I know I’m supposed to not like Chuck Palahniuk, but I’m enjoying Haunted. It’s some nice, light fare that is written in a very easily digestable way. It’s definitely a nice break from the more prose-y, specific, or scientific authors I usually read. It’s nice and gentle, no eye-blearing sentences filled to the brim with words, upon words, upon words. All short ‘n’ sassy. He opens with that ‘Guts’ story, though, which I think is a bad idea. How can you top that? I doubt he will have topped it by the end of my reading the book.
I also really liked Lullaby when I read it years ago, same with Choke. There was one I tried to read, but just couldn’t be bothered to finish; I think it might’ve been Invisible Monsters. That came around the same time people started saying he was a hack, a gimmick, something that introduces young adults to ””””alternative fiction””””’ but not an author you’ll be reading past 25. Well…I am like, five years away from 25 and I’m reading a book of his that is pretty much as entertaining as any other thing nearby, so~~!!~!~!
Wow, I had no idea he was gay. Not that it is pertinent or anything, it was just something I didn’t know. Also, talk about shitty, what happened to his dad and his girlfriend. People more or less aren’t that great.
I’m liking Haunted though, and I don’t care who knows it! Yes, I know it was published a few years ago and it probably would’ve made more sense for me to have read it back then, back when I purchased it, but NAY it’s time languishing in my closet has done it well! For instance, the spine bends easily. You don’t get THAT with a brand new book, do you? So, there is that. Also, I look edgier because it is sort of an older edition, an edition printed in the U.K., even, because I bought it when I was there.
Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is, it is nice to have an easy-to-read, short-sentence author that creates interesting plot devices, interesting characters, and interesting situations (also, one that is gross)–sort of like how other people would read romance (Jodi Picoult, I think is one of them) or those “”"”chick-lit”"”"” books like…The Time Traveller’s Wife or god I don’t even know, Gossip Girl? The books women read at “beaches”, or while waiting in hospital lobbies. I read one of those sort of books in my entire life, and I wish I never, ever did. Ever. Even though the book wasn’t terrible (The Lovely Bones) and I was of an age where any amount of reading was considered pretty alright, it just feels dirty to remember it. I mean, that is the sort of book women who haven’t read for leisure at all, the entire time they’ve been alive, picks up at an airport because their flight has been delayed a few hours. I despise that genre of book. If you want that sort of shit, just rent Sex in the City. Or better yet, don’t do anything like that, stop wanting ‘light-hearted emotiontainment’, and grow up. Also, don’t read Harry Potter, or Twilight, or anything like that. Those books are meant for children, you goons. I’m not saying you’ve got to be up to your Balzac in Dostoevsky, but just read something that was meant for your age group, at the very least–and isn’t exclusively meant to entertain “single, twenty-something women”–because well, here…I can just give you a quick synopsis, without ever even so much as reading one:
“BOYFRIENDS BOYFRIENDS SINGLE NOW ACK HE WAS A BAD BOYFRIEND, HANGING OUT WITH FRIENDS ONE IS CATTY, ONE IS A HOMOSEXUAL MALE WHO IS JUST HILARIOUS (((‘OH TIM I WISH YOOOOU’D BE MY BOYFRIEND’))), ONE IS REALLY PRETTY BUT SORT OF DUMB/NAIVE/SLUTTY, AND ONE IS JUST LIKE ME, ACK, ACK, ACK! I’M ALLY MCBEAL FOR GENERATION NEXXXT, I’M A CAREER GAL BUT I WANT TRUE LOVE ANYWAY, SQUAWK, SQUAWK, SQUAWK! MINOR INTRIGUE AMONG OUR GAGGLE OF HENS ONE OF US IS CHEATING ON HER HUSBAND, AHHH~~I FIND A BOYFRIEND AND AFTER SOME MINOR CONFLICT CONCERNING MY CAREER WE ARE ENGAGED HE PUTS UP WITH ALL OF MY NEUROSIS AND I LET HIM WATCH FOOTBALL ATITTER TITTER AGEEGGEEEGEEE”
Interstitially, mention actual stores or items of clothing, real-life baubles to get the lady’s purchase-gland working alongside the Oh My God, This Book is Just Like Real Life with My Friends and Storefronts!! oblongata.
see:
Karen grabbed her Birkin Bag and jetsetted off to her next high-profile meeting, all the while thinking of Tad, glorious Tad. Her Gay Friend calls her on her Blackberry Curve, and makes a really excellent joke about Tad’s hanging ‘Tad’, a reference to the 2000 election and the conflict in Florida over hanging ‘Chad’s. Derrick is a really good friend, and if he wasn’t a Gay Man with a Live-In Partner Karen would love to just watch The Notebook with him, over, and over, and over again. Karen sighs dreamily and awakes from this daydream, only to see that the cattiest darn lawyer in the entire firm has just came into the subway car. “Weelllll, if it isn’t Kaaaareeeen, the other giiirl I work with whom I feel a lot of hostiiility towards because we’re wooomeeen and we just can’t accept being possible sexual compeeetittoooors,” cackles Lauren. “Take it easy, Lauren. I’m a girl’s girl, totally accepting of other girls’ faults ‘n’ follies, you’ll see, in time you’ll learn to get along with me! I’m sure I’ll just find out you’ve got an abusive boyfriend, or you are an alcoholic but not in a really dangerous, scary way,” titters Karen. “We’ll grow to become close friends and confidantes, probably directly after some big fight. Maybe I’ll see you are cheating on your ‘hubby’ who is also a partner at our big, childish law firm, and I’ll threaten to tell him of your exploits. At that point, you’ll fall into a heap, crying out that he’ll kill you if he finds out, and that he is such a monster, and you’re also totally drunk. I’ll understand and help you; after all, I’m a girl, a-giggle!” a-giggles Karen, fiddling with her Thakoon poncho, on sale for 4,590 dollars at Nordstrom.
I think I’m on to something here. Chick-lit, let’s do this thing. I’m ready if you’re ready, to FORGET EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT READING BOOKS!!!
