Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

by Chuck Palahniuk
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey
book data
4646 ratings, 3.72 average rating, 786 reviews (more data...)
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published
May 6th 2008 (first published 2007) by Anchor Canada

binding
Paperback, 320 pages

isbn
0385663501   (isbn13: 9780385663502)

description
The provocative and mind-bending new novel from the bestselling author of Fight Club and Haunted.

Rant takes the form of...more






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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 6711)




Shannon
bookshelves: festival-of-suck
Read in June, 2008
recommends it for: the drooling rabid
I can't do it. I can't finish this book. Usually Palahniuk creates fairly unsympathetic characters, as in this book, and that I'm used to. Becasuse it WORKS; the plotlines of his books are always ridiculous in a totally fascinating way, which makes up for the stupid characters. However, Rant bored the fuck out of me. I tried. I read more than half and I do not care about this nutjob guy and his rabies and his slobbering all over the ladies, or the driving around in cars being obnoxious or whatev...more
Like this review?   yes   (7 people liked it)
  6 comments

Trin
09/03/08

bookshelves: american-lit, fiction, sci-fi
Read in May, 2008
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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  1 comment

Carrie
08/18/07

bookshelves: sci-fi
Read in August, 2007
First off, a disclaimer. I love Chuck P. like a brother. If the man was on dialysis I'd give him a kidney even if I only had one good one left and consider it payback for all the stories of his that I've enjoyed since discovering his work.

The lowdown: Rant tells the story of Rant Casey - a small town kid that turns his little town on it's ear before moving to the city to continue his work. The book is comprised of accounts from people that knew Rant with only second hand accounts of h...more
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Scott
04/24/08

Read in June, 2007
Wow. How can I possibly describe this book?

Mediocre? Unfocused? Half-assed?

I am a big fan of Palahniuk. I love Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Survivor, Choke, Diary, and Lullaby. I even like Haunted a bit. I think he is great at picking some aspect of American Culture and flipping it over so it's soft white underbelly is clearly visible.

Unfortunately, with Haunted, he appears to have developed a taste for the 'big gross-out.' Rant continues that trend. And what is worse is that the...more
Like this review?   yes   (3 people liked it)
  1 comment

Jason
07/23/07

Read in July, 2007
(Full review can be found at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:].)

So before anything else, a horrible confession: that this is the first novel by Chuck Palahniuk I've ever actually read from cover to cover. Yeah, I know, shame on me! And the reason this is such a big deal, of course, is that I'm an obsessive fan of the movie version of Fight Club, adapted from another of Palahniuk's novels, a film I have officially now seen one zillion freaking times....more
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Nicholas
bookshelves: biography-memoir
Read in July, 2007
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Anica
01/04/08

Read in January, 2008
recommended to Anica by: this crazy librarian
recommends it for: I'm not sure...
Definitely the weirdest book I’ve read by Chuck Palanhuik so far. So bizarrely gross and sick I almost stopped reading it. But I was hoping the stranger the beginning, the bigger the payoff. It was worthwhile, but I wouldn’t recommend this to a casual acquaintance. They’d probably call a psych watch on me.

It starts off about this crazy kid called Rant who intentionally catches rabies and spreads it to as many people as he can. But it’s written like a screenplay, with everyone ch...more
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  1 comment

Pwntalive
Read in July, 2007
recommends it for: flowchart heads
I cant keep this book straight. So im going to break it into 3 sections for my own leasure.

Part One: ok
So basicly rant is this screwed up kid in the american heartland. Grows up in the middle of no place, getting kicks from snakebits and coyote scratches. The kid is basically a testbed for every animal born disease you can contract with out buggering something.
This portion of the book sets it apart from the classic chuck story arc because we see the individual WHILE the screwing up tak...more
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jen
07/19/07

bookshelves: fiction
Read in July, 2007
I'm not a Chuck P fan simply because he is "edgy" or because I get off on the so-called depravity of his often violent and sexual themes. I know a few folks like that. What I enjoyed most about this book was the structure, the measured reveal. Based on the oral tradition, each chapter is composed of brief statements from a cast of dozens. Individually, these narrators are hopelessly unreliable, but taken together they form a whole picture that is more true than any single testimony...more
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R.
10/29/07

bookshelves: 2007
Read in May, 2007
Rant kicked so much ass.

Part of the joy is the idea of a car...with a flaming Christmas tree on top...flying through the air into a body of water...to the, you know, strains of Philip Glass' Violin Concerto II.

Part of the joy comes from the fact this is the first third of a trilogy, apparently.

Part of the joy is that the book is entirely a greatest-hits package of Chuck's strengths...remixed in the "oral biography" form. Like, like if Guns n' Roses wrote ten variations on...more
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  13 comments

Frankie
Read in September, 2007
It is worthy of a car crash, something we slow down to look at despite the cliche of it all. A haphazard of loosely related events that vomits into a novel with a poor plot and charather development, but you just can't stop reading hoping that it will all come together in the brilliance that Palahniuk demonstrates in novels like Lullaby, Choke, and Survivor Type.

Yet it doesn't, at least not for this reader. The sensational and often grotesque details fall flat with a "been there done th...more
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  1 comment

Danya
05/28/08

recommends it for: anyone who has ever experienced road rage
wow .. and can't really even begin to comment on this . Complete mindblower with a really sadistic and twisted view of our society !
Loved it !
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BJ
06/23/08

Read in June, 2008
Never read Chuck. Seen Fight Club of which he authored, but never read him. Let's just say not sure I will read him again. Everything is raw. To be expected. Violence is raw. Sex is raw. Construction of every sentence is raw. Let's just say NC-17 is probably the correct rating. Over-the-top raw. I enjoy raw but this at times is just pure smut and constant hyperbolic literary antics that I can do without.

But, is there anything here worthwhile....yes, Chuck feels that modern life is ...more
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Shannon
Read in June, 2008
Here's what happened as I read that book- I enjoyed it. Then I got angry.

I enjoyed the pacing during the middle part that was mostly chronicling the party crashing, appreciating where he'd pulled inspiration- secret raves, art car culture, cruising culture, etc. I definitely picked up vibes of Ballard's Crash too- that almost became too obvious to me. I liked the overt political use of Night-timer vs. Daytimer. All of that, including the early history of Rant, was finely crafted storytell...more
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Adam
06/20/08

Read in June, 2008
Man, did I enjoy this book--I am already a big Palahniuk fan, though, so use that as your basis if you're somehow thinking of basing your decision to read this solely on my recommendation.

Without really getting into the plot (because, as with most CP books, it's best to dive in without knowing what to expect at all), I will simply say that "Rant" contains the usual marks of most Palahniuk books-- which is to say: bizarre characters, excellent storytelling, fiery language, messed-u...more
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Ritz
04/14/08

bookshelves: autores_preferidos, autor_p_q, horror_suspenso_terror_thrillers
Read in March, 2008
recommends it for: Israel Calzadilla, Mayumi Nojiri y a todo al que le guste Palahniuk
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Melissa
Read in August, 2007
Palahniuk's ability to create vivid imagery is undeniable and the way “Buster Casey” is structured makes it an addictive read. Unfortunately, the story is so bad you feel guilty about reading it when you come down from the immediate gratification high and the hallucinations go away.

The story is told in a series of narrations from the perspective of several different characters. Each character describes their take on the title character and event’s surrounding him. The narrators are rea...more