Review “A quick, horrifying descent into madness and murder, gorgeous in its psychotic build-up and over-the-top execution.” - Jason Sheehan, National Public Radio Book Reviews“Palahniuk toys with our cultural dividing lines―race, class, sexuality―and all the fears, myths, and conspiracies that come along with them. The result is a novel that straddles both the horrific and the absurd, kind of like present-day America.” - Peter Rugh, Vice“Adjustment Day feels, in many ways, like a novel made out of the times we’re living in―one in which cult of personality (and a desire to belong to specific tribes) fractures the world people are familiar with, and creates something different―and worse―in its wake.” - Graeme McMillan, The Hollywood Reporter“[Adjustment Day] is what you'd expect from the author best known for writing Fight Club: violent, kinetic, and deeply disturbing.” - Kerry Shaw, Goodreads“A send-up of the many absurdities in our society.” - Mackenzie Dawson, New York Post, “This week’s must-read books”“[Palahniuk] takes the United States’ divided politics to their extreme conclusion and proves along the way that his gift for social satire has only sharpened with time.” - Shelf Awareness“Visionary and fearless . . . perhaps [Palahniuk’s] darkest, most biting satire to date. . . . Razor-sharp insights and boundless imagination are matched only by his ability to make even the most stomach-churning scenes somehow vividly entertaining. . . . Equal parts Jonathan Swift and Tyler Durden.” - Booklist“A dystopian nightmare that takes all the fractures of our modern society and escalates them to a perverted climax.” - Kirkus Reviews Read more About the Author Chuck Palahniuk is the best-selling author of eighteen fictional works, including Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Survivor, Choke, Lullaby, Diary, Haunted, Rant, Pygmy, Tell-All, Damned, Doomed, Beautiful You and, most recently, Make Something Up. He lives in the Pacific Northwest. Read more
G**R
Consider that no one wants you to discover your full potential.
I land somewhere between a 4 and 5 on this review. The first half of the book is incredible, a perfect narrative blend that builds with mystery and solidifies with punctual statements of wisdom such as: "The measure of a man is not what he does for wages but what he does for leisure"(p. 53). The beginning of the novel is poetically violent with a similar satirical undertone that has made Palahniuk famous. There is no central protagonist of the novel, but more of an Oz-like, omnipotent driving force that is Talbott Reynolds. Readers might expect the plot line of downtrodden and depressed leading characters such as Madison of Damned, Victor of Choke, and of course the narrator/Tyler situation in Fight Club. What readers will find with Adjustment Day, however, is that this particular novel is more about society as a whole and the general cultural confusion that exists in 2018. As the novel progressed, I felt like Palahniuk was perhaps spinning too many plates in the form of narrative storylines and I found myself wondering where things were going which is possibly a good thing because there are no predictable moments in the novel. I appreciated all of the references to contemporary and classic literature which made the novel feel a bit like meta-fiction at times, particularly when a literary criticism of Fight Club was mentioned. The book is a fairly easy read and I completed it in just a few days. I truly hated Beautiful You and I thought it was Palahniuk's worst literary effort, so Adjustment Day came as a welcoming relief.
T**G
Reverse Melting Pot
I can see why some people won't like this book. Palahniuk is picking at an American scab. But in truth it's an important book. Without spoilers, Palahniuk has crafted a new American Experiment. He takes the American melting pot, agitates underlying insecurities, and reverses that melting pot with profound effect. As is typical with his novels, Palahniuk sticks to his "in your face" writing style moving through a wide variety of different characters and difficult, if not sometimes clumsy, transitions. I don't necessarily agree with how he portrayed the results of the reverse chemical process, but...hey, it's a novel. I'm game. Aside of these minor distractions, AD generates a unique perspective of how we face our current world. I feel better off having read it.
T**D
Similar but different. Sometimes the most Fight-Club-esque of Chucks novels, in other ways not so much. Great social engineering
I think this is a great novel for our time, and it has some of the great social group hacks that made Fight Club a household name. Some people didn't read this all the way through, perhaps. Or they just didn't like it. I recommend RANT as the best next-book-in-the-loosely-grouped- FIGHT CLUB Trilogy (where this might also fit loosely). I will be generous, but fair, and give Chuck a B- for this one, for the great creative work that went into it. The storytelling is clearly his. Clearly worth a read for any of his fans.Let Spielberg buy the movie rights to this one. I'm right about this.
K**S
Timely Madness
The kind of satire that you read and hope that none of the satire-challenged get hold of. A page-turner you have to take breaks from to let your synapses adjust.
J**N
Dark humor look at the path we are on
It is fair to say that this is the best Chuck in a decade. It is also safe to say it is too long and pretty messy. Still worth the read and enough ho or and insight to spur many conversations
S**K
Good, but tame for Palahniuk
This is Palahniuk, but a bit different. It has all the revolutionary feel of some of his other works exacted into a real revolution. The first half supports this and is powerful and page turning, but the post revolution lacks punch and the second half leaves one wanting for the horrors and extremity of some of his earlier works. Still a very good novel, but it never seems to meet the expectations it creates.
G**2
An interesting book for interesting times.
Adjustment day is a humorous transgressive romp through the fractured society of today's America. It is an obviously political book but is not merely a turgid vehicle for a socioeconomic philosophy (ex. Ayn Rand). It is an engrossing page turner that is roughly equal parts story and ideas. It is both a prayer and a warning. Eerily enough whether intended or not Palahniuk makes you wonder if the society we live in is so far gone that we are beyond parody. For as messy and as convoluted as things are in the book it often seems like a best case scenario given our current reality.
P**S
1984 meets The Purge in a uniquely Palahniuk way
Adjustment Day is kind of like a mix of 1984 and The Purge. Profoundly funny and sickly hilarious, Chuck Palahniuk did not let me down. I really enjoyed it.
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