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'Invisible Monsters' By Chuck Palanuik: A Review

A reunion with my old friend Chuck.

By Haley PetersonPublished 5 years ago 6 min read
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Photo from Bustle.com

Anyone who was in high school between the years 2000 and 2010 probably remembers the popularity, and seemingly forbidden nature of Chuck Palanuik's books. After finding out that Fight Club, one of my favorite movies as a teenager, was actually based on a book, I had to find out more. For me, and I would assume many other 16 year old girls, anarchy plus Brad Pitt’s abs, plus multiple personalities equaled my mind blown. If I had known that Panic at the Disco had written a song about the events of the Palaniuk’s book Invisible Monsters my mind would have exploded all over my bedroom walls.

Although I loved Fight Club, the first Palaniuk book I read was Haunted during my senior year, because a friend let me borrow it. Reading that book made me feel oddly exhilarated, like I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to. However, how could anyone think I was being bad when I was a teenager reading a book for fun? I’m sure if my parents knew I was reading about orgasms caused by foot massages, nearly lethal masturbation at the bottom of a pool, and felching (look it up, if you dare) that book would have been taken away.

Fast forward to me now, a 31 year old stay at home mom of three little kids who recently joined a book club. Since I have been getting back into reading, and the excitement of discovering new books has reemerged, I was reminded of my old pal, Chuck. In my late teens and early twenties I only read a few books, and I knew he still had many others I had never read. I decided to check out Invisible Monsters from the library, and see if I still got that voyeuristic feeling I used to always get.

To put it simply, I did not get that feeling this time around. I mostly felt like I was reading something that was deliberately vulgar, and a bit contrived if I’m being honest. Things that would have seemed shocking if I was a teenager, just seemed a little bit over the top. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy Invisible Monsters, but it didn't meet my expectations.

Photo from chuckpalanuik.net

For context, Invisible Monsters follows an unnamed narrator who suffers from an accident resulting in a life-changing facial deformity. She is a fashion model, so as expected, the trajectory for her future changes dramatically as she can no longer be successful in her career. While in the hospital, she meets Brandy Alexander, a transgender woman who is going through speech therapy and recovering from one of her numerous cosmetic surgeries. The narrator becomes enamored with Brandy, and eventually embarks upon a cross country adventure with her, as well as a male companion whose name is always changing. Their journey involves attending open houses to steal drugs and make up, as well as a variety of other questionable activities fueled by different motives, which slowly reveal themselves as the story continues.

The story jumps around a lot, and I mean A LOT. The narrator explains that the story will read as a fashion magazine reads, with random details and events in random orders that don’t always make sense. I understand that this is a creative way to structure a book, but I wasn’t a fan of it.

However, I did enjoy reading about the narrator’s past, and learning about her family life, her accident, and how she dealt with it when it had first happened. Palanuik’s description of how a beautiful girl experiences life so incredibly differently after becoming so deformed is dark, interesting, and surprisingly funny. He does a great job of highlighting how obsessed with appearances our society is, and describing how powerful beauty can be.

The characters in Invisible Monsters were interesting and fun to read about. Brandy, AKA The Queen Supreme, is a larger than life character who can always seem to find the bright side of things, while still being catty and funny despite her past. Another interesting character is the narrator’s fiance, Manus Kelley, a former vice detective with homosexual tendencies who lacks the ability to be honest about who he really is. I can’t leave out Evie Cottrell, the narrator’s best friend from Texas, also a model despite her appearance being different from a typical model, with big hair and a rich family.

Photo by jujubescavities on deviantart.com

The character I felt was most underdeveloped was the narrator. Perhaps Palanuik doesn’t include her name for the majority of the book to reflect her selfishness and apathy. Other than being a beautiful, self-absorbed model who resents her homosexual brother who died of the AIDS virus, there really isn’t a whole lot to her. She describes the world as very bleak, even before her injury. I would have liked to know that there was more to her besides being attractive.

If you are planning on reading Invisible Monsters, you may want to skip this paragraph. I wouldn’t say it includes spoilers, but is rather spoiler-adjacent. The plot was interesting, but hard to follow and some of the events seemed a little too perfectly connected. Kind of like one of those movies where at the end all of the characters are either family or co-workers or best friends, and you don’t realize it until the end. However, in Invisible Monsters these connections were a bit more sick and twisted, characteristic of a Palanuik novel.

Also characteristic of a Palanuik novel, there were scenes that seemed to have been put in specifically to make the reader think, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I am reading this!” Maybe I am just a little jaded, or maybe I am just a little bit too old for these violent and hyper-sexual scenes, but I wasn’t shocked. I’m sure if my book club read it they would be, but I was expecting to read about some disgusting details, so it all kind of rolled off of my back.

One thing I found interesting while reading this book was that despite the fact that it was written twenty years ago, most of the references and events didn’t seem outdated. The fact that Brandy Alexander was transgender didn’t seem to be a shocking fact; however, for the average reader, reading this in 1999, maybe it would have been. Obviously, there were no mentions of social media, which I’m sure would have been a part of the story if it were written today since many of the characters were obsessed with their image and appearance. I guess you could say that the story is a bit timeless.

Photo from theverge.com

Although I don’t think I would recommend this book to most people, I did enjoy reading it. I was interested to see what happened next, but I was also a little disappointed as I continued. I give it three out of five stars. I think I was hoping for the nostalgia of reading something that was taboo, and unfortunately for me, reading Invisible Monsters just didn’t feel that way. Don’t get me wrong, it was plenty inappropriate, and would have probably been shocking to a 16 year old me, but I wasn’t shocked as an adult. Some books stick with me for days, weeks, or months after I have read them, but I know this one will not.

Am I ready to give up my reading of Chuck Palanuik? Not yet. After reading Invisible Monsters as an adult I am actually a little more curious than ever to see what I would think of Haunted or Fight Club or Survivor if I reread them today. I’ll be honest and say they are not the next books on my list, but they are still on my list, as well as some of the other Palahniuk novels I have yet to discover.

literature
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About the Creator

Haley Peterson

I am a full-time teacher turned stay at home mom, and I have been loving every minute of it!

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