It’s very intelligent, but also felt “preachy,” and though the characters represented all different backgrounds, they mostly were each cut from the same cloth: selfish, troubled, and redundant. Indeed, in the book’s afterword Palahniuk details how on a book tour, there was a rash of people who fainted after he read excerpts of the stories.Īlthough the book is a satirical view of culture and human motivation, I feel the author sacrificed absorbing writing for shock and absurdity. Thus, they destroy their own food, sabotage the heating and plumbing, and invent villains amongst themselves, almost like a “Lord of the Flies” for adults.Įach character’s flashback is a short story of itself, and Palahniuk doesn’t hold back when going through the gambit of the most perverse and horrific scenarios one would dare to imagine. However, instead of trying to escape, they each decide that the more horrific they make their own circumstances, then the greater story they will have to tell (and, by proxy, notoriety) once they are rescued. The plot revolves around a group of writers who become locked inside an abandoned movie theatre by their mysterious benefactor. Unfortunately, this book just didn’t work that well for me. Coupled with the fact that I’m a Palahniuk fan, and I was excited to jump into this. HAUNTED is often lauded on the “best of” lists of modern horror literature. Chuck Palahniuk is best known as the author of “FIGHT CLUB” which became the Fincher masterpiece movie in 1999.

HAUNTED is a collection of short stories that, interrelated, compose the greater make-up of a full-size novel, as each story is the flashback of one of the characters. Interesting stories that will stick with me for awhile. It would have been even better if it felt more cohesive. Hard to feel anything for them because they all made horrendous decisions. I thought the people at the retreat were stupid beyond belief. And there was the stories that we're told. There was the story of all the people at the writer's retreat. The format of the book was a little weird.

The stories all had interesting twists and a connection to the character telling the story. My favorite stories in the collection were Slumming and Dissertation. Although we both agreed if we were watching it happen, we would probably be grossed out. She laughed out loud several times while reading. I thought maybe I was just jaded, so I had a coworker read it. But the story didn't provoke any great feelings from me. I had already heard about 'Guts', supposed to have induced people to faint during readings. I went into this novel hoping it would be scary.

Haunted chuck