false 22284 1400032814 9781400032815 10987 739 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167348457m/22284.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22284.Diary 2546 Chuck Palahniuk 132474 11656 5 1 false Thu Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Mon Jul 23 03:16:12 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 23 03:26:21 -0700 2007
I love Palahniuk, and this is actually my favourite of his. Fight Club comes second, so if you hate Fight Club, I can't think you'll like this. The style is still there -- short, choppy ideas repeated until you wonder why, a vocabulary that makes you double take from time to time. One of our book groupies actually read it with a dictionary to hand because she wanted to know what every word meant. Which, given my love of dictionaries, I think is pretty cool in its own little way.

What I really love about this one, to set it apart from the others, is the amazing construction of the female narrator (something I wasn't sure he could do...but he certainly can) and the art slant to everything. It's a different perspective than the out-to-get-the-corporate-world of Fight Club or the out-to-get-the-truth-out of Survivor. It's more insular and introspective (well, as a diary should be) and the value of the written word and the work of art are important here...not so much the world.

Don't read it if you'll be phased by the profanity or any of quite a few twisted images, but if you're willing to let it go as not-part-of-your-reality, it will definitely give you something to think about. I actually find it empowering, but there's no way I could explain that in less than about six lifetimes.]]>