The Lost World, The Beach,) and when I begin reading the novel, it becomes tedious because I am using the movie characters and scenes in my head rather than my own imagination.This is simply not so with Chuck Palahniuk's 'Fight Club.' The book itself completely emerges you into a dark and sinister world which the movie does a very good job in visually complimenting. The characters become a contradiction of you liking them and disliking them all at once. Tyler Durden, the posterchild of post-Y2K Generation Xer's, is a man with a plan. He is ruthless and unpredictable, everything you would not want to find in your best friend, but the detail and energy the author gives to him makes us all wish, consciously or subconsciously, that we could all be like him. What Palahniuk delivers is a frenzied and rebellious journey into all of our deepest fears that by the end of the novel turns to be our deepest fantasies. This is possibly one of the most compelling stories told about our angst-driven generation as of yet. I highly recommend it to anyone who has at least once thought about how ridiculous the world we live in is. Chuck Palahniuk is a Joseph Conrad of our times.
Rating:
Summary: the book/movie are some of the best in years
Review: For once, the book and movie actually complement each other. They both need to be experienced in oder to get the whole picture. Chuck is a fantastic writer (Survivor rocks) and this book needs, I repeat NEEDS, to be read and experienced...
Rating:
Summary: a guide to create total wourld anarchy
Review: this is one of the coolest books i ever read its just as good as the movie but a totle difrent experience although it still follows the basic part of the movie it has thing not in the movie, events in the book happen for diffrent resons than they do in the movie it also has a diffrent ending wich although i didnt care for to much leaves the ending open for your own ideas or maby a sequal? and it also has some nice step by steps on how to create some bombs and im pretty sure there acurate (unlike the anarchy cook book) soo ifyou thought the movie was the coolest like me than read the book and i am pretty confident you will like it or if yourlook ing for a guid for world demise of the human race or just a good bomb making book than this is it. its the coolest dont expect the movie when you read this.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoughful, engrossing
Review: Like a few of the other reviewers, I did see the movie first. This, of course, made me read much more into the wording of the book than I should have had the right to do. The story itself was well thought out and full of little bits of satire. A club that revolves around beating eachother to a pulp survives on it's sale of soap. And what better way for a group of men raised by the weaker sex to vent frustration than in a no-holds-barred street fight? The book also says a bit about society as a whole, and whether or not being a upper-middle class drone is the most fulfilling way to live life. Is being able to buy the the most expensive dust ruffle for your bed really the way to make you a better person? Is Fight Club one step up or one step down from the evolution process? What's worse, millions of people spending their lives punching numbers or total anarchy? This is a great book, a fast read. It definitely makes you think about what's important.
Rating:
Summary: I know because Tyler knows
Review: It is in life that you reach the point. Better, THE point. When you cant sleep, think or do anything because this world that you live in is an economical crap. Everything is about money, succes, getting better, bigger, more powerful then anybody else. But if you look harder, you see that you are falling down. Falling fast. Fast as this book? Maybe. You see, this book is great example, what can really happen someday to us. Aliens, A-Bombs, volcanos, godzilas, dinosaurs, viruses can come, and maybe they will. But ask yourself, what is more possible: to be zapped by an alien laser or killed by a guy, who is fed up with life because its full of s**t and greed and without sensitivity? Read this book, wach a movie and see, what could happen. Impossible? I dont think so.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Screenplay Adaptation of 1999
Review: See the movie before you read the book. I saw the movie three times before I began hunting for the book. It disappeared from the shelves once the DVD came out. Surprises and plot twists blow you away in the movie, but leave you saying, "Oh, yeah?" in the book. Chuck Palahniuk had a brilliant idea, and his novel is written in a string of similies and metaphors, vivid descriptions coming from an unidentified Everyman as he tries to find meaning in a soulless existence he hates. The book is organized in a stream of consciousness, leading into events, then backtracking to see how those events transpired. Tyler Durden is one of the most enigmatic and fascinating characters created since Alex in Anthony Burgess' Clockwork Orange. Durden takes the Adbusters magazine view of life, refuting consumerism, with a Christian slant, as he encourages physical pain and self-abasement in the pursuit of spiritual purity. "It's only when you lose everything that you're free to do anything," he says. He's what every guy wants to be--fearless, tough, forthright and masculine, with a raw power that attracts followers, and gains Marla's worship. The movie screenplay condensed characters, put key events in a better context, and captured enough of the narration to convey meaning, while not clouding the story. This book received three stars because it fizzles out. Tyler's character stops growing about three quarters through the book, and Palahniuk seems to start fearing what he created in Tyler. The movie's superb ending is a definite improvement. I'm considering getting a DVD player so I can watch the Fight Club DVD, which has outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage from the film, which should become a cult classic among working- and middle-class men who continue to ask themselves in a modern society what it means to be a man.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Elite
Review: Quite simply, this is one of the best books I have ever read. Aside from the message, the audience it speaks too (and audience that includes me), and all the other political stuff involved, it's just a great story, and Chuck is a great storyteller. Do youself a favor and read this book
Rating:
Summary: Fight Club Rules
Review: Like other reviewers, I wish I had read the book before I saw the movie. But I'm glad I read the book anyways. The movie follows the book very closely and is EXTREMELY well written. I did like the ending in the movie better than that of the book though. I can't wait to read more books by Palahniuk. FIGHT CLUB RULES!
Rating:
Summary: Remaining Men Together
Review: For me, Fight Club was a spontaneous experience. I went to themovies to see the Sixth Sense and it just happened to be opening nightfor Fight Club. So I went to see it instead, because I liked Ed Norton in Primal Fear. I seriously expected a movie like an adult version of Karate Kid, what I got was one of the best movies I've ever seen.
Of course, I went out and read the book soon after, and my honest opinion is this: the movie is better.
However, there is a dilema involved here, there is a major plot twist in the story. If you see the movie first, the book experience is ruined. If you read the book first, the movie experience is ruined. My view may have been swayed by this factor.
The book is completely different though. This is not some 'book of the movie', the book was written four years earlier, and both have very different endings.
The problem with the book is not that its gut-wrenchingly hardcore when compared to the movie, its that there are other factors here that the movie left out that detract from the story.
And what a story it is. A regular office worker, like almost anybody these days, comes to the realisation that the only reason he earns money is to buy useless furnishings. He is part of the IKEA generation.
Then he meets Tyler Durden, a man who believes that the only way to self discovery is self destruction. Together they start Fight Club, a group that quickly gains a massive following.
I enjoyed the book, and I recommned it to anyone who enjoyed the movie. You'll find that it adds new depth to the story, and the alternate ending is quite interesting.
My hat comes off to Jim Uhls who wrote the movie script though, the two manage to be completely different, and yet there is barely one line in the movie that isn't in the book.
Rating:
Summary: A perfect companion for the movie
Review: Having read the book first, I was very weary that this could actually be pulled off as a movie. I was wrong. The book itself is actually written in a very cinematic way. It moves at a lightning fast pace, has a lot of great dialogues, moves around a lot, and it has a lot of big, theatrical-like events. To say that the book is better than the movie is not necessarily true. They are both excellent in their own rights, although the book comes off slightly more enjoyable in my opinion. Either way, my suggestion is to read the book AND see the movie, both several times.
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