I enjoy reading.

Hey people, here's another book review seeing as how I'm still procratinating!

 This book is Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk.

Chuck Palahniuk - Survivor

I’m not sure how Chuck Palahniuk does it, but I love his novels. I suspect he might have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for this. Ha, just kidding. Like his other novels, Palahniuk delivers a wonderfully dark and sordid story in Survivor.

Tender Branson, the narrator of the story, is the last surviving member of a cult in the United States – the Creedish Death Cult. He has hijacked a plane and is telling his life story to the black box on board before it crashes. Tender was brought up in a repressive cult and was sold to be a domestic servant when he came of age, like the many others Creedish men.

In the Creedish Death Cult, they have a pact, that when the time comes for them to die, all of them must honour it. Tender finds himself thrusts into the spotlight when all his fellow cult members commit suicide, leaving him as the sole survivor. His world is a downward spiral from there. At first, he is a media messiah; he commands attention, especially with his evangelist-like shows. As time passes by, his world starts spiralling out of control, as he crashes down as fast he rose to the top.

In the novel, we find that Tender has a romantic interest in Fertility. In a way, he “killed” her brother. How? Well, telling you would just spoil the story so I’ll leave it to you to read it to find out.  Why does Tender feel the need to do all these? Why does he want to die? All these questions are answered in the book. On top of these, let’s just say that that are many twists and turns that keeps you on the edge of your seat as you delve into Tender Branson’s mad, mad world.

Survivor is filled with angst, resentment and a dash of savage humour. Chuck Palahniuk’s tortured eloquence brings forth certain elements of a story that reaches into the deep, dark crevices of your mind. It fills your head with arcane yet vivid imagery that besmirches your mind. Yet, you never want to put the book down, you just want to keep on reading.

Once again, Palahniuk delivers with Survivor, just as he did with Fight Club, Haunted and so much more. He has a knack of phrasing words together to form stark sentences that make you tingle under your skin.

I say, Survivor is definitely worth a read, if you are into these sorts of stories and Chuck Palahniuk is definitely worth keeping an eye out for. He never disappoints. At least for me, thus far.

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