Coni’s Year in Books

What did you read this year?

Go to previous year Go to next year

2008

1,937

pages read

books read

Coni (coni_reads or skingproject)

This is my journey in books for 2008!

Shortest Book

192

pages

The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker

Longest Book

550

pages

Average book length in 2008

322

pages

Most Shelved

1,778,810

people also shelved

Least Shelved

14,357

people also shelved

Coni’s average rating for 2008

3.8

Highest Rated on Goodreads

4.10 average

Coni’s first review of the year

really liked it

Tender Branson is the last surviving member of the Creedish cult, but not for long as he has hijacked a plane which he intends to crash after he finishes telling his life story into the flight recorder.

The book starts and ends with Tender Branson in the hijacked plane where he has nicely served everyone their last meal, landed the plane somewhere so everyone could disembark except the pilot who jumps out with a parachute later on so that Tender c Tender Branson is the last surviving member of the Creedish cult, but not for long as he has hijacked a plane which he intends to crash after he finishes telling his life story into the flight recorder.

The book starts and ends with Tender Branson in the hijacked plane where he has nicely served everyone their last meal, landed the plane somewhere so everyone could disembark except the pilot who jumps out with a parachute later on so that Tender can die on the plane himself. He has been telling his life story into a flight recorder the entire book because that is what Fertility, a girl he is fascinated with that can see the future, told him to do. She hates her gift, but tells him about the future so that he can use it in his messiah gig, which he becomes sick of himself and eventually leads to the hijacking.

The writing style is very similar to Palahniuk’s other books that I have read. There is a lot of repetition to make a point or to add humor, especially when Tender was made into messiah from agents and other media types. Throughout the story, there are injections of the best-selling prayer books that have his name on them, yet he never wrote. Prayers such as The Prayer to Delay Orgasm, The Prayer to Prevent Hair Loss, The Prayer to Silence Car Alarms. He has been turned into a messiah once all the other members of the Creedish cult have killed themselves in response to an apocalypse. All the members they have sent out into society to make money to send back to the cult are supposed to kill themselves as soon as they hear the news of the deaths. It takes awhile for them to all do it, but they finally do until Tender is the last one standing. The media hounds jump on this and make him famous.

That is the second half of the book, which was amusing, but not my favorite part of the book. I loved the first part where we learn how the Creedish kids try to assimilate into regular culture, but not very well since they seem to be some kind of Amish knock offs. They are experts at cleaning and organizing things. Tender is a maid, cook, butler, gardener and general servant to a rich couple that he has never met in person. They leave him a journal of daily tasks he needs to complete and only communicate through the journal and speakerphone while at work or dinner parties. He knows how to prepare any kind of food and clean anything. The repetition technique was at work during that part of the book with the various cleaning tips, which I found to be hilarious and useful. Maybe someday, I’ll run into the need to get blood or some other stain out of various clothing and upholstery, and now I know how!

The first part also has the side story about how a suicide help line phone number was misprinted in a newspaper story and gave his phone number instead. When people called, he didn’t tell them they had the wrong phone number, but would give them awful advice, like killing themselves. It is this dark, twisted humor that makes me like Chuck Palahniuk. It is also this section of the book where he mentions “suicide girls,” which apparently is where the website feature old school ’40s and ’50s pin-up-style photos of goth, punk and indie girls. He only mentions it in one sentence of the type of people who call the help line, but now it is a super popular phrase. Crazy. ...more

CONI’S 2008 BOOKS

it was amazing

Coni’s last review of the year

really liked it

I had read a lot of Clive Barker’s short stories when I was younger, but forgot which ones I had read since I hadn’t read them all. I couldn’t remember if I had read In the Flesh or Inhuman Condition since they both started with the same letter. While reading this one, none of it was familiar until I got to the second of four stories, called “The Forbidden”. It is the basis for the Candyman movies. I never saw the movies, but the story stuck with I had read a lot of Clive Barker’s short stories when I was younger, but forgot which ones I had read since I hadn’t read them all. I couldn’t remember if I had read In the Flesh or Inhuman Condition since they both started with the same letter. While reading this one, none of it was familiar until I got to the second of four stories, called “The Forbidden”. It is the basis for the Candyman movies. I never saw the movies, but the story stuck with me since it was very creepy and gross. When I read it, the movie had not been made, but one scene in it became ingrained in my brain. A woman who is doing some graduate school research on a very poor neighborhood goes into an abandoned house to find an extremely disturbing face drawn on the wall. It is laughing, but the doorway was being used as the mouth. It was so descriptive that when I had an assignment in my junior English class to describe a room that another person in the class would have to guess who it belonged to, I described that room. No one guessed it was the room of a psychopathic killer, but instead thought it was a messed up teenager. :)

The first story in the book, called “In the Flesh”, didn’t do much for me. It had supernatural and horror elements to it with a guy who had questions about good and evil and where sin comes from. Then he gets a cellmate who just isn’t quite right. I think when I first started reading Clive Barker, I was attracted more to his horror stories, but as I got older, I enjoyed his fantasy stories more. The first one was more in the horror realm, but beyond the final twist and the “city” that he dreams about, I didn’t care much about the crazy cellmate. I actually could have enjoyed the entire story if the cellmate had been left out, even though I guess it was the point of the story, I just didn’t care for that half of it.

As I progressed through the book, I enjoyed each story more than the last one. “The Forbidden,” was the story with the room description described earlier. That was my favorite part, but the rest of the story was not as great as I remembered. “The Madonna” did have supernatural elements, but it was more in the fantasy vein. It is about an abandoned bath house where naked women wooed men to come visit them, but it doesn’t end well for them. It was creepy and fascinating.

My favorite story was the last one called “Babel’s Children” where a woman who loves to drive off the beaten path comes across a nunnery that isn’t run by nuns, but has held some brilliant minds captive for years for some very twisted games. It was the most realistic story out of all of them, but you still had to suspend your disbelief about the games being played. With the way some things happen in the world, you wonder sometimes that maybe major world decisions are being made the way it is described in the book. I had a good chuckle about the absurdity of it. ...more

What did you read this year?

Formatting Tips

Coni’s first review of the year

Coni’s last review of the year