A bleak and revelatory examination of the world of High Fashion, and a culture obsessed with beauty, Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters started strong, but reading the last 40 pages is like pulling teeth (or, to use a more apt metaphor, like losing a jaw).

The book went wrong somewhere near the climax, and though the impact of Palahniuk's message depends on themes such as narcissism, greed, and megalomania, the lack of a sympathetic main character just couldn't hold my interest for 300 pages.

I'm finishing it today, but, unlike Fight Club, which was a blast throughout (pun intended), Invisible monsters relies too heavily on a narrative voice that is full of attitude and pretense and the whole novel just comes comes across as gimmicky.

Of course, to be fair, the narrator warns us of her unreliability in the opening chapter, so my dislike of this book has far less to do with Palahniuk's ability as an author than it does with my personal sensibilities.