Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

19 reviews

moonbeamdmercutio's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I think you begin to like Fight Club a lot better when you realize it's a love story, amongst everything else. And what an amazing one it is. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Gore, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Drug use, Terminal illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Minor: Police brutality and Classism

semisinful's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I expected this to be a hard read but boy oh boy did I not expect just how hard of a read it was going to be. The first time I tried reading this I gave up three chapters in because the violent descriptions and the talk of how to make homemade explosives gave me that weird phantom pain in my knees. But this time I pushed forward and got through the whole book. I love the movie, it’s one of my favourite movies. But it was far more difficult to actually be in the narrator’s head the way you are in a book versus how it is watching it in a movie. 

Man some of this was really hard to swallow. I loved it though. It was so brutal but it felt incredibly authentic. My problem with a lot of books this brutal is inauthenticity. This was great.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Cancer, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

arj_51's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A very gnarly read at times but the fast insomniac style prose was fun to read 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

harper11's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Torture, Suicide attempt, and Murder

tgyll's review against another edition

dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Let me first start off by saying this: Chuck, my dear sir, you don’t need to worry about any of us talking about fight club because half the time we’re sat there saying “what the actual fuck just happened”. Another thing I want to talk about is how this book falls into a very niche category, among which American psycho and A Clockwork Orange also come to mind, which I think should colloquially be known as “Satirical criticism of society written by men frequently misunderstood by men”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

chapter_one_athenaeum's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Cancer, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

stephsbookedout's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Mass/school shootings, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

foramen_magnum's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Palahniuk is one of my favorite authors, so returning to his works is like catching up with an old friend... Even if they weren't your favorite, they make you feel nostalgic. 

Fight Club is clearly early in his career and the elements of his style are being experimented upon. While sometimes it hits his razor sharp mania, other times it feels very stream of consciousness as told by characters who just aren't always that interesting. Shock value is a trademark of his style but here it feels gratuitous, where in other books it feels immersive. Still, he makes his point, and his critique of capitalism and hyper masculinity is absolutely clear. If this is your first tango with Chuck, I'd recommend you start with Rant before checking out Fight Club, but don't count this one out entirely. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gore, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Abortion

nb_leftist's review against another edition

challenging dark funny reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

It seems to be a commentary on white supremacist right wing extremist movements and how they’re fucking idiotic, but I can’t tell if that’s what the author meant it as or not. I don’t think it really matters cause there’s not one specific thing that a story can mean and in the afterword Palahniuk even writes about how he kind of just wrote it. Either way it’s definitely a good piece of writing. It keeps you interested and it keeps moving throughout. I finished it in probably 2-3 hours and it felt like 30 minutes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

augustee's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Drug use, Gun violence, Self harm, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Alcohol