Another classic Palahniuk, this story of a man who pretend to choke in restaurants to gain sympathy and financial support from the patrons is dark and funny. A fantastic read.

Taking to meetup for augustusgloop.
Hope you enjoy this.

Received from kirst040 at tonight's MeetUp at The Porterhouse. Thanks so much! I've been dying to read this for aaages. Have good vibes about this one. Looking forward to reading this one asap.

Bizarre. At times this reminded me much of Augusten Burrough's Running with Scissors memoir, which only goes to show how twisted Burrough's life story was!

There were some fantastic parts in this. The sexaholic meetings were hilarious and I loved the mentality behind the choking performances ('cos everyone wants to be a hero).

A little bit disjointed at times, although the pace did accelerate in the last quarter of the book. At times this was 10/10, but in other places it was a 6/10.

A book that would probably benefit from being read again.

Now to track down Fight Club...

Before I got past the first page I thought - Augusten Burroughs - and now I notice another journaler has made that comment with hindsight. So on the front cover ''CHOKE is FIGHT CLUB for sex addicts'', so right, I must grab this book. On the back cover ''Victor ... cruises sex addiction groups for action, ...''. And on pages 9 to 11 ''... and hands me a warm fistful of silk. ... What she hands me is warm and damp. It's her panties. And she smiles. ... Everybody else is going into the pastel Sunday school room, and N... smiles after them. She twirls one finger next to her ear, the international sign language for crazy, and says, "Losers." She pulls me the other way, towards a sign that says Women.'' No, I'm definitely the addict, I'll probably enjoy this, I just won't be sure I was meant to.

For me to finish any book in less than two days - I just loved it. At times the mixture of extreme sex and extreme dysfunction will be too much for most people, for me it was just about right. Don't get me wrong, it's not all about sex, it's all about dysfunction. So who would I recommend this book for?

The medical student friend whom I texted "Congratulations, you can cut me up anytime.", when she was admitted to surgery? No, because she will be too busy being a medical student.

My ex, who just loves Augusten Burroughs, and who bears absolutely no resemblence to any of the characters in the book? No, because we are trying to be friends.

A warning: this book is a work of fiction, don't confuse fiction or fantasy with reality. If you should suffer the sexual misadventure described in the last quarter of the book, don't assume the messy result in the penultimate chapter is likely. An internal mess is just as likely, resulting in a long hospital stay or death if not treated quickly. This type of "misadventure" may resolve itself in time, if you relax, but don't wait days before going to emergency. The only thing Victor should have been embarassed about is not valuing his own health and life enough to deal with the problem. Emergency deal with this kind of thing every day. [A freind, of a friend, of friend once warned me about broken porcelain. Apparently, if it's difficult to get out, when it does come out, it may be very fast. If it's hard it may damage stuff. Try thinking of just one credible but innocent excuse for telling your niave partner how you broke the desinger toilet bowl!]

I'll probably, release it at a crossing zone or a meetup soon.

RELEASE NOTES:

At meetup.

Wow, glad I picked this one up. Some great reviews here and a few people at Meetup recommended it too.

A great read and I especially enjoyed tycho-brahe's journal entries too! Funny, unexpected, disturbing and dark, a wonderful mix.

RELEASE NOTES:

Picked this one up at meetup tonight. I enjoyed Palahniuk's Non-Fiction and loved the movie adaptation of Fight Club (I have a copy of the book somewhere...). I'm looking forward to reading this one, thanks for releasing it, goodthinkingmax!

UPDATE 27 March 2008: Reserved for dolphin-au for the Southern Cross exchange on bookobsessed.com.

You've just gotta love a book that starts with "If you're going to read this, don't bother".

I ignored Mr Palahniuk, and ploughed on. And finished it in about two days! My deity, what a ripsnorter of a great read! Some terribly disturbing stuff about feminism (although as a devout feminist myself, I was on Victor's side: there is something terribly wrong about the "it's all men's fault, they're in on a great big conspiracy against us" mentality, and yes, I am looking at you, Ms Naomi Wolf). Quite gross and disgusting at times, but a complete page turner. Although one does get strange looks reading "Fight Club for sex addicts" on the bus.

Ah well, we all have our own addictions. Sex, drugs, rocks, reading books.

I think I shall use "What would Jesus NOT do?" as a mantra from now on. Although I'm not sure if it did Victor any favours! But it's such a great phrase. I don't think I could pull out my #1 favourite bit of the book, but maybe Denny and Victor at the strip club, with Denny drawing all the women as beautiful and perfect, and Victor diagnosing them all with serious illnesses (See also: Death). Having a doctor for a sister, it's true, they diagnose serious illnesses all the time. Any little thing can lead to death in their minds.

A crazy wild ride of insanity, addictions, medicine, and growing up. I shall be passing this one onto dolphin-au as part of the Southern Cross Exchange. I hope he enjoys it as much as the rest of us did! (And I must go and read some more Chuck Palahniuk now.)

UPDATE 12 Apr 2008: Popped in the post to dolphin-au on Friday. Happy reading!

Received this Monday just as we were leaving for a camping trip, so haven't had the chance to journal earlier. This has been on my wish list for quite a while. Thanks tqd!I haven't read anything by Palahniuk before, but have enjoyed the fight club movie. Looks like an interesting read with all these enthusiastic journal entries! I'll try to read this soon-ish.

This book has had to live un my Mt TBR for too long. I had a chance to read it during a hospital stay a little while ago and have not got around to journal this yet.
I enjoyed the book, especially the whacky humor, but it is mainly the sadness behind it all that really appealed to me. I'll definitely be on the lookout for more books by Palahniuk.
I'm offering this in freelunch' OZ VBB.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent to jennymidget as part of the OZ VBB.

Thanks dolphin-au - wow, a daunting stack of positive reviews, I'd better love it, hey?

Something addictive about this book - it wasn't fun or anything, and not brilliant literature, but I just couldn't stop reading! The self-loathing got pretty old and tiresome pretty quickly. But I did love the twist with one of the characters in the end, didn't see that coming at all and even though it wasn't a humorous scene I did snort-laugh out loud! Thanks for this dolphin-au - my sister says this isn't even the best of Palahniuck's novels so I'm seeking out some more now!

Travelling overseas via BookMooch...

This was sent to me from Queensland, Australia via bookmooch.com

Very grateful to the sender for sending it such a long way at their expense. Looking forward to reading it (although slightly nervous as have read some of his short stories...)

CAUGHT IN TEIGNMOUTH DEVON UNITED KINGDOM