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Book Review of Choke

Choke
Choke
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
reviewed on + 48 more book reviews


A very strange but surprisingly entertaining book about a sex addict who fakes that he's choking to death in restaurants in order to earn sympathy money from the person who "saves" him. After the first couple chapters, I could tell this wasn't going to be one of my favorite books of all time, but I continued with it and was pleasantly surprised. There are some dull parts, and my chief complaint is that I felt like the book didn't have much of a beginning, middle, climax, resolution, etc. The entire story is basically a few-month long glimpse into the daily routines of the main character, Victor. Despite being a dispicable and directionless sex addict who takes advantage of people's sympathy to earn money to care for his mentally ill mother, you find yourself actually sypmathizing with him by the end of the book.

The writing itself was great. There is a lot of sarcasm and some really interesting and insightful points are made by Palahniuk, through Victor's observations and confusion about the meaning of life -- particularly, his own.