I just finished reading Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters. I prefer the cover on the book I have to the cover at the link.
The book has left me speechless. I have no idea where to even begin. Therefore, if this seems a bit erratic it is because the book hijacked my mind, molested it, and then dumped it back in my head backwards for me to try to sort out.
What was the book about? That is a question that does not have a simple answer. The plot is a bit screwed up, for lack of a better description. The reader should suspect this just from the opening chapter. By the time you meet the narrarator's parents, it is confirmed. The book deals with a fashion model who is shot in the lower half of her face. That tragic event destroys her career. Afterwards, she becomes involved with Brandy Alexander. She travels with Brandy and a man across the US and Canada stealing drugs from houses for sale. This, of course, only scratches the surface of the plot. There are so many plot twists and surprises that the reader is left with his mouth hanging open in shock by the end of the story and asking himself what the hell just happened.
Like all of Palahniuk's books that I have read, this one starts near the end. You start out fairly certain what the ending will be like and read to find out what the crap had to happen for that situation to come about in the first place.
Stylistically, the book is flawless. It reads a bit like a Tarentino movie would if it was forced into a novel. It constantly jumps back and forth on a timeline. It often returns to the same scenes revealing a bit more every time about the characters. However, the amount of time spent at any one scene can be anywhere from a paragraph to a chapter. Palahniuk uses this technique masterfully.
Content-wise, the book is...interesting. There are graphic details concerning plastic surgery and, ummm, other surgeries. The book makes references to and sometimes explains sexual acts of extreme natures. I want to give a bit more detail here, but I'm afraid of what kind of searches might lead here if I did. Palahniuk doesn't pull any punches. All of this helps to show just how messed up the majority of the characters in this story reall are, but I think he put in too much graphic stuff overall.
This is a book I would recommend to even fewer people than Survivor. I'm not sure that most people I know could read this book, and I'm fairly certain a good number of those who could would start reading and stop a few chapters into it. If you really want to know why that is the case, feel free to ask me.
Posted by Randy at March 22, 2004 01:51 AM | TrackBack