Alright, so my saturday night plans fell through. No big deal. I am bored. I finished my first summer reading book, Lullaby, by Chuck Palahniuk in 2 days. And, because I am a nerd and I am alone and broke on a saturday night with my plans fallen through, I'm writing a book review.

Chuck Palahniuk wrote Fight Club. That's right; it was a book first. I decided to read Lullaby because it was advertised in a book I read of his, Chokelast summer. Palahniuk's characters always have some sort of quirk....a neurotic flaw. In Fight Club it was Tyler Durden, in Choke, the main character Victor was a sex addict and a scam artist, and so in Lullaby, it's not too shocking to discover that the hero and heroine have the power to kill people by reciting a certain poem. The book revolves around the impact of this seemingly innocent poem found in a nursery rhyme book comonly read to young children....the characters are bent on finding all the copies of the poem and destroying them.

The book brings up a few interesting points...we have all sorts of death and destruction as a means of controlling the population; plagues, war, etc. What if the African Culling Song ( the death poem ) became common knowledge? People would fear all sound, just as in times of epidemic people fear any contact with other people. Sound black-outs....sound quarantines would be necessary in fear that the next utterance on the phone, over the radio, on the television would be the Culling Song. Anyway, Palahniuk always presents little interesting tidbits in his books. He must lie awake and dream up these bizarre subjects and their connotations......for example how English ivy and starlings came to the United States and obliterated other vital species....and how that relates to humans and their surroundings as well. It's hard to talk philosophically about the book without giving too much away.

The Characters although maybe not as multi-facted as they could be protrayed, are described in detail...down to what they wear everyday and their not-so-flattering mannerisms. I like that in books; when the characters are presented in such a way that you can picture exactly what they look like.

When Palahniuk wants to make a point....or wants one of his little anecdotes or historical references noticed, he will repeat it several times in the book, making it easy to make the connection between the little idiosynchracies the characters had, or the irony in their lives. " This is how we must look to God" or " sticks and stones may break my bones but words may never hurt me". " This is my life".

Some more quotes I like:
" You tell yourself noise is what defines silence. Without noise, silence would not be golden. Noise is the exception.Think of deep outer space, the incredible cold and quiet where your wife and kid wait...silence, not heaven, would be award enough"
" The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up. The shortcut to closing a door is to bury yourself in the details. This is how we must look to God."
" Every generation wants to be the last"
" Maybe humans are just the pet aligators that God flushed down the toilet"
" No matter how much you love someone, you still want to have your own way"
" There are worse things you can do to the people that you love than kill them"

So this book was bizarre, but intriguing. Like the #1 best-selling book right now...you know the one, I'm sure, it has some magic in it which was hard not to be skeptical of. However, I can gurantee this is a better read than Harry Potter. Which, one day in about 20 years when the fad has died off, I will read. :)

The next book to be reviewed is called Use Me by Elissa Schappell. It's a bunch of short stories about the important milestones in a woman's life.....or that's what Barnes&Noble.com said at least.

I'm going to go drink or something.