Meh. The other reviews were right but I had to see it for myself. ( )

Very disappointing. I didn't expect it to fully live up to Fight Club but it's not even close. The dense stream of consciousness of that novel is lost in the transition to a comics form where text is so sparse on the page. The meta narrative doesn't really land and this has none of the shock, flair or originality. ( )

The return of Tyler Durden! And Sebastian. We finally get a real name for the Fight Club's narator.

I loved, loved the movie. How did such a great movie come from such a mediocre book?

Am I giving too much credit for Chuck Palahniuk? This book is over-clever with Tyler Durden now considered a virus and Chuck Palahniuk breaking the fourth wall by getting feedback from the readers.





( )

I understand Palahniuk's frustration with Fight Club. The movie overshadowed the book, changed its ending, and more people are in love with the ideas presented in the film, more than the book.

All that I understand, but I still don't get what happened in this disaster of a sequel.

I don't understand the characterization of Marla and Sebastian (really? I thought it was Jack), the way they went from the first book to the second. Tyler was the reason she fell in love with him in the first place, and now she's helping get rid of him and then brings him back to be fucked once in a while.

I don't understand the reason why Palahniuk felt necessary to insert himself into the story in such an incoherent, intrusive way. It almost feels like he had written himself into a corner, so he had to carry out this deus ex machina to pull himself out. Lazy, crazy writing.

Finally, what the hell is even going on in the story? The logical acrobatics were too much for me to follow. Where is the razor-sharp commentary of the first book? This one feels like a hammer that's seen better days.

I can't say I enjoyed this too much. If you're looking for a witty, sharp satire of men in modern society, read the first book (or watch the movie). This graphic novel has zero wit, and the commentary is just blegh at best. ( )

This is where Goodreads needs negative numbers to score with. Chuck fucking Palahniuk OWES me stars simply for spending hard-earned cash on this steaming pile of dogshit.

Chuck has written three of my favourite novels. One is [book:Lullaby|22206], one is [book:Rant|22285], and one is [book:Fight Club|5759]. And yes, I read the novel before I saw the movie. He had some other books in between that I also enjoyed a fair amount, but then, things started to get a touch weird. [book:Haunted|22288], while having some great stuff in it, overall was a miss for me. But when he then proceeded to lube himself up with Crisco then swan-dived into the festering, hemorrhoid-laden anal cavity that was [book:Pygmy|4601396], a book that was virtually unreadable and incredibly stupid. After that, ol' Chuck just seemed to try and out-Chuck himself. And, having at one time thought of him as one of my top five favourite writers, he fell completely off my radar, and I swore I was done reading him.

Then he decides to follow up his finest work with a sequel. Well hell, I have to break my rule for that, right? I mean...this is Fight Club we're talking here.

Of course, I did not embark upon this journey without some trepidation.

Still, the cover art by the amazing Mack helped to allay my fears, as did the excellent interior art by Cameron Stewart. And, for the first couple of chapters or issues of this ten-issue run, things were going okay. Yes, the world of Fight Club is a messed up one, so I was ready for a little confusion, a little messiness. I can say I actually enjoyed the first two chapters.

But then, by chapter four? Yeah, the shit was beginning to pile up.

Around chapter seven, I actually stopped reading and said to myself, "It's like this fucking story was written by someone with ADD." Palahniuk wasn't just bouncing from scene to scene, the scenes were bouncing panel by panel, and the story was spiraling so far out of the realistic, it blew right past probable, then improbable, said fuck you to plot holes as it jetted by, and ended up in the nether regions of brain-damaged meets bad fan fiction.

Then it got worse.

It got meta.

Oh yeah, Palahniuk, having long ago run out of not just good ideas, but even bad ideas, decided to mine the truly horrible idea of not just throwing himself into the story as the author writing it as we read it, but having him interact both with the characters and his Write Club.

And then he drew the half-assed ending out for pages and fucking pages. This is where that shit that had been piling up reached its tipping point and began its landsliding onslaught on everything that made the original Fight Club such a mind-blowing reading experience.

Words cannot express how deeply I despise this shockingly, stunningly bad pile of shit. The rating is 35 stars for all the art and colour and lettering and effort by everyone other than Palahniuk to make this a story worth reading, and -34 stars for his effort in spreading his ass cheeks and dropping a Cleveland steamer all over that effort.

I will never read anything by this author again. Ever. Because, as far as I'm concerned, he's forgotten how to be one, and should be stripped of rights to author anything, be it a novel, a script, or a blog post.

Palahniuk, you were once gifted. Now, you just suck. ( )