"Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk

The one thing you'll do as you read Chuck Palahniuk's "Choke" is literaly choke. Amidst the sex-aholic addicts, demented patients, colonial characterization of 18th century America and the sporadic jumps to the past for a glimpse of an abusive childhood, time and time again you'll choke and choke and choke.
You'll choke when you read about the strange idiot who thought he was the resurrected Christ and went about chocking on food in restaurants so that innocent folks could save him and from whom later he could extort money. You'll choke when you read about the demented mother who kidnapped a child and proceeded to make its life a living hell, while she committed crime after crime. You'll choke when you read about the strange compulsive freak who rather than taking control of his life proceeded to collect hundreds of rocks from the streets and bring them to his home and then store them in his bathroom, in his stove, in his refrigerator. You'll nearly vomit at the numerous disgusting descriptions of sexual intercourses, degrading acts of perversion and rape. I did. I should’ve dropped this book and instead picked up another, watched some TV, gone shopping or something else. But the one thing that'll really make you sick is the sorry excuse for a narrative, this ‘let me start a sentence for the sake of stating it, write a bit of gibberish for the sake of writing and end it without convening anything but the idea that this is a sentence with a noun, adjective and a verb’ foul and pathetic excuse for a book.

I now hate the 4 wasted hours on trying to get into the author’s mind, because I’m literaly convinced that the author is mentally sick.

Listen to my advice, yield to reason, DO NOT contaminate your mind with disgusting knowledge of middle age, bold characters with sticky fingers, empty hearts and compulsive and severely questionable mental states. Play a game of Monopoly, take your dog out for a walk, go swimming, skiing, scuba diving, anything but waste time on this book. If you don’t believe me, believe Nietzsche who said in his ‘Beyond Good and Evil’:

“…There are books that have inverse values for soul and for health….these books are dangerous and cause deterioration and dissolution…Books for the general public always smell foul: the stench of petty people clings to them…”

But you don’t even have to believe Nietzsche. All you have to do is trust the words of Mr. Palahniuk himself:

“If you’re going to read this, don’t bother. After a couple pages, you won’ want to be here. So forget it. Go away. Get out while you’re still in one piece. Save yourself. There has to be something better on television. Or since you have so much time your hands, may be you could take a night course. Become a doctor. You could make something out of yourself. Treat yourself to a dinner out. Color your hair….”

- by Simon Cleveland