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Dec 17, 2009

Jeff rated it:

Oh Chuck Palahniuk, why do the kids love you? Years and years and years have passed while I have worked in a bookstore and every single year is the same, some kind of cool hipster guy or girl will come in and ask for anything by Chuck Palahniuk, bestowing praises upon his writing. Okay, I get it. The hipsters love him. Brad Pitt was in a movie based on a Palahnuik book, which was about crazy wacky anarchy, which the young hipsters love.
So, I finally sat myself down and cracked open thi More...

15 comments like (39 people liked it)

Aug 16, 2007

Logan rated it:

When you pick up a Chuck Palahniuk book you know that you are going to plunge ever-so-briefly into a raging torrent of absurdity, horror so whimsical that you laugh even as you cringe, and insightful looks at contemporary living. It seems a cheap shot to call his work formulaic, but once you've read through 6 or 7 of his books, the pattern emerges and you have a vague idea of what to expect.

It was Lullaby that finally brought this realization home to me. You have the protagonist, a More...

3 comments like (12 people liked it)

Aug 08, 2011

scil rated it:

E' il primo libro che leggo di Palahniuk e.. che dire, è riuscito a conquistarmi!
Trama originale, assurda e geniale.
L'autore è riuscito ad accostare due mondi in maniera perfetta: quello surreale e quello reale.
In un mondo dove esiste una ninna nanna capace di uccidere le persone, dove esiste Helen Hoover Boyle (ma quant'è magnifica?) e i suoi capelli soffici e rosa, esistono anche persone che non sanno più pensare con la loro testa ma che vengono condizionate dai media.
Chu More...

4 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Michael rated it:

The war of who can crank their radio louder than their neighbor. Avoiding the big picture by looking at things too closely. Big Brother filling your head with marketing noise 24-7 so you he doesn't have to worry about what your thoughts cause he created them. Control. Unlikely families. Journalism. These are the tried-and-true themes that Palahniuk has worked before in other forms in other books and they all come together nicely with Chuck's dead pan, sarcastic sense of humor. The premis More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Matt rated it:

Chuck has never been a very good writer. He comes up with interesting ideas, uses them as a vehicle for a shitty novel, then I read it, and am disappointed every time. I have since stopped reading his books but my girlfriend says they still suck.

2 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jun 30, 2011

Marco rated it:

Divertente e terribilmente reale. Diventa forse un po' troppo confuso alla fine, ma comunque un ottimo libro, indubbiamente superiore a Fight Club. Sublime il personaggio di Helen Hoover Boyle.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2008

Catten rated it:

Palahniuk, the Portlander (Oregon, not Maine) who wrote the cult classic Fight Club, has four other novels. One of them is Lullaby, which might or might not be just as off-the-wall as its more popular brother.

The book opens with a scene from a real estate office. Helen Hoover Boyle and her assistant Mona listen to a police scanner for deaths (and potential sales) and field calls from frightened new homeowners who have bought what Helen calls "distressed" (haunted) houses. H More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 27, 2008

Nate rated it:

Palahniuk makes another social statement(criticism) with Lullaby, but this time with more humor than he's mustered in any of his other books. It definitely helps to be somewhat cynical about the modern world, if you want to enjoy this book (good rule of thumb w/ any C.P books). But even if you love life, there's much to appreciate in the this book, mainly the fact that it's hysterically funny and the events that occur that are really bizarre.
The story revolves around the main chara More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 16, 2007

Tim rated it:

Like all of Palahniuk’s work, Lullaby is a fairly strange, twisted take on society. In this case, the focus is on folklore and the rather corrupt moral compass that seems to drive modern man.

For anyone who’s read Palahniuk before, you probably already know what to expect from his writing. He uses a fairly informal tone and relies on short, rapid sentences to keep the action moving. His characters are painted in vivid, near comic terms at times, and their motivations are fairly trans More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 26, 2011

Kelanth, in tenebris lux tua rated it:

Palahniuk si conferma un grande scrittore, un gran narratore, uno che inventa storie e incanta con le sue parole.
Chi leggerà questo libro troverà tutte le tematiche care all'autore: i personaggi strampalati e costantemente "sopra le righe", malinconia, scrittura priva di avverbi e altre particelle che rallentano il ritmo del periodo, stile crudo e interrotto, ripetizioni ad effetto. Troverà la critica verso la società moderna, i mass-media ossessivi, troverà come sempre il finale More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 18, 2008

Sean rated it:

The only novel by the acclaimed author of Fight Club that I've read, this book is more or less an essay concerning the contaminating effects caused by the constant "noise" to which American's have grown accustomed in their lives. Be it mass media, advertisements everywhere one turns, or talking heads always telling one what to do and when to do it, this noise is everywhere, and utterly inescapable, the author argues. While I generally agree with the author's displeasure over constant More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 17, 2008

Michele rated it:

Aside from not knowing how to pronounce this author's last name, reading this book was quick and easy (I read it in three days worth of bus rides to school and back). But just because it's an easy read doesn't mean it's not thought provoking.

Palahniuk wrote Fight Club which was made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. (If you haven't seen the movie, go see it - it combines the uncertainty of a Sixth Sense or the confusion of a Memento with the light hearted social critiq More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 10, 2008

Nicholas rated it:

Attention Readers of Edgy Black Writings, of Chuck Palahniuk

If you've read Lullaby and have felt bored you are not alone.

OKay, so this is my fourth Palahniuk book and I enjoyed the first three so much (Survivor, Choke, & Invisible Monsters)and I was very excited to read this. I got through most of it and felt really bored and unsatisfied. I mean I love the idea of the culling song and having the power to kill by voice even if you just say it in your head but I think the c More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 05, 2008

Lauren rated it:

Lullaby was my first book to read by Chuck Palahniuk. I was so very impressed with his writing style and his well-crafted story.

Assigned to investigate Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, a reporter uncovers an ancient culling spell. When he learns the power of the spell, and the damage it can do, he sets out with some other very interesting characters, to remove this poem/spell from every library and bookstore in the country.

In my opinion, the power of Palahniuk's style is in More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 06, 2010

Tracey rated it:

I got Lullaby as a pass-along from my mom a few months ago & finally started reading it earlier this week.

Wow. I don't think I've read anything this powerful & bleak since the first time I read Cat's Cradle. Carl Streator is a reporter with a terrible past, investigating SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). He discovers that the deaths all seem to have something in common: a book of poems & rhymes that contains a culling song - a simple poem that kills whenever it is recited. He is jo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 08, 2007

Pwntalive rated it:

I learned from this book:
That Chuck Palahniuk hates humanity.
His outlook is bleak, basicly he's unimpressed.

Here we find all of chucks old tricks painted fresh and new. The tortured, faulted hero. The antagonistic love interest. The questing, the transformative car rides, great return home. Its like Palahniuk's the monster reincarnation of Jack Kerouac living in the shadow of Stephen King.

The plot runs like this:
Magic is real, specifically magic words.
More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 03, 2008

Angeld01 rated it:

Very disappointing book.I have always wanted to read a Chuck Palahniuk book. I think that "Flight Club" (the movie) makes a lot of good points about the state of society etc. I got this book as an audio book & I still couldn't finish it. If I had to hear Carl Streator count one more time...And I cannot stand in descending order, Helen Hoover Boyle, Mona & especially Oyster. Who thinks he's an activist, but is really just a pretentious a-hole. Make your characters interesting, but se More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 18, 2008

Rich rated it:

umm i still not sure if Chuck is author i want to keep reading. his books have unique spins on genre fiction. This book was more of character study on human nature when it comes to gaining power. the protagonists were very realistic in the way they reacted to the events that they put into motion. But i did not find them very likable. I kept wanting to find out more about the events that are flash forwarded to in sections of the novel but that we only learn what has led to them by the conclusion. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 12, 2011

MJ rated it:

Having partaken in Pygmy, a delightful dish of garbled phonemes and twisted terror, I returned to Palahniuk with this tale of witchcraft among realtors and reporters.

As ever, the story is ridiculous, and the satire messy and strange, but it’s all about the perverse and the shocking and the weird and the nasty. Think the Ring series set in podunk USA. Or the song "Gloomy Sunday" and its mythology.

I liked the technique of keeping the narrator’s dialogue speech-ma More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 05, 2008

Valerie rated it:

I'd never read anything by Palahniuk before Lullaby, and I found his voice and style to be original - I was drawn in by the fact that it was unlike other books I've read, although I did think he could be a little heavy-handed getting his point across. Yes, I know - media saturation is bad! We're becoming homogenized! We're waiting to be fed our thoughts by the TV! I HEAR YOU, CHUCK!

That said, there were enough funny, witty, scathing remarks and situations in this book that made me la More...

8 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2008

Brenna marked it as to-read

I've owned this for about 2 years and haven't even cracked it open...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 17, 2009

Dana rated it:

My interest in Palahniuk was selfish: since suffering the loss of a loved one, experiencing a mental breakdown at PDX airport and, two days later, being terminated from my hellish job and thrown blindly into unemployment with no health insurance, no savings and a laundry list of neurological pills that needed popping (prescribing, and purchasing, too...) I was desperate for a distraction.

This book is aaaaallllllll about the distraction, the noise, and the general clusterfuck that sp More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 29, 2009

Kristina rated it:

Hi. It's been a while.

After reading Galapagos, I set off to read some short stories. I read "Colony" by Philip K. Dick (awesome!) but then I had enough. If I am trying to read a load of books and write about them, reading short stories is antithetical.

On to a review: my first experience of reading Chuck Palahniuk wasn't bad, but it didn't help me understand why so many people enjoy his work. That was Choke (which, BTW, the film comes out next month). I really had to More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 25, 2011

Isidore rated it:

For a Palahniuk novel, this is unexpectedly low-key, gentle, complex––even mysterious. Certain aspects of the novel are clear enough: the mind-numbing, anti-social effects of the endless barrage of media stimuli; the dangers and temptations of power; our inability to shape our lives as we would wish, and so on. But the book feels like a very complicated allegory which is finally elusive. What is the significance of the relationships between the characters in the novel's pseudo-family? Toward More...

0 comments like

Nov 28, 2011

P.M. Snede rated it:

Lullaby is the fourth Palahniuk book I have read (Fight Club, Survivor, Choke). It is, perhaps, the most approachable of these works and in the end I was satisfied with this quick read.

The story is told from reporter Carl Streater's viewpoint as he investigates a myriad of infant deaths chalked up to SIDS. He soon discovers a common link in these deaths -- a simple children's lullaby book. Could a simple poem be responsible for these deaths? Streater believes so. There are limited copi More...

0 comments like

Sep 06, 2011

Shayna rated it:

So I'd never read anything by Chuck Palahniuk before and a friend of mine had two copies. I decided to give it a try. The book starts off with a pretty interesting idea, what if a mere song could kill you? Intriguing, I say. Let's see how this goes. So we follow a Mr. Carl Streator around his world as he discovers that he's found something quite terrible and dangerous. Well that sounds good to me. Then he digs a little deeper and we find some other characters, two of which are so brain numbingly More...

0 comments like

Aug 28, 2011

Brynn rated it:

This was my first Chuck Palaniuk book. I have to say, it started out with a pretty interesting and intriguing idea. The story revolves around a "culling poem," which, when read out loud, kills the listener. Then, the pamphleteering began. I initially dismissed it because the ideas that Palaniuk was writing about came from some of my favorite dystopias, Fahrenheit 451, and Orwell's 1984. If you're intrested in the real Big Brother, and how the "media" is corrupting our civiliz More...

0 comments like

Jun 22, 2011

Callum rated it:

Oh Chuck. Oh Chuck, why. I mean, I don't understand how you can keep churning these out.

The second novel to really deviate from Chuck's standard format - outsider does good by doing an odd thing involving some kind of adolescent philosophy - this book doesn't really add anything. This is the first book where I felt like Chuck was phoning it in. One of the characters (Oyster) is so annoying and hateful, that when he gives he appears during Palahniuk's tour-de-force of vulgarity that is More...

0 comments like

Jun 03, 2011

Nikitabanana rated it:

Assigned to write a series of feature articles investigating SIDS, troubled newspaper reporter Carl Streator begins to notice a pattern among the cases he encounters: each child was read the same poem prior to his or her death. Streator’s wife and only child recently met the same fate: they both dropped dead after he read them what he thought was simply a beautiful lullaby. But it turns out it was a bit more. The culling song—an African chant from a story book entitled Poems and Rhymes from Arou More...

0 comments like

Apr 06, 2011

Alex rated it:

Lullaby is yet another masterpiece by Chuck Palahniuk. A story about a journalist who is on a cross-country search to out to rest a song that is said to cause instant death to the person to whom it is spoken. The ancient poem is called a culling song and it can be found on page 27 of Poems and Rhymes from Around the World. This journalist, Carl is discovering that unsuspecting parents are reading this poem to their children at night and killing them by accident.
The novel is written from th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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