Picked this up in my big library trip of a couple weeks ago. Again, recommended by a friend. Plus, I’ve been curious about Palahniuk since seeing Fight Club. I really like his stylized writing in a lot of ways, and it’s easy to see the resemblance to the style of Fight Club. I didn’t really connect to any of the characters, though, so I didn’t get into it as much as I do some other fiction. For me, fiction is all about identifying with characters, I think. The early years of Buffy, when the Scooby gang were all high school outsiders? Total identification. Gilmore Girls with Lorelai’s mother issues? Yup. Miles Vorkosigan’s brand of demented genius. Ender’s loneliness and supernatural observation skills. Pretty much all of the fiction I like has a central character that I identify with strongly. So when I don’t connect to the characters, I tend to feel eh about a book, no matter how beautiful or creative the writing. I’m just not enough of a literature geek yet, I guess.
About me: I'm an unrepentant generalist finding my way in a world of specialists. My curiosity has taken my career from physics to software to biotech to business strategy and operations at Google.
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