Name: Invisible Monsters
Rating: 3.851415094339623 (212 reviews)
ISBN: 9780393355956

Chuck Palahniuk

"A harrowing, perverse, laugh-aloud funny rocket ride of catastrophes...Gutsy, terse and cunning, Invisible Monsters may emerge as Palahniuk's strongest book." --Greg Berkman, Seattle Times

Invisible Monsters

Amanda Autumn Berrey

Continued on page whatever. No matter how careful you are, there’s going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn’t experience it all. There’s that fallen-heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should’ve been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That’s how your whole life will feel someday.

If you have to start with any one detail, it has to be Brandy’s hands.

Beaded with rings to make them look even bigger, Brandy’s hands are enormous. Beaded with rings, as if they could be more obvious, hands are the one part about Brandy Alexander the surgeons couldn’t change.

When nobody will look at you, you can stare a hole in them. Picking out all the little details you’d never stare long enough to get if she’d ever just return your gaze, this, this is your revenge.

She invents another future for me with no connections, except to her, a cult all by herself.

“Your name is Daisy St. Patience,” she tells me. “You’re the lost heiress to the House of St. Patience, the very haute couture fashion showroom, and this season we’re doing hats,” she says. “Hats with veils.

“You don’t have to wear makeup. You don’t even have to wash. A good veil is the equivalent of mirrored sunglasses, but for your whole head.”

Behind a good veil, you could be anyone. A movie star. A saint. A good veil says: We Have Not Been Properly Introduced. You’re the prize behind door number three. You’re the lady or the tiger.

“Your father and mother, Rainier and Honoraria St. Patience, were assassinated by fashion terrorists,”

Give me pity. Flash. Give me empathy. Flash.

Caged behind my silk, settled inside my cloud of organza and georgette,

“Oh, and don’t worry,” Brandy says. “You’ll still get attention. You have a dynamite tits-and-ass combo. You just can’t talk to anybody.”

“Think of this as a tease. It’s lingerie for your face,” she says. “A peekaboo nightgown you wear over your whole identity.”

I take Brandy’s hand in mine. This is a nice gesture, but then I’m freaked by the whole threat of blood-borne pathogens,

High Fidelity

Another thing is no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.

It’s all mirror, mirror on the wall because beauty is power the same way money is power the same way a gun is power.

“The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our own weekend.”

“The most boring thing in the entire world,” Brandy says, “is nudity.”

And I want Seth dead. Worse than dead, I want him fat and bloated with water and insecure and emotional. If Seth doesn’t want me, I want to not want him.

Why is it you feel like a dope if you laugh alone, but that’s usually how you end up crying? How is it you can keep mutating and still be the same deadly virus?

Published in hardcover for the first time, this updated and refreshed “director's cut” of the author's 1999 novel depicts what happens to a fashion model who had it all after a debilitating accident destroys her face and her ability to speak. 50,000 first printing.

Invisible Monsters Remix

M. Sosotris

I feel like I'm the last one to arrive at a party and, having tasted the food, is running around to all the guests saying, "Holy crap, have you tried the shrimp!? It's amazing!" only to notice that they're all politely smiling and holding a napkin full of shrimps and discarded tails. 

I've read Palahniuk's collection of nonfiction, Stranger Than Fiction and loved it, and the movie version of Fight Club was quite an experience, but I haven't actually ever read any of his novels (I know, right? What planet have I been on?). I love that my first experience with him is the remixed version of a previously-released novel. It's like blabbing on and on to someone about a scene in Return of the King only to realize that they have a life and therefore didn't see the eight million hour extended version of the movie. It makes for a fun experience since all the shocking plot twists were actually shocking, and the shuffled order of the chapters made them even more so.

To put it simply, this book rocks. A lot.

Critiques of social vacuity are common, but Palahniuk makes it seem new and relevant and meaningful. It never seems preachy, in fact, he frequently tricks the reader into getting lost in his over-the-top descriptions of fashion and makeup before pulling the floor out from underneath them when he reveals just how gruesome and horrible it all is. And yet, beneath all the searingly hot satire is a story with a surprising amount of heart. Usually big concept stories tend to lack genuinely complex characters, but I think all the characters in this book, regardless of how outlandish they are, felt like, in an un-bizarre parallel universe, they could actually be real, which is quite a feat.

The chapter order was odd, but it made the reading experience itself a lot of fun, especially when you come to the words "(the end)" and go, "Oh, I don't think so," and then start hunting for the Easter eggs embedded throughout.

With that said, it's more fun to find the extra stuff yourself, but if you want to know where it all is, read on:

 Apart from the main narrative (which starts at the introduction and is pretty easy to follow) there are three other chapter sequences. The first starts with the reversed chapter 3, the second (which is a sort of epilogue) starts at chapter 9, and the third, the "author commentary" so to speak, starts at chapter 13 

I think as an intro to his fiction, this was a great choice, especially since it is his first novel, assembled how he initially wanted. It's a crazy, wonderful, unsettling, delirious novel and you should totally read it. And, if you want to be boring, you can read the original version, but I assure you that the extra effort that goes into reading this pays off.

I leave you with this quote from somewhere in the book:

"A reflection of a reflection equals the truth."

When a freeway "accident" leaves a beautiful fashion model disfigured and incapable of speech, she seeks to reinvent herself and her world, along with her new friend, Brandy Alexander, a transvestite who is one operation away from becoming a real woman

Invisible Monsters: A Novel

Lindy

Over the course of reading Invisible Monsters, my appreciation for the artistry that went into The Women Men Don't See increased tenfold.

Victoria

This book is just too fucked up and too good! You have to read it to appreciate it but I swear to you, it's totally worth it!

Patrick Cartelli

Well that was a wild ride. I wouldn't recommend finishing this book right before you fall asleep. I had some weird dreams last night.

Arturo Hernández

This is a weird story. It’s hard to follow the train of thought of the protagonist when you start reading however once you get it, you see lots of layers on the writing style. I liked it overall (although I would appreciated a grandiose finale).

Hans Gerwitz

Palahniuk certainly has a knack for always throwing in yet another plot twist without becoming tiring.

Omar AlHashmi

5/5

Give me wisdom.
Flash.
Give me insight.
Flash. 

This book was, a huge fucking roller-coaster of a book. I went into this with only two impressions:
The first was that it was the same author of Fight Club.
The second was that this book was apparently disgusting and disturbing.
Now unfortunately I did not find this book as disgusting as other people have written in their reviews. That is unfortunate to be honest, since I really enjoy when a piece of media goes to the extreme and explores certain aspects that I thought were unattainable. Nevertheless the book was really weird at times, and I really liked it. I loved the way it was written since it mimics the disarrayed life of the narrator. So the reader gets to have the same feeling the narrator is feeling as she is going on this grand adventure. 
What I also enjoyed obviously was the plot. There were like 3-4 twists nestled and woven in between the book that seriously caught me off guard and made me step back. One issue I had were that sometimes the book would get a bit repetitive, if you read the book you would know when. There is a recurring thing that the characters keep on doing. However thanks to the nature in which the book was written it didn't dull me as much as it did other books. This constant jumping around in this huge timeline of the narrator felt like you were solving a jigsaw puzzle. You were given the edge pieces to begin with, the main structure, and you are slowly given pieces as you try and solve this puzzle of a plot. 
All in all, I really enjoyed it. I am also so glad that it had a satisfying ending which is what usually lets me down, if something has a bad ending. I would recommend this book for anyone who would be prepared for some really weird stuff. It's not a typical book, which is exactly why I liked it. Who wants a typical book anyway?

Give me relief. 
Flash.
Give me Closure.
Flash

After an sudden "accident" leaves her with half a face, no ability to speak, and no self-esteem, a fashion model is approached by Brandy Alexander--who's one operation away from becoming a "real woman"--who teaches her that reinventing oneself means erasing the past and making up something better.

Tameka Young

This book is definitely not my normal genre or style, in fact it's the first I've read by the author. Despite my initial hesitance to read it, I ended up enjoying it way more than I thought I would. It was funny, provocative, crazy, and full of plot twists and turns, some of which I guessed and some I didn't. I think it's a perfect book if you're looking for something insane to read that will completely blow your mind. I am now looking forward to reading another Palahniuk book which is a sentence I never thought I'd say!

Josh Clement

This book is disgusting, visceral. I wish I read it in High School.

Lindsay Hollmann

Easily one of my favourite books of all time. He writes how I write, but better, how I want to. 

This will change everything.

Probably my favorite book of Chuck's. Dark story that I was obsessed with. Every other page seemed to be dripping with genius. I loved it!

megan

not for me, but i can see why people like this book

She's a catwalk model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden motor 'accident' leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful centre of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from being a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better, and that salvation hides in the last place you'll ever want to look. The narrator must exact revenge upon Evie, her best friend and fellow model; kidnap Manus, her two-timing ex-boyfriend; and hit the road with Brandy in search of a brand-new past, present and future.

Pat G.

Really enjoyed this one. Wasn’t so sure at the beginning but it scooped me up and had me along for the ride once I had a grasp on the constant jumping. Awesome twists and turns and surprises in this gonzo thriller. 

k`library.

Caitlin Berger

I quite enjoyed this book! The writing is amazing, love the style. I liked that the storyline wasn't linear; all the surprises came at once and it made the story propel itself towards the end. My one negative comment would be that I'm not sure I liked the overall portrayal of transgender people that Palahniuk painted. When you first realize that there is a transgender character, that was all fine, but as the story got closer to the end, the messages were a bit ...weird. Perhaps I wasn't interpreting his tone properly? But it felt like he was implying that being transgender is just a lie, similar to getting cosmetic surgery done on yourself. Again, maybe I was too dumb to understand that that's not what was meant? I don't even know. But it felt like it was a bit of a joke, which rubbed me the wrong way. Feel free to provide counter-feedback in case I'm actually way off base! But overall, great book and worth the read.

Invisible Monsters

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