Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Book 12 – Diary: A Novel

By Chuck Palahniuk

Another book already reviewed by Olman, who does a good synopsis of the story, so I won’t bother. Like Olman, Diary is my first Palahniuk book and I went in not knowing what to expect, perhaps anticipating a kinetic and visceral style like Fight Club, or ridiculously shocking content like Haunted.

What I got instead was a compelling, and deceptively traditional, cult horror story told in a rather unusual style, a mix of first-person narrated by someone in a coma, and third-person told from the perspective of his wife. Story-wise, nothing really stood out for me at first, but I got pulled into Palahniuk’s bizarre universe pretty quick, so Diary ended up being a really good, quick read and made me want to check out other books by the author.

Because I’m feeling lazy and I’ve got a backlog of book reviews, here’s a very decent online review I found.

So now I’ve discovered PK Dick and Chuck Palahniuk. Reading begets more reading… I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.