May 1, 2024
Palahniuk (Not Forever, but for Now) imagines a high school where kids have been surveilled since birth by billionaires who plan to harvest their intellectual labor, to be sold off at a high-stakes auction. Students start disappearing, lost to apparent suicide, raising the question of what say they have in their own futures. Prepub Alert.
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Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
July 22, 2024
In the latest bracing satire from Palahniuk (Fight Club), a wave of high school suicides roils the country. The narrative centers on Samantha Deel, a brilliant and resourceful teenager who’s hit hard by the suicide of her boyfriend, Garson. When her excellent academic record attracts the notice of an organization called Greener Pastures, she agrees to enter its mysterious program. Passages from the group’s “Guide,” which blends calls for Stepford Wives–esque conformity with a vision for a new order (“The family is over”), are interspersed throughout the novel. The excerpts provide an eerie contrast to Sam’s dangerous odyssey as a complex series of events brings the teen, who is secretly pregnant with Garson’s baby, to the Orphanage, an affiliate of Greener Pastures, where her process of “induction” begins. The patchwork structure accommodates periodic sidebars and ironic observations on references high and low, from Hitler to Captains Courageous, as the narrator muses on totalitarianism and mind control. Many of the one-liners target low-hanging fruit, but there’s a cleverness to the depiction of Sam as a survivor (“Unlike Jay Gatsby,” Palahniuk writes, “Samantha Deel would live beyond her early infatuation”). Die-hard Palahniuk fans will lap this up. Agents: Sloan Harris and Dan Kirschen, ICM Partners.
August 1, 2024
A novel by Palahniuk (Not Forever, but For Now, 2023) almost defies attempts to describe it, which may be exactly what he intends. In his newest dark satire, high-school students, the cream of the crop, are dying, apparently from suicide. What is driving them to this extreme act? A rash of suicides among young people is not a new plot; John Saul tackled it in Punish the Sinners, back in 1978. But nobody takes an idea and runs with it the way Palahniuk does. His teen-suicide story is set in a brilliantly realized near-future in which the super-wealthy keep students under surveillance from the day they're born, deciding which will be offered a job--and a lifetime spent under the control of their employer (even this is just a tiny sampling of the wonderful, scary, funny ideas in this book). The author's writing style isn't for everyone: he bounces from idea to idea, shifts gears stylistically, and rambles on from time to time, but it's all completely intentional and an integral part of his unique storytelling mode. Palahniuk's fans will be delighted.
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September 1, 2024
The kids are most definitely not all right in a near future that can't decide whether to drug them, kill them, or promote them. "WAKE UP, YOU BASTARDS!" That barbaric yelp might not be the most traditional finale, but here we are back in the land of Chuck. This is not Palahniuk's first foray into teen angst--seeDamned (2011) andDoomed (2013) for lighter fare. This time he's way more interested in pulling apart the building blocks of story and self than subverting conventional dystopian tropes. In this bizarro version of America, the powers that be launch an ill-fated attempt to rescue society---covertly encouraging the country's largely illiterate youth to read books laced with everything from Ritalin to powerful hallucinogenics. Simultaneously, our best and brightest are targeted with a standardized test that neutralizes societal disruptors: "You cherry-pick. You hunt for kids likely to create seismic shifts in culture and technology, and you weed them out." Once ripe, they're sold by their parents to a postmodern slave market and repurposed from saviors into heads of state and corporate overlords: "Okay, it was a severly fucked-up system, buut a systm." Here comes steely-eyed Samantha Deel, destined to become the actual Queen of England, but so unhappy to be losing her dreams of singing that she maims herself. Yes, she's the hero, along with her formerly dead boyfriend, Garson, and a gender-bent, self-described "interventionist" named War Dog, but don't get too excited. Although there are a few familiar wisps of YA dystopia here, The Hunger Games it's not. Peppering his book with passages and phrases fromThe Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina, andThe Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Palahniuk is clearly enjoying himself, but he's also drilling down into the titular idea--a psychic or spiritual kick that gets you out of your own head for once. Readers' choice whether this is a coded message, a spiked cocktail, or just a secret love letter to art.
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December 13, 2024
Palahniuk's (Not Forever, but for Now) newest book is both grim and humorous, and it's told with his usual tradition-defying flair. A string of suicides by high-achieving students of a prestigious high school leaves protagonist Samantha grieving the loss of her boyfriend. That is, until he seemingly returns from the dead to whisk Samantha away to explain to her that he has been chosen by a program called Greener Pastures, in which billionaires bid to recruit teens with bright futures. Samantha is quick to place herself on the Greener Pastures auction table and leave her abusive home behind. But Greener Pastures' intentions are more sinister than they seem, and Samantha has to choose between complicity and Green Pastures as it becomes difficult to ascertain whom she can trust. Palahniuk intertwines Samantha's story with passages from a book on Greener Pastures, instructions on mind control, and a metanarrative regarding classic book titles that have been republished with drugs lacing the pages, to promote literacy. Some plot threads cohere better than others, but the story is a consistently wild ride. VERDICT Palahniuk's loyal fans, along with readers new to his work, will enjoy this distinctive and thought-provoking book.--Jennifer Renken
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.