Invisible Monsters

Happy Independence Day all!  Today we drove back from PA and so I was able to finish listening to Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk.  The story begins with the narrator, Sharon McFarland, informing that this is not a linear story; thank goodness for that, otherwise I would have been lost.  Sharon, the protagonist is a disfigured woman (we don’t know how it happened until the end), who is asked to tell the story of Brandy Alexander, who is shot at the very beginning by her friend Evie Cottrell at her wedding.  Evie is Sharon’s best friend, a fellow model, who has an affair with Sharon’s fiancée, Manus Kelly.  We learn that Sharon meets Brandy Alexander when she is rushed to the hospital after driving and being shot in the face and they become fast friends.  So we already learn in the first few chapters that Brandy is shot bleeding by Evie on her wedding day, the narrator was shot in the face, and that her best friend is a “hand model”… wacky enough for you?  It was for me.  Wait until you discover the Rhea sisters, the three drag queen sisters, the hidden identity of Brandy Alexander and Evie Cottrell, and the real reason Sharon is shot in the face and you are in for a weird, funny read.  Sharon’s family background is examined, growing up in a pretty conservative farm family where her brother allegedly died after being disfigured by an exploding can of hair spray that Sharon left in the garbage can and then thought to have died from AIDS.  One of the funniest chapters in the entire book is the Christmas present unwrapping between Sharon and her parents where she unwraps all of her presents from her stocking, tens of condom packets so that Sharon doesn’t contract sexually transmitted diseases.  Palahniuk’s humor is right on target and illustrates the oddities in family structures.   He dares to be the most “non PC” with his disregard for models and reveling in the age of sexual identity, lots of transgendered characters in this one.  I can see why this book wasn’t initially picked up by a publisher at first as it is over the top, truly!  If you are into a “non-traditional” book, add this one to the list.  This is certainly not a book for everyone.