Seattle - Editor’s Pick
"Even more fun to read than the first time around."
San Francisco Chronicle - James Sullivan
"Palahniuk’s stories don’t unfold. They hurtle headlong, changing lanes in threes and banging off the guard rails of modern fiction."
Shelf Awareness
"Subtly moving, this singular writer reminds us that real life is often just as tragic, absurd and fabulously perverse as a Palahniuk novel."
Library Journal - Audio
In his "reintroduction," Palahniuk notes that he wanted his 1999 original paperback to have the feel of a choose-your-own-adventure rather than being read linearly. In this remix, which includes new material, listeners are directed to skip from CD to CD to follow the madcap adventures of Shannon McFarland, a fashion model disfigured by a gunshot to the face, and Brandy Alexander, an exotic transsexual who takes Shannon under her wing and out on the road. Narrators Paul Michael Garcia and the late Anna Field (she narrated the original edition) offer great performances of this fun, chaotic tale. VERDICT Jumping between discs is not something most listeners will enjoy, so either ignore the advice or stick with print. ["A must read for fans of the author or the original version of the book. Fans of speculative fiction or the grotesque will also enjoy the ride," read the review of the Norton hc, LJ 5/15/12.—Ed.]—Beth Farrell, Cleveland-Marshall Coll. of Law Lib., Cleveland State Univ.
Library Journal
Published as a paperback original in 1999, Palahniuk's tale of a fashion model who loses everything when she is badly disfigured in a drive-by shooting gets a makeover here, featuring new chapters, new scenes, and special design elements. It's being billed as a "director's cut," which Palahniuk fans will definitely want.
Kirkus Reviews
Palahniuk (Damned, 2011, etc.) plays literary DJ, revisiting and updating his 1999 novel Invisible Monsters. In a new "Reintroduction," Palahniuk explains that Invisible Monsters was never meant to be a conventional narrative, resembling in its original incarnation the Sears catalogue or an old copy of Vogue magazine, jumping forward and backward in time with the quick-cut style changes of a classic MTV playlist. The elder statesman of transgressive fiction even sounds a bit cynical--"You young people, you who think you invented fun and drugs and good times, fuck you."--though with his skewed sense of humor, it's generally hard to be sure. In matter of substance, there's not much of a "remix" to be had here, just a, "Now, please jump to Chapter Forty," Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style that doesn't so much reorder the book as augment the disjointed, whiplash atmosphere its author intended. The book that Kirkus drubbed "Too clever by half" in 1999 is still here in its ghoulish entirety. The narrator is Shannon McFarland, a fashion model whose beauty has been obliterated in an enigmatic accident. While recovering in the hospital, Shannon meets Brandy Alexander, a voluptuous pre-surgical transsexual who adopts Shannon and takes her on the road, granting them new monikers, identities and trades in the process. Throw in some more drag queens, a knife-wielding ex-cop, plenty of drugs, sexual abuse and even a wedding, not to mention some eerie family values. The book is really a superfluous artifact, but that doesn't change the fact that Palahniuk remains one of the most gifted writers in American fiction. Not worth replacing your old paperback, but a nice collector's item for Palahniuk's cult.
