Alyssa V. (avonlehman) reviewed on 2/17/2014

Helpful Score: 1

Typically, you either love or hate Chuck Palahniuk's books. If you have a stomach for the crudeness you can find the humor and wit and discover an enjoyable and original read. Haunted, however, is not one of Palahniuk's better works. The absurdity of the plot and unlikability of every single character had me grimacing and re-posting the book to PBS at about halfway through. The characters are caricatures, odd sketches, not real people you develop any empathy for, let alone interest in. In fact I was downright ambivalent when they started to die off. They are set up to fail this way from the beginning with odd names that remove the reader from seeing them as individuals. The plot is ridiculous, featuring a bunch of writer-sadists who slowly torture themselves so as to have a horrifying best seller to write once they escape the windowless trap they all end up in. If I had to spend time with them I would also cut off my toes and fingers if I thought that would help it end a little faster. One vignette, told by Lady Baglady, about billionaires who are so bored by their wealth and the fact that they have seen and done everything that they turn to acting homeless as the newest thing, is absolutely hilarious and brilliant. It's a good thing that story was toward the beginning or I would have never gotten to it. My one star is for that vignette. Palahniuk should have published that as a short story and trashed the rest.

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