Haunted – is not haunted

3 of 5 Sick-And-Twisted Stars – Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.

I wouldn’t call this a novel. It’s a novella, at best, that creates a setting for the characters within the novella to tell their short stories. Frankly, this would have been a better book if was just a collection of short stories without the bullshit novella that ties them all together. It doesn’t need that connection. The short stories have nothing to do with the novella that is intertwined.

Most of the time, I found myself skipping, or skimming most of the novella, and just reading the sort stories. Because, the short stories were mostly quite insane and interesting to read. The novella was boring as fuck. Sure, they had to resort to cannibalism to stay alive, but who gives a fuck? All of those characters are useless assholes, who deserve to get eaten anyway.

So, yea. This book is completely fucked in the head. I’m pretty sure the author was on acid when he wrote this shit. I’m glad I read it, for the completely fucked up bits, but I’m still pissed off that I had to wade through the bullshit of that novella just to get to the good short story bits.

There’s the guy who got his guts sucked out his butthole, because he was sitting on the pool drain, while masturbating. There’s the call girl who only does ‘foot jobs’. She can end your life, just by massaging your feet. A nun who kills people with a bowling ball. A chef who kills critics who give him a bad review. (Oh shit! Fuck. I’m a dead man…)

I persisted to the end, just for the fucked up parts. But they were hard to find. Like mining for shit-covered gold. Often times, the worthless fucking novella got in the way of the short stories that it was supporting, and it was hard to tell them apart. In this fashion, it was actually work to get through this book. I had to like, concentrate or something. It hurt my tiny wittle brain.

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