Haunted : A Novel of Stories

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Haunted

by Chuck Palahniuk
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Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel made up of stories: Twenty-three of them, to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you’ll ever encounter—sometimes all at once. They are told by people who have answered an ad headlined “Writers’ Retreat: Abandon Your Life for Three Months,” and who are led to believe that here they will leave behind all the distractions of “real life” that are keeping them from creating the masterpiece that is in them. But “here” turns out to be a cavernous and ornate old theater where they are utterly isolated from the outside world—and where heat and power and, most important, food are in increasingly short supply. And the more desperate the circumstances become, the more extreme the stories they tell—and the more devious their machinations become to make themselves the hero of the inevitable play/movie/nonfiction blockbuster that... see complete book description

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  • Rated 3.394693 stars

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  • Cori

    cori says

    I enjoyed it. I think alot of his other books are so repetitive that for me, they're sometimes hard to follow. This one one was clear cut and straightforward.
    Yes it was quite disturbing and as everyone else has said, grotesque...but all of Chuck's books are. Sure I never read the book, unless my back was to a wall, but I loved it.

    posted 11 days ago

    (This is a response to a previous comment)

    (cori’s previously rated this books 5 stars)

  • Vanessa S

    vanessa s says

    Palahniuk states in his "Afterward (or Warning) of Sorts" that, "This would be a book you wouldn't want to keep next to your bed." And he was right! I agree with some of the reviews posted that much of this was for shock value - this is evident because he prattles on about the number of people who fainted after he read the "Guts" story in public a number of times.
    Once you make it past that story, though, some of the short stories told by the characters (who you never really get to know and who I constantly confused with each other because they all have two names and one of the names is often gender-neutral) are actually pretty good. Small snippets of bizarre-ness that stick in your head, like the crazy NY anthropologist TA on the lookout for transforming-bigfoots, or the story of the Nightmare Box. I agree that the poems were horrendous as linking devices and the overall novel lacked cohesion. The only other Palahniuk I've read is Lullaby and I think it is much, much better.

    posted 13 days ago

    (read vanessa s’s review)

  • Susan M

    susan m says

    I read all of his stuff like the addict that I am. In Haunted, the Adam and Eve story is one that I want to read as a full-length novel. Other than that, he was milking it. He's, no doubt, the author that I turn to for a fun time. Fight Club and Choke rise above anything else he's produced and I adore them; Haunted just wasn't a coherent work. There's splatterpunk out there that puts Haunted to shame. His forte truly resides in his ability to research a subject (in a horror genre kind of way if not an academic kind of way). True slice-'em-up shouldn't have the intellectual baggage, and I'll stand by the old splatter guys any day in that capacity.

    posted Thursday, May 15 2008

    (This is a response to a previous comment)

  • Mike S

    mike s says

    I know I'm not the only one that thinks this is the worst Palahniuk novel. I quite enjoyed a lot of the stories, but the overall work wasn't that great.

    posted Thursday, May 15 2008

    (This is a response to a previous comment)

  • Ioana

    ioana says

    This was my first Palahniuk novel. I must admit I was quite disapointed when I saw on the cover "a novel of stories". I didn't get very fond of the characters, but I liked the dark and twisted writing style. In my opinion, the stories would make great short movies, even thought some of them are quite grotesque. There is no great plot, just some bits of twisted reality showing how the human beings love their share of drama. I look forward on reading other Palahniuk novels.

    posted Monday, May 5 2008

  • ktamunt

    ktamunt says

    It's a good thing Survivor was the first Palaniuk book I read, because had The Haunted been the first I would have likely never pick up another of his works.

    posted Saturday, May 3 2008

  • NoodlesKnowles

    noodlesknowles says

    I really agree with this review, just thought you should know, it seems like everyone thinks this book is hard to get through, but I had no problem, makes me want to look at your library...

    posted Wednesday, April 30 2008

    (This is a response to a previous comment)

    (noodlesknowles’s previously rated this books 5 stars)

  • leecoke

    leecoke says

    Boy, I have had so many customer recommend this book to me, that I really thought I would enjoy it. It was horrible. Totally pointless stories with a bizarre linkin g device, I gave up after reading about 2/3 of it.

    posted Sunday, April 27 2008

  • Rachel B

    rachel b says

    Haunted is an interesting step out of Palahniuks usual bounds. i found the book to have grotesque stories along with the sad, pathetic and just plain wicked. He is displaying almost every aspect of human nature and what people are willing to do to get that one great story. Palahniuk also takes this further into a place where the nightmares of the human mind manifest causing madness and surprisingly ultimate enlightenment. i enjoyed this book to the point that i did not want to put it down, like fight club and choke, but it was a different kind of appeal. Haunted was just my kind of delightfully disturbing i guess and in no way did the book drag, for me it did seem to race. i stand by the fact that it is a masterpiece and like any great work of art not everyone will see it.

    posted Sunday, April 27 2008

    (read rachel b’s review)

  • -katiebee-

    -katiebee- says

    Wow. I didn't think I'd ever read a Palahniuk book that I DID NOT like. This was just pointless and, I agree, it drug on forever. The stories weren't great. I think he was mainly going for the shock value. This is one of his books that I just can't keep. Go for Lullaby, Fight Club, or Invisible Monsters. Don't waste your time on this one.

    -k.

    posted Tuesday, April 22 2008

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