Snuff

Perhaps because I am such a huge fan of Palahniuk, I was more disappointed with this book than I would have been from any other author. I grew enthusiastically used to the sharp cultural satire present in the rest of his works that I expected the same in this one. While it is a nice jab at the porn industry, it has the same shortcomings - substance. The plot and characters have interesting, potentially humorous twists, but never quite fully pan out. While reading it, I was fully entertained, but after finishing I realized that it was entirely forgettable - definitely not up to Chuck's earlier performances. I distinctly remember reactions and emotions I felt from his books from 3 years ago, but not from "Snuff" 2 weeks ago.

It's a great concept and parts of it are really well done, but at the end, it sort of is like saying to yourself "wow, it could have been better if....."

Had scanned amazon before buying this book, and saw the 3 star average and stupidly thought, yeah Chuck's work is not loved by everyone but I have loved a lot of his books, will give this one a go.

In high school had to study Charles Dickens "Great Expectations", at the time thought it was a long and labourious read. Amazingly at only 197 pages Snuff felt the same.

It really did not have enough substance to maintain 197 pages, a tight well written short story at 50 pages at most would have been fine to tell this story.

The movie titles at first made me laugh as they brought my mind back to when I was 16, but after a while I found them not so interesting.

The huge amounts of facts and tidbits about actors was interesting, but essentially padding to fill the story out so idoits like me would pay full price for this story that as mentioned above belonged in a short story collection.

If you are a Chuck fan, hopefully you are smarter than me, save yourself some money and do not read this, in this case its best to disillusion yourself and pretend that Chuck has written a book since Diary.

I love some Chuck... but this was a total let down. I feel like I just spent a couple hours waiting for my eyeballs to scan the words that spelled out the "twists" I had already figured out a hundred pages or so back. The writing just seemed a little lazy, and the characters super flat. Chuck's writing typically makes me want to just wallow in the disgustingness of the characters and revel in the absurde reality of every situation.... I couldn't imagine how this plotline couldn't deliver, but it definitely fell short.

I'll still keep reading his stuff though - especially if the same person keeps writing the pickup on the inside flap... it was fantastic!

but i got it fast, and knowing chuck palahniuk i'm sure it's a very interesting story with a crazy twist at the end.