Haunted

I finished reading "Haunted" by Chuck Palahniuk the other day. I have to say it was one of the best horror stories I've read in that it was truly horrific. It was fairly good at making me horrified. Did I think it was scary, no, but it was truly horrific. I kept asking myself, "Do I really want to know the next thing these people are going to do? It's going to be really bad. It's not like I'm going to die if I don't finish this book. But then that little prompting that tells me that I 'need' to know what is going to happen would make me turn the page and continue on. I really had this debate with myself at twenty times during the book. And at about the 3/4 to 4/5 point in the book the debate ended because I knew that Chuck couldn't top what he'd finally had his twisted characters do.

This book is set up with a chapter of the present story, followed by a poem about one of the characters, and then a story by that character. I really liked that aspect of the book, although it made things a little bit confusing for the first couple of chapters. There are also a lot of different characters to keep track of (I almost wanted to have a pen and paper but then I realized that this wasn't a who-done-it, it was a what-are-these-people-willing-to-do-to-be-famous type story) so you as a reader don't really care when people start killing each other.

Actually, though, I really liked the book. The strongest parts were the stories told by the individual characters about themselves. My personal favorite was one where a couple of upper-class socialites find out that the newest coolest trend this season is to masquerade as transients. Good old Chucky reminds us why it is NOT that cool to be one of the nation's many homeless people.

All in all I'm gonna give this one a 3/5. If you've read some Palahniuk before (Fight Club, Survivor, Diary, etc..) and liked it then you should pick up this book and read it. If you like the horror genre then you'll really enjoy the author's take on such a tale. If you're not exactly wanting to see to what depths people are willing to sink for there chance at being the consultant to the movie that documents the very horrors that they caused then you will want to pass on this one.