Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Lullaby

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Have you ever been a room where someone is watching TV, and someone is playing a computer game, and someone else is talking to someone else, and the phone is ringing, and the dog is barking, and micro-wave is dinging, and a baby is crying, and you just want to stand on a chair and scream at the top of you lungs to just "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP"!  Well that is how Lullaby is but in literary form.  And the funny thing is...  I kinda loved it!!  I mean the big kind of love where you can't stop talking about it, you wanna buy it in hardback, you want to sleep with it under your pillow, and you want everyone else to love it just as hard as you do.  I just have to say, Chuck Palahniuk, where have you been all my life??  I think most of us would recognize Chuck Palahniuk's work from Fight Club which is one of my favorite movies of all time (though I haven't read the book yet), and if you can picture the darkness of Fight Club you can understand the darkness of Lullaby.  The humor is DARK, and DRY, and the story is DISTURBING, and the prose are GRUESOME, but even so this book is hysterical (even though sometimes you feel like it is inappropriate to laugh, and you might feel the need to take a shower after reading it), and it really gets you thinking about life and death.  If you have a weak stomach move on, you won't want to digest this book.  But if you are up for some mind Olympics, and some amazing writing dive right in please!

So in this book we meet Carl Streator, investigative journalist extraodinaire.  He prides himself on not missing the details when he is on an assignment and that is how he gets himself into the mess in this story.  Carl is assigned a 5 part article on SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), he heads out to a families house that sadly have just lost their little one to this strange Syndrome.  While Carl is looking over the nursery he notes a library book on the bedside table opened to a nursery rhyme (a culling song) on page 27.  On the second house call to a victim of SIDS he notices the same library book, and on and on it goes.  So he reads the rhyme on the page and recites it to his editor who dies.  Now Carl is off on a wild goose chase through the U.S. (with 2 Wiccans {Mona & Oyster}, and an eccentric real estate agent that sells haunted houses{Helen Hoover Boyle}) to find the remaining copies of this book and destroy them.  The only thing is, that every time Carl recites the Culling Song (even in his head) someone dies.  That is all I'm gonna say.  There is SOOOOOOO much more to this book than the little bit I have just mentioned.  There is Carl's story, Helen's Story, Mona and Oysters story, the characters fight for power, twists, turns, dead ends, death, carnage, cell phone calls, talking cows, flying Virgins, more twists, more turns, more dead ends, and can you tell why I gave the loud room analogy earlier?

Like I mentioned before, don't read this book if you are easily sick or if you are easily offended.  There is gore and offensiveness a plenty.  But do pick this book up if you want something SUPER different to read.  Or if you want to laugh out loud.  Or if you want to discuss the heck out of it with me!  The only regret I have is that I didn't actually read this book but listened to the Audiobook.  Though the reader Richard Poe was FANTASTIC!  You won't regret reading this little gem, unless of course you do regret it, and then I warned you about the gore.

BOOK vs. MOVIE: There has been some interest in this book for a movie adaption by the director of Fight Club.  There is also a rumor that a Swedish director may pick up the project.  All I can say is that if it is done as well as Fight Club (and remember I haven't read that book yet, so don't judge me for a comparison yet), I would be at the theater to see it.

RATING: 5 Stars

3 more reviews of Lullaby:

Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk {Audo Book}
ISBN 1402524978
6 Disc {3 Hours 29 Minutes}
Read by Richard Poe

If you liked Lullaby then you should read: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

12 comments:

  1. Nice review!
    I haven't read the book but i've read 'Choke' also by Palahniuk and I was choked! where had he been allof my life!!
    best writer EVER!
    I'll look for Lullaby cus I really enjoyed your review and Choke...
    nice to see that someone else feels the way i do about this writer

    Oscar

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  2. I read "Fight Club" and "Invisible Monsters" and then "Choke", and sort of got the feeling that Palahniuk was becoming more and more formulaic in his nihilism and desire for shock value. I haven't picked up anything since... although Fight Club IS an amazing movie.

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  3. I love Palahniuk. I have read most of them. My personal favorite is Invisible Monsters. I have read it several times and love it every time. It is another one that is really very well done as an audiobook. The woman who reads it does an outstanding job of capturing the emotion of the main character. Check it out, you'll like it.

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  4. @Oscar.. I'll have to read Choke. I have only heard good things about it.

    @Jane Doe.. I think that if you read a bunch of work by the same author eventually you see a pattern. I got really burned out Margaret Atwood because after about 5 of her novels I started feeling like I was reading a cookie cutter book. I'll read some more Palahniuk and let you know what I think! (:

    @Babatikidido.. I'll have to read Monsters. Maybe I'll pick up the Audiobook next time at the library. Thanks for the recommendation!

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  5. I have been looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this one--I've not read anything by Palahniuk yet but Fight Club is on my TBR list. Sounds pretty crazy! I probably will be sickened and offended, but you have piqued my interest enough that I can't help it--I'll have to read it. Don't worry, I won't blame you. :)

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  6. Best intro to a post I've read a long time! And, you hooked me...great review.

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  7. @Kathy.. Just don't listen to it. I bet you would be OK if you read it instead. I have noticed that things sound so much more gruesome when you are listening to them on audiobook. When you get to a super gruesome part in a book you can kinda read around it.

    @Elisabeth.. Thank you!! I'm glad I hooked you! Now I can't wait for you to read it and review it! (:

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  8. Great review! It's awesome to see a review by someone who loved a book so much :) Did you see that Lullaby has been optioned as a movie? They're not actually making it yet, but it could be one!

    PS I also LOVE the Fight Club movie! :)

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  9. @Lori.. Thanks for the update! And thank you for becoming my 100 follower!!!! (:

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  10. I love love love Chuck Palaniuk. This was the first book by him that I have ever read, and you are so right about it possibly being offensive and weird, but oh my gawd, I loved it.

    I haven't read Fight Club either, but like you, really enjoyed the film.

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  11. Chuck def has a unique style of writing.

    I found your blog by Twitter. It's nice, I like it and now follow.

    Elyssa

    my book blog
    www.literarydaydreams.com

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  12. Interesting book cover. Not really my type of book though.

    You are now listed in the Delicious Book Blog Directory.

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