Invisible Monsters

Written by Chuck Palahniuk

Narrated by Anna Fields

She’s a fashion model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden freeway "accident" leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful center of attention to being an
invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and
making up something better. And that salvation hides in the last places you’ll ever want to look.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781705041246

Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk’s fourteen novels include the bestselling Snuff; Rant; Haunted; Lullaby; Fight Club, which was made into a film by director David Fincher; Diary; Survivor; Invisible Monsters; and Choke, which was made into a film by director Clark Gregg. He is also the author of the nonfiction profile of Portland, Fugitives and Refugees, and the nonfiction collection Stranger Than Fiction. His story collection Make Something Up was a widely banned bestseller. His graphic novel Fight Club II hit #1 on the New York Times list. He’s also the author of Fight Club III and the coloring books Bait and Legacy, as well as the writing guide Consider This. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Reviews for Invisible Monsters

[Shawn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Gripping, confusing and downright disturbing. I absolutely loved it !!!

[birdo82 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Challenging structure, challenging gender, challenging loyalties - all just a taste of what this troubling, darkly hilarious book has to offer.

[juva_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shannon has spent her whole life living in the shadow of her brother Shane. Shane was scarred in an explosion in his teenage years and ended up dying of AIDS. As you can imagine, this is a tough act to follow. Even though Shannon is now a famous supermodel, her parents can still only talk about their perfect, dead, gay son. This tedious cycle all begins to change for Shannon when she has her jaw shot off in a freak accident. Suddenly she is no longer the most attractive woman in any room. Instead of being constantly showered in attention, she has become the invisible freak that no one will look at.In the hospital recovery ward she meets an outlandish, ravishing, pre-op transsexual woman named Brandy Alexander. The two have a sudden affinity and Shannon's life is forever altered.This is a novel about the inherent shallowness of pop culture and the American quest for beauty, acceptance, and above all, attention.

[donhazelwood · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Find where you are most uncomfortable and go live there ... pretty good words to live by ...

[joemaro-449101 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So good and refreshing to read an author that's conscious of the depth of life, but has not forgotten how to play with the surface.

[064-699196 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've never read anything like it! How many times have been reading a thriller and you wished you couldn't see how many pages are left? This is that. It's a choose-your-own-adventure book, but without the choice. There are two or three other plot lines (aside from the main story) that loop back around, so if you take a wrong turn you'll figure it out. This is definitely a rocket ride. The characters have some pretty deep mental issues that keep the plot moving in crazy, shocking directions.

[vhartpowers · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This story was so "out there" that I was torn between throwing it against the wall, (not a feeling I've ever had before) or continue reading. I continued reading just for the fact that I've never wanted to throw a book before. I liked that there were twists in the story that I didn't figure out, but then it just got ridiculous. I was glad to be finished with it, but I also didn't feel it was a waste of my time.

[sheilacornelisse · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I found this book very disturbing. At first I thought it may work well in our diversity and LGTBQ collection at the high school; however, this is definitely not a positive book. The plot line is twisted and the end is not what one would be expecting. NOT a recommended read for anyone going through identity issues.

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Disturbing and bleak story of the interconnected and vapid lives of gender bending characters. Takes a similar attacking role towards femininity that [Fight Club] took to masculinity.

[kiddboyblue · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I pride myself on usually being able to see twists and turns coming in novels ahead of the reveal. This was not the case with Invisible Monsters. This novel was so utterly unique and brilliant, and I was completely shocked with each twist in the story.At the surface it's perhaps a story about how to be ugly is to be invisible and if someone went from being beautiful to ugly, how would the world respond?Yet, with each turn of the page, the depth and beauty of the story kept unfolding. Along with the complete chaos and absurdity!This was the most unique novel I have read, and I was completely mesmerized. Palahniuk is a writer unlike any, and I cannot wait to read more of his work!

[altheaann · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Reminded me a bit of Bret Easton Ellis. But better.
It's about a young woman (a cut-rate model) who has half her face blown off by a gunshot. In the hospital, she meets a glamorously beautiful drag queen, and with another man, they set off on a road trip involving drugs, violence and crime...
Reading it, I kept vacillating between: "oh, this is just intentionally prurient, trashy stuff!" and "oh wait, it's really commenting on a lot more than that."
So I guess it's kind of a prurient trashy novel that does have a lot to say about body image and society and all that stuff.
It' also depends on a lot of things that the reader doesn't really see coming - which makes it hard to say a lot about it!

[benuathanasia · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fairly run-of-the-mill for Palahniuk. Not his best work, however. It all begins with a murder - and I suppose you could say it ends that way as well. Like everything Palahniuk writes, it's a critique on modern society. This particular book asks readers to critically examine our concepts of and perverse obsessions with physical beauty. Not my favorite of his. Kinda boring at parts.

[martinbodek · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is how you start a book, ladies and gentlemen. And oh yes, this is how you finish one too. While we're at it, this is also how one should write the middle part: slam bang to the end of the action, and rewind to see how we got there; super-crazy revelation that leave your brain befuddled; endless twists every time the story kind of begins to flag, respectively. Man, this guy really knows how to grab you by the throat and not let go.

[missizicks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wasn't sure about this at first, but after about 50 pages, it settled into its groove. It's a crazy story that hurtles along, time shifting, filling in blanks that turn out to be blinds, and then replacing them with mundane facts that are still extraordinary. It's a story of contradictions. It's good.

[gecizzle · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book is not about invisible monsters. If you look under your bed at night, looking for monsters, you will not find anything that is contained in this book. Because there's not one single monster in this goddamn book. It't about stupid, vapid bimbos. Silly-ass cunts that may end up killing each other one day. Because their hair isn't just so, or because they chipped a fucking nail. Whatever. It's fucking stupid.

Okay, sure. People can be monsters. I know this, okay? But, goddamnit. Give me a real fucking people monster, at least. Damn. These bitches are not monsters, they're just stupid spoiled whores.

So, fuck Chucky boy in his stupid dirty asshole. Because, I know he can write about monsters. I know he's a sick fuck and he writes about fucked up things. Oh, and fuck those stupid spoiled cunts in their asshole too. Because they're bad, and they should feel bad.

[imaginationzombie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Chuck P can pull off twists and turns like no one I've read before. I couldn't put the book down until I finished yesterday. I haven't felt that way since I read suspense/mystery as a teen. Brilliant stuff in this book. I would have given it a five if it wasn't so gross.

[princesca_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A few book's quotes that I liked:Brandy says "and if you can find any way out of our culture, then that's a trap, too. Just wanting to get out of the trap reinforces the trap" "what I wanted looked more and more like what I'd always been trained to want""The best way is not to fight it, just go. Don't be trying all the time to fix things. What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger""Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. It's the opposite of following your bliss. Do the things that scare you the most"."I have to know that I can love somebody. Completely and totally, permanently and without hope of reward, just as an act of will, I will love somebody".

[keneumey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Chuck Palahniuk writes cinematically, yet tells this story in such a way that only the written word can do it justice.

There were two "Holy Shit" moments in the middle, within pages of each other, that completely blew me away. Some of the later plot twists were less satisfying, but I don't know if that's because they felt contrived, or because I just didn't want them to be true.

In any case, I really enjoyed this book and am trying to decide which of his books I'll read next.

[chaosmogony · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fun read. Not Palahniuk's best, but it has all his charms.

[ohernaes · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What's in an appearance? Scheming characters moving around the theme of appearance and identity, with many twists. Will remember mostly the memorable family scenes (thanksgiving, christmas presents).

[tanya8dogearedcopy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having never before read or listened to a Palahniuk novel before, nor even seen a movie based on one of his books, I wasn't sure what to expect. Now, after having finished "Invisible Monsters" I'm not quite sure what to make of it! It's intense and perverse and more than a little wacked out (and definitely not for the socially conservative at heart) and I'm not sure I "got it" all, but it was fun, funny and fast. There were unexpected turns and a jumping stream of consciousness that keeps the listener on his/her toes. There were a couple places were the unrelenting sarcasm began to wear a little but Anna Fields (a.k.a. the late Kate Fleming) was spot on in this performance.

[senorag163 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was just too funny. Highly enjoyable.

[breadnbutter · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At first I was concerned that the constant jumping around in the story telling would be hard to follow, but it surprisingly wasn't. For about the first 2/3 of the book it was about as straightforward as you can call a Chuck Palahniuk book, but the last 1/3 is where it really shines. Shocking twists (and I mean shocking) that I honestly didn't see coming. I was worried that this wouldn't be as good as Survivor but it is right up there in my opinion. It really is difficult to give a synopsis of the book itself, but all I will say is that if you are a fan of Palaniuk, or just a fan of downright craziness, then you should check out this book.

[thecrow2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another shot of Palahniuk's weird and grotesque fantasy. This time take a ride with an ex photomodell with no jaws and her extraordinary companion to their personal hell...

[namaste374 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Like reading a car crash I read to the end to find out what happened but I am not intending to read any others by this author!

[folkeb_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Chuck Palahniuk's novel Invisible Monsters initially catches the reader's eye with its unique book cover, but easily ropes one in with a writing style that goes from disturbing to hilarious to thought-provoking, even within a single sentence. The narrator of the novel has been shot in the face, thus destroying her modeling career and leaving her without a jaw or the ability to talk. Through her rehabilitation she meets the queen supreme Brandy Alexander, a transsexual who teaches the narrator that she can simply make up a new life and move on. Brandy and the narrator begin a life on the road along with a man named Seth, paying for their lifestyle by touring mansions for sale and stealing prescription drugs. Palahniuk's novel frequently jumps between different time periods, allowing the reader to piece together the narrator's story, which twists and turns in unexpected ways from beginning to end. While this novel is certainly not for the faint-of-heart, a fan of Palahniuk will see that it is one of his best works to date, and it offers a satisfying ending that is nothing short of jaw-dropping.Laurel C.

[hellokittyispretty_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

this book is kind of weird and crazy. if you're looking for a dark read this fits the bill.

[perlle_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you're not easily offended, this book is a crazy wild, fast-paced ride. Even though the ending was a bit far-fetched (even for this) I found myself not really caring. The ideas and the story are so entertaining, it was more about the journey.

[ngeunit1_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I thought this was another outstanding novel by Palahniuk. I thought the pacing of the story was well and especially liked how a lot of the surprise in the novel came from character's true identities. But not just in the normal sense of a character's motive being different then expected, but due to the fact that many of the characters are addressed by different names throughout the novel, there are moments where we find out that two characters who we think are different are actually the same person. And this keeps the reader on edge and does not allow them to take names for granted throughout the story.I also thought this was one of the better openings of the Palahniuk novels. It really started with a bang, and even though we traveled back in time to grasp exactly what was going on, it did a really fantastic job of giving you a good "juicy" scene to get you interested in the novel from page one. The ending sections of the novel are everything that Palahniuk fans are to expect from him. The events really start to ramp up and surprises and shocking events are around every corner. In this novel in particular we get to see a scene in the first few pages of the novel, then at the end, armed with more information on the situation, view the event very differently, and this is very effective and interesting.At it's core this book feels like a story of many people searching for their identity and place in the world, which is something that at one level or not very relatable. The twists and turns throughout the novel mixed with a quirky narrative and some interesting characters make this a very enjoyable read.

[tiffanyhickox · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If I have said it once, I've said it a hundred times - I am in love with Chuck Palahniuk novels! Just when I think I have the plot pegged, he throws in something so psychotically absurd and fantastic that I am humbley reminded of his literary genius. The characters in this book may not be some of the most developed characters he has created, but this lends itself more to the time jump style of the narration than oversight. The ending was satisfying, and even optimistic. I definately recommend!