Chuck Palahniuk

Medical school dropout Victor Mancini comes up with a complicated but ingenious scam to pay for his mother's elder care, cruises sex addiction groups for action, and visits his zany mother, whose Alzheimer's disease hides the bizarre truth about his parentage.

A Novel

Choke

Victor Mancini has devised a complicated scam to pay for his mother's hospital care: pretend to be choking on a piece of food in a restaurant and the person who 'saves you' will feel responsible for you for the rest of their lives. Multiply that a couple of hundred times and you generate a healthy flow of cheques, week in, week out. Victor also works at a theme park with a motley group of losers, cruises sex addiction groups for action, and visits his mother, whose Alzheimer's disease now hides what may be the startling truth about his parentage.

I think I don't care for Palahniuk. I didn't even like "Fight Club" (the book, the movie is good), but that was better than "Choke". This is pretty bad outside of a few VERY rare moments.

"Choke" feels pretty aimless, there are themes hammered into the reader repeatedly but there really isn't much of a plot to string it together or make it very interesting to read these messages over and over again. For things that are annoying with Palahniuk's writing style, first we should see his repetition. The sentence "What would Jesus NOT do?" is repeated probably 20 times in this story. For what purpose? Well, sometimes to poke literal or figurative fun. Other times because he is about to say something edgy and really wants to set the stage for you before he does, or more sadly, thinks he just 

 and that now you're recoiling from his wild ride and he's laying that epic line down on you as you find your way back to your seat. Is it funny that Denny and Victor say "Dude" in 99% of their sentences to one another? If your answer is "Yes", for how long should that joke run on, would you say? ""Obnoxious" isn't the right word,"... actually, yes it is.

Our lead Victor doesn't do anything very interesting in this book. Chuck seems to enjoy portraying depravity but only has a teenager's creativity for it: "He's got anal beads in his ass... and they get stuck! Dude, let's LITERALLY full of shit!" I understand Victor isn't supposed to be likable, but amoral (or even evil) characters can still be entertaining, it happens in plenty of other stories. Victor is just boring, not even his sexual escapades have much going for them. You won't see a sex addict do unspeakable things to get off, you'll see him have somewhat kinky sex. Grand.

Denny has a somewhat interesting arc as an addict, Palahniuk uses Victor to explicitly state (didn't need this) that addicts may simply replace their addiction for another one, and just because it isn't directly hurting anyone doesn't make it very worthwhile (like obsessively collecting rocks). Unfortunately, I feel like using Denny's story as the final anchoring point for the story was a total mess that didn't work out for any character, Denny included.

Paige's story has a twist I admit I didn't see coming from the beginning (though it's easy to figure out at a certain point, a poorly done self-spoiler of sorts), but in the end she doesn't really do much.

I would just guess Palahniuk wanted to make something "edgy" and "whacky", like those were the two words he had on a whiteboard somewhere, both heavily underlined. "If it can't be both, it's gotta be one or the other!" he shouted at his board as his fingers rushed to write about Victor losing his virginity in a plane bathroom, or maybe how his mom Ida kidnapped him... in a school bus!!

I admit I found a few lines to be interesting ones. I cannot even recall them, now, but I do know they were there. They were not worth the price of admission.

Evan

I think I don't care for Palahniuk. I didn't even like "Fight Club" (the book, the movie is good), but that was better than "Choke". This is pretty bad outside of a few VERY rare moments.

"Choke" feels pretty aimless, there are themes hammered into the reader repeatedly but there really isn't much of a plot to string it together or make it very interesting to read these messages over and over again. For things that are annoying with Palahniuk's writing style, first we should see his repetition. The sentence "What would Jesus NOT do?" is repeated probably 20 times in this story. For what purpose? Well, sometimes to poke literal or figurative fun. Other times because he is about to say something edgy and really wants to set the stage for you before he does, or more sadly, thinks he just did and that now you're recoiling from his wild ride and he's laying that epic line down on you as you find your way back to your seat. Is it funny that Denny and Victor say "Dude" in 99% of their sentences to one another? If your answer is "Yes", for how long should that joke run on, would you say? ""Obnoxious" isn't the right word,"... actually, yes it is.

Our lead Victor doesn't do anything very interesting in this book. Chuck seems to enjoy portraying depravity but only has a teenager's creativity for it: "He's got anal beads in his ass... and they get stuck! Dude, let's LITERALLY full of shit!" I understand Victor isn't supposed to be likable, but amoral (or even evil) characters can still be entertaining, it happens in plenty of other stories. Victor is just boring, not even his sexual escapades have much going for them. You won't see a sex addict do unspeakable things to get off, you'll see him have somewhat kinky sex. Grand.
Denny has a somewhat interesting arc as an addict, Palahniuk uses Victor to explicitly state (didn't need this) that addicts may simply replace their addiction for another one, and just because it isn't directly hurting anyone doesn't make it very worthwhile (like obsessively collecting rocks). Unfortunately, I feel like using Denny's story as the final anchoring point for the story was a total mess that didn't work out for any character, Denny included.
Paige's story has a twist I admit I didn't see coming from the beginning (though it's easy to figure out at a certain point, a poorly done self-spoiler of sorts), but in the end she doesn't really do much.

I would just guess Palahniuk wanted to make something "edgy" and "whacky", like those were the two words he had on a whiteboard somewhere, both heavily underlined. "If it can't be both, it's gotta be one or the other!" he shouted at his board as his fingers rushed to write about Victor losing his virginity in a plane bathroom, or maybe how his mom Ida kidnapped him... in a school bus!!

I admit I found a few lines to be interesting ones. I cannot even recall them, now, but I do know they were there. They were not worth the price of admission.

I do not recommend "Choke".

Amanda Autumn Berrey

choke

Great in theory but kind of annoying. I knew Chuck was gay after reading 5 pages of this book 😭 the (hetero) sex portions felt so unrealistic and corny so it was hard to get into it when that’s what most of the book was about. I do love the concept though 

Willow Sando-McCall

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Well, I started it by the time I started working full time in a supposedly startup tax consulting firm, but everyone was just obsessed with inspirational books, so I had no friend to talk about this one with, not to mention the romanticization of hustle culture there means pretty much no time for me to finish this at the time.
See also: toxic working environment.
See also: self-help books.
See also: VC bros culture.

Fortunately, I’ve escaped from that wretched place.

I’ve left and forgot this one on my shelf for quite a while. Then in an episode of trying to curb my addiction for nicotine at 3AM the other day, I started picking it up again and restarting it back from the start since it’s been so long since I’ve left it hanging on chapter 19.

“Pathetic” isn’t the right word, but it’s the first one that comes to mind.

This book certainly isn’t made for chilling on a lazy Sunday, and really, if you’re going to read this, don’t bother, just go out, get a life, read self-help books, and create a startup with your testosterone heavy bros.

Well, if you ignored all the warning, you may find a new perspective on some social maladies such as addiction and savior complex. I don’t know how much reputation Mr. Palahniuk sacrificed from writing in writing these kind of literature, think about the blue haired crowd cancelling him/them on social media. But I guess it’s just one of them episode of selfless suicide I guess.

The martyrdom of Saint P.

I can’t bother to talk about the plot, it’s written in structures as sensible as La Sagrada Familia viewed through a kaleidoscope. I think you should just pick this one up and decide whether you wanna read it and perhaps develop a new addiction for social satire, or thrash it and be a normal person.

Erik Wallace

My favorite of the three Palahniuk books I've read (Survivor and Invisible Monsters). Even though I enjoyed the other two the story and characters in this story were more engaging. I was also happily surprised by the ending.

edith w.

** spoiler alert **
           I finished my first Chuck Palahniuk novel a month or so back. It was on a friend's advice that I picked it up initially after he was surprised to learn that Palahnuik wasn’t on my ‘list’. So I bought the first novel I saw of his because I had no preconceptions about what would be good and what would be bad. As it turned out, Choke was an excellent first read.

Choke is a novel about sexual addiction, although only about half of the book focused on that. The remainder of the book was about Victor’s – the protagonist’s – elderly (and devious) mother, and his best friend, Denny, who was also a sex addict. The three of them, and the many characters they met (and shagged, generally) along way were a sorry bunch all told, but it made for great reading. It became rather more a novel about lonely and lost souls than about addictions to sex.

By my guess, Palahniuk’s main art is in the creation of despicable characters for whom we can’t help but develop an affection. I base this suggestion on Victor, mainly, but also on his manipulative mother. They’re both vile in many ways but I found myself really growing to like them. Fight Club’s Tyler Durden also comes to mind, but as I’ve only ever seen the film, I’m not sure how closely the film character was to the Durden of the novel. Here are three characters, however, who most of us would avoid in real life, but who absorb us in the written form. We don’t like them, probably, but we do sort of love them. In fact, I’ve often wondered had Durden been played by someone much less pretty than Brad Pitt, if this trait would have been more obvious. Marla Singer – there’s another one.

In any case, I want more Palahniuk now – he’s a very talented man. Suggestions are welcome.

Gulshan Hasanzada

This book is weird. But, it's what made it so entertaining. Palahniuk provides perfect social commentary. Definitely worth reading. 5 of 5!

elif sinem

This is his best work. Let's get this right out of the way. His most cinematic as well, the prose sharper than ever and more organized than the cluttered mess of both Survivor + Fight Club. Who knew pairing crazy ideas and intentionally provocative imagery with an actually working protagonist made a good book? Let's all pretend to be shocked! 
At the same time, though, this is kind of a familiar story painted in neon colors: a story of loneliness and a man wanting to connect with other people. Sometimes this man screeches about meninism and shit, but it's really just there to distract himself from feelings (capital F Feelings) and commitment. And sometimes this man will casually start talking about sex and choking and whatnot, and pretend to be a million times cooler than he is. It hurts to look at it, and it's definitely going to make people uncomfortable. But after all is said and done, chances are high that you've read this kind of story before. Not that this kind of thing is bad! But I'm just saying, this is a lot more bark than it is bite. 
I've said before that like... if the end holds up I'll honestly think of it as the best. And did it hold up? Yes and no. The problem of this novel is that it spends a lot of time on a plot twist that I've personally just found really ridiculous, and then does a plot twist on the plot twist that you could've seen from a mile away, and it's unfortunately kind of an important part of this? Everything else was solid but nobody will go and be like, hey, I like this Palahniuk novel, it's about a man that's lonely. And that's what kind of impacts the ending too. I had the same problem with Survivor too.
So yeah this is his best, maybe even his most safest, we will see about that. But the prose is good and if for nothing else, you should read it because of that.

P.S: This is still "Tyler Durden with a soft spot": the novel, I guess my first impressions were spot on.

Rose Stanley

From the other reviews here, this seems to be a book that people either loved or hated.

I didn't *hate* it, but...I definitely didn't love it. 

(Sorry, Palahnuik fans!)

The twists were gd...the sex, swearing and bodily fluid less so. 

I quite like the savage humour Palahnuik uses, even if the overall feel of this book was one of deep sadness. I also found myself being really angry at the mother!

Heather Killeen

Sadly this wasn't my favorite Chuck Palahniuk book, but to be fair this is a pretty high bar after Fight Club and Rant which I loved. I don't know if it's because I'm older now then when I read those, or I just didn't quite connect with the characters or topic (addiction) as well in this one, but it just wasn't my favorite. I still love his writing style. I particularly liked his repetition of "(insert word) isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind." These were usually hilarious. I'm curious about the movie, and will definitely still read some of his others on my list.

a novel

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A. D. Knapp

Medical school dropout and former sex addict Victor Mancini comes up a scam to pay for his mother's Ahzheimer care by pretending to be choking in a restaurant and coning the individuals who "save" him into giving him money.

Choke A Novel

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