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A review by dylanperry
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
3.0
Just to get this out of the way: the only other Palahniuk novel I've read is Fight Club and this did not stack up to that wonderful book.
Survivor was a solid read. I blew through it in 2 days and was engaged and entertained for the most part, although I had problems with it. Despite being less than 300 pages long, sections of this book dragged. I wanted more from the villain than we got, and somewhere around the halfway point the character Fertility (no, really, that's her name) becomes a plot device rather than a person with wants and needs. She's there to move the story along. Also the last 40-50 pages didn't feel emotionally satisfying to me and rushed in places.
I also think the formatting of this book wrongly setup expectations of how the story would unfold. The chapters and page numbers are in reverse. So you start on chapter 47 and page 289 and count down from there. It was intriguing but I think when I saw this I almost expected it to tell the story in reverse, which sounded like something Chuck Palahniuk would do. But what we get is a much more traditional structure. We open on a plane hijacker talking into the black box and telling his story. Then it flashes back and the rest of the novel is spent seeing how he got there. This was not so much the fault of the author and more, I believe, on whoever decided to design the book that way--although now I'm interested in reading a book told in reverse.
It may sound like I hated the book, and I didn't. I am however the slightest bit disappointed. I expected more, or maybe my expectations were too high after loving Fight Club. I do not regret reading this, and will read more of Palahniuk's books in the future. This one just fell a little flat for me.
Survivor was a solid read. I blew through it in 2 days and was engaged and entertained for the most part, although I had problems with it. Despite being less than 300 pages long, sections of this book dragged. I wanted more from the villain than we got, and somewhere around the halfway point the character Fertility (no, really, that's her name) becomes a plot device rather than a person with wants and needs. She's there to move the story along. Also the last 40-50 pages didn't feel emotionally satisfying to me and rushed in places.
I also think the formatting of this book wrongly setup expectations of how the story would unfold. The chapters and page numbers are in reverse. So you start on chapter 47 and page 289 and count down from there. It was intriguing but I think when I saw this I almost expected it to tell the story in reverse, which sounded like something Chuck Palahniuk would do. But what we get is a much more traditional structure. We open on a plane hijacker talking into the black box and telling his story. Then it flashes back and the rest of the novel is spent seeing how he got there. This was not so much the fault of the author and more, I believe, on whoever decided to design the book that way--although now I'm interested in reading a book told in reverse.
It may sound like I hated the book, and I didn't. I am however the slightest bit disappointed. I expected more, or maybe my expectations were too high after loving Fight Club. I do not regret reading this, and will read more of Palahniuk's books in the future. This one just fell a little flat for me.