Cover image is different...very orange :)

From the back cover: Tender Branson, the last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult, has commandeered a Boeing 747, emptided of passangers, in order to tell his story to the plane's black box before it crashes. Brought up by the repressive cult and, like all Creedish younger sons, hired out as a domestic sevant, Tender finds himself suddenly famous when his fellow cult members all commit suicide. As media messiah he assends to the very top of the freak-show heap before finally and apocalyptically spiralling our of control.

Another amazing tale from Palahnuik. This was my 3rd Chuck read in a month or so. Not the amazing twists that you find in Fight Club and Diary but not what I'd expected either. Won't say too much more...


BOOKRING TIME!

PARTICIPANTS
livrecache
leeny37
KLL<---- book is here!
ShilpaM
piemunga



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Caught yesterday, but we had a wee problem with the BCID. All sorted. Thanks Erin. I'm looking forward to reading this book. I've just started a new job, so I might take a little longer than I would otherwise . . .

Whoops! Sorry, I've had this for ever so long. As I'm in the process of moving (directly after having started a new job!) I'm not likely to get to it anytime soon. I'll PM the next person. I do apologise, Erin.

RELEASE NOTES:

Off to the next person in the ring, after a very long delay. My apologies.

Received today! For once, I don't actually have any other bookrings with me, so I reckon I will be able to get to this one soon.

WOW. Bizarre, but strangely compelling. I think that the plot gets a bit messy sometimes, but Palahniuk is such a brilliant storyteller that he draws you in anyway. Palahniuk combines several elements to piece this one together: organized religion; media-driven insanity; obsession with plastic surgery; drug addiction; crazed world of celebrity; psychic phenomena -- they all come together as one heck of a rollercoaster ride. The book really picks up momentum towards the end when someone from Tender Branson’s past shows up. From then on, it’s full throttle, baby! This is a great satirical novel by Chuck Palahniuk and I look forward to reading his other works.

RELEASE NOTES:

Mailing off the next participant, KLL. Enjoy! :)

Just back from a trip and this was waiting for me when I got home!

Thanks very much erinoc and leeny37. My TBR pile is a little large at the moment but I'll get to this ASAP.

Phew! Sorry this took me so long to get through. I have a big TBR pile I needed to get through before this one (and the pile never seems to get smaller!!!) Anyway, this is the third Palahniuk books I've read, the other two being 'Fight Club' and 'Diary'. I found 'Survivor' an energetic and easy read - and I really liked the premise (of Tender Branson being the last survivor of a religous cult). However, I do think I preferred the other two books I've read over this one. I saw lots of parallels with 'Fight Club' particularly - so much so that it sometimes felt like an imitation in places. Tender's rather hallucinatory narration did make me wonder if he didn't have a Tyler Durden hidden somewhere (and he kinda does, but I don't want to spoil it with any more details). The major female character, Fertility Hollis, reminded my strongly of Marla (although I think Fertility had a bit more control of the storyline than Marla did). Tender, who has lived as a housekeeper for most of his life, goes on quite long an detailed expositions of How to Clean Stuff, which also reminded me of the level of detail of 'random facts' that Fight Club had (i.e. how you make soap...)

For me, the best parts of the book were the first and last thirds (approximately :-) as I think the middle section where Tender becomes famous goes over the edge of satire and becomes a bit silly and unbelievable. I also thought that the overarching premise of Tender in a crashing plane ultimately came over as a mechanism to keep the reader on the edge of their seat and wonder how did it come to this??, rather than an integral part of the story.

However, having said all *that*, I did enjoy reading it, I *was* on the edge of my seat until the end and I'll certainly read more of Palahniuk's stuff. And now I'll get int touch with ShilpaM to get the ring moving again :-)

This book is now packed up and will be in the post to ShilpaM tomorrow!