Title: Invisible Monsters
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Pages: 297
Grade: A
Summary: (From Publisher's Weekly) (Edited and condensed by me because well a bit too revealing elsewhere)
Palahniuk's grotesque romp aims to skewer the ruthless superficiality of the fashion world and winds up with a tale as savagely glib as what it derides. Narrator Shannon McFarland, once a gorgeous fashion model, has been hideously disfigured in a mysterious drive-by shooting. Her jaw has been shot off, leaving her not only bereft of a career and boyfriend, but suddenly invisible to the world. ... Adding to the plot's contrivances are the relentless flashbacks, heralded at the beginning of almost every paragraph with "Jump back to..." and the author's pretentious device of using a fashion photographer's commands ("Flash. Give me adoration. Flash. Give me a break") to signpost the narrator's epiphanies.
My thoughts: This, like the other novels by Chuck Palahniuk, is once more making a statement. It's gross. It's beautiful. It's unbelievable. And it's real. It's life. And it's not life. The people out of the spotlight...will go to any length to get the attention they crave. Not because they necessarily want the end product...but merely because they want all eyes on them. The people in the spotlight....can be led to do crazy things to get away from it. To get as far from it as possible. Because in the end...they just want to feel something that is real. It's a large generalization but at the same time oddly fitting.
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