Helpful Score: 4
Rabies, demolition style races, graphic sex and time travel are all included in Palahniuk's Rant. This novel is not written in the traditional way, but is a collection of interviews from the people involved, so you get many different perceptions of the same event. I'll admit it was an awkward read, but it was a good read. I would have preferred Palahniuk not stray from his writing style, but this was a decent endeavor on something new and fresh. Great character development, as always.
Helpful Score: 3
Easy to pick up and put down without feeling like you've read to much or too little. The writing style lends itself to suspense with the climax feeling like that of a movie when you are trying to put the pieces of the story together faster than the story is telling itself.
Helpful Score: 2
WTH did I just read and why did I finish it? This book is a mish-mash of narrators, grossness, time travel, car crashes, a rabies plague, segregation and dull characters. I kept hoping it would improve and then it was just over.
This story somewhat follows a dull-witted character named Buster or Rant (as he better known) who gets off on catching rabies. His attraction to pain and rabies eventually leads to a rabies plague. The story is told from the various and far too many points of view of people who stumbled across Rant during his life. In this world people are either daytimers or nighttimers. The two don't mix, they have curfews and are fined if they break 'em. The problem here, besides 20 too many narrators, is that they all have different opinions about what Rant did or didnt do and it's hard to discern what is truth, lie or confusion. It took many a rewinding before I just let the frigging thing go and then things started to gel somewhat.
From what I can gather Rant grows up in a stereotypical small white-trashy town which appears to be the dumping ground for unwanted dogs, tampons and used condoms. Somehow he has a superhuman sense of smell and can sniff out a soiled condom or tampon and know from whom it once belonged to. Now thats a talent there Ill never envy. Lucky for Rant there seems to be lots of them floating about in this town as the sex tornado hits constantly and strews everyones gross trash hither and fro. This book is gross for no other than to ick out the reader. This is fine if the book is fun but it's not. It's boring and the characters unsympathetic.
So what did I learn? Rant, our dashing lead whom all the woman later adore, spends his toddlerhood picking his nose when hes supposed to be napping, rolling it into black balls of goo and sticking it on the wall above his head. Did I really need to know that? He "inoculates" himself with venom from various critters and rabid animals at an early age. When he reaches his teens he can not only sniff out the owner of a tampon but he gets a close looksee at most of the female genitalia in town and can name the previous owner of every bloody tampon he finds littering his yard simply by its shape. There are some things we never need to know about a person. Seriously.
The book then rambles about with more people adding their two cents about mostly boring bits of Rant/Buster's life as he purposely infects himself with rabies and then spreads the infection all about. And then time travel enters the picture and my brain explodes.
I like weird books but they have to be interesting. This one just wasn't.
This story somewhat follows a dull-witted character named Buster or Rant (as he better known) who gets off on catching rabies. His attraction to pain and rabies eventually leads to a rabies plague. The story is told from the various and far too many points of view of people who stumbled across Rant during his life. In this world people are either daytimers or nighttimers. The two don't mix, they have curfews and are fined if they break 'em. The problem here, besides 20 too many narrators, is that they all have different opinions about what Rant did or didnt do and it's hard to discern what is truth, lie or confusion. It took many a rewinding before I just let the frigging thing go and then things started to gel somewhat.
From what I can gather Rant grows up in a stereotypical small white-trashy town which appears to be the dumping ground for unwanted dogs, tampons and used condoms. Somehow he has a superhuman sense of smell and can sniff out a soiled condom or tampon and know from whom it once belonged to. Now thats a talent there Ill never envy. Lucky for Rant there seems to be lots of them floating about in this town as the sex tornado hits constantly and strews everyones gross trash hither and fro. This book is gross for no other than to ick out the reader. This is fine if the book is fun but it's not. It's boring and the characters unsympathetic.
So what did I learn? Rant, our dashing lead whom all the woman later adore, spends his toddlerhood picking his nose when hes supposed to be napping, rolling it into black balls of goo and sticking it on the wall above his head. Did I really need to know that? He "inoculates" himself with venom from various critters and rabid animals at an early age. When he reaches his teens he can not only sniff out the owner of a tampon but he gets a close looksee at most of the female genitalia in town and can name the previous owner of every bloody tampon he finds littering his yard simply by its shape. There are some things we never need to know about a person. Seriously.
The book then rambles about with more people adding their two cents about mostly boring bits of Rant/Buster's life as he purposely infects himself with rabies and then spreads the infection all about. And then time travel enters the picture and my brain explodes.
I like weird books but they have to be interesting. This one just wasn't.
Helpful Score: 1
This is the first book I read by Chuck Palahniuk and I was absolutely thrilled! Palahniuk paints a picture of a bleak future where classes are divided by day and night (literally), people stalk and crash cars for sport, and a rabies carrier is given near-prophet status. The plot is riveting and filled with the kind of interesting and well-researched facts readers have come to expect from Palahniuk. There is also plot twist that will leave you unable to put it down. This novel is mindbending, delightfully twisted, and unexpected.
Helpful Score: 1
Palahniuk doesn't write for tourists. He writes for hard-core devotees drawn to the wild, angry imagination and taboo-busting humor. My first exposure was with his novel, Haunted. Then I read Choke. He is not an author that everyone would appreciate, definitely. But I would suggest that you give him a try --- I recommend starting with Haunted.
