How do you pronounce 'Palahniuk?'

My mind's turning into slush. Wake up, go to work, come home, veg-out in front of the computer and/or tv. I swear, from hearing some of these patients complain how their vision is going kaput because of all the hours they spend at work in front of a computer monitor, I'd better cut down my own computer time.

So, seeing as I need to stimulate my mind more and I haven't read a book for pleasure in a really long time, I decided I'd try to read a few this summer. As per my sister's recommendation, I recently finished Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. He's the author of Fight Club, but like most everyone else who's familiar with the title, I'm even more familiar with the movie. Haven't even touched the book. Yet.

But from reading Invisible Monsters, I can definitely get a sense of this inner monologue, stream of consciousness that Palahniuk also uses in Fight Club. Or at least the film, but the style between this novel I read and that movie is pretty darn similar.

And like Fight Club, Invisible Monsters is chock full of twists. You thought the whole I-am-Tyler-Durden schizophrenia twist was crazy, Invisible Monsters has got some pretty insane surprises. Seriously. These twists would make M. Night Shyamalan blush. I don't want to say anything because I'd just be spoiling the story. And spoiling the story is a dick move. Ya dick.

What I found really interesting about this novel were the themes of beauty, love, self-beauty, self-love, and what it takes to completely reinvent oneself. Central conflicts: self vs other, self vs self. And boy, is self vs self a BIG struggle in this novel. It appears in just about all the characters, or at least the ones who have the most impact on the narrator.

There's a lot of fuck-what-everyone-else-thinks,  fuck-beauty-standards, appearances-aren't-shit-and-are-easily-altered. It's very raw. It feels very Palahniuk, but again, I'm just comparing this to the movie Fight Club. However, I'm quite intrigued by this style; I'll have to check out his other works.

Finally, some of my favorite quotes I've picked out from this novel. I did a bit of paraphrasing.

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The most boring thing in the world is nudity.
The second most boring thing is honesty. 
The third most boring thing is your sorry-assed past. 


Your being born makes your parents God. You owe them your life, and they can control you. Then puberty makes you Satan just because you want something better. 


I thought we were a real love relationship. I did. I was very invested in love, but it was just this long, long sex thing that could end at any moment because, after all, it's just about getting off . . . Almost all the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love. 

And last but not least, my favorite line/image/metaphor in this entire book:

Your heart is my piñata. 

See that? UGH, it's so brutal. It's so raw. Unforgiving. Cruel. But brilliant, I feel. It's like those five words sum up some relationships perfectly. Not that I have personal experience, but from observation, just . . . wow. That line alone is enough for me to seek out Palahniuk's other writings.