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Outstanding
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The Guardian Christopher Priest
The most original work of fiction this year.
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Mixed
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The Onion A.V. Club Tasha Robinson
Palahniuk does have a point to make about the self-abasement of modern celebrity, and the current price and nature of fame. But getting to it involves slogging through a mountain of fanatically detailed descriptions of self-mutilation, suicide, murder, gruesome sex, even more gruesome masturbation, corpse desecration and decay, child molestation, cannibalism, and pyrrhic self-annihilation, all piled up to such extremes that it seems like Palahniuk is just double-daring himself to top each new vile degradation with something worse.
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Mixed
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Booklist John Green
This novel will please Palahniuk's hardcore fans and few others. [1 Mar 2005, p.1102]
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Mixed
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Kirkus Reviews
While a number of the stories here are ingenious, in a devilish sort of way, the constant barrage of wicked sadism soon palls. [1 Feb 2005, p.143]
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Mixed
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Library Journal Ken St. Andre
The short stories would work if taken singly and at intervals, but strung together they become a catalog of atrocities. [1 May 2005, p.75]
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Mixed
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Publishers Weekly
Palahniuk tells his story with such blithe disregard for these characters that it's hard not to wish he had dispensed with the novel altogether and published, instead, the 23 short stories that pop up throughout the book. [21 Feb 2005, p.154]
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Whitney Pastorek
The only thing saving Haunted from disaster is Palahniuk's prose, which is, as always, gorgeous.
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Mixed
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Flak Mark Hayes
It could be suggested that this novel is a gruesome satire of reality-shows like "Survivor" or "Big Brother," but "Haunted" comes off like a serial killer's version of A Chorus Line: gobs of razzamatazz but little humanity.
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Unfavorable
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San Francisco Chronicle Buzz Poole
Even the most ardent of his fans may have trouble mucking through this world of ingrates.
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Unfavorable
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Jason Anderson
Haunted is itself haunted by the sense that there's little here Palahniuk hasn't done already, and sharper, faster and funnier, at that. [14 May 2005, p.D12]
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Unfavorable
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The New York Times Janet Maslin
Mr. Palahniuk's underlying thoughts are startlingly simple-minded.
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Unfavorable
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The New York Times Book Review Tom Shone
''Haunted'' remains stubbornly unscary. It burps up its shock moments with so little ceremony that the Gothic virtue of stealthily sidewinding suspense -- the art of allowing a story to steal up on you before you even knew it was there -- is left whistling in the wind.
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Unfavorable
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Boston Globe Adam Mansbach
The lack of any attempt to grant these narrators voices of their own is the reader's first clue that Palahniuk's investment in ''Haunted" may be less than total.
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Unfavorable
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Chicago Sun-Times Lloyd Sachs
Haunted is a book that's a little too in love with its attitude, its snarky language, its concept, its willingness to establish new standards of grossness.
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Unfavorable
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Washington Post Elizabeth Hand
Even the cannibalism is kind of boring.
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Unfavorable
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Village Voice Brandon Stosuy
Many of these [stories] are humorous, but rarely more than that.
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Unfavorable
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TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Tim Pashley
Harder and harder it is to keep turning the pages.
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