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Lullaby

Chuck Palahniuk

I finished reading this book this morning and I’ve decided to put a little review of it up here

Carl Streator is a journalist working on a series of features on cot death. Helen Hoover Boyle is a realtor selling haunted houses again and again. A discovery Carl makes while shadowing paramedics at infant mortality cases joins the pair together in a quest to remove page 27 from every copy of a book called ‘Poems and Rhymes From Around the World’.

I usually enjoy Palahniuk’s work and this was no exception, but as with his last novel Choke, this is a slight read compared with the intensity of Fight Club and Survivor.
The plot devices were interesting, I really liked the idea of the culling song, but ultimately none of the characters were memorable or sympathetic. They were all too numb to horror or too full of self importance for any of their actions to matter to them, never mind the reader.
This could have been a powerful and disturbing read, but instead ended up being merely diverting.
I would say it’s worth reading, but it’s no masterpiece.