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    Diary
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    Diary
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    Diary
    Audiobook7 hours

    Diary

    Written by Chuck Palahniuk

    Narrated by Martha Plimpton

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Misty Wilmot has had it. Once a promising young artist, she's now stuck on an island ruined by tourism, drinking too much and working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt, but that doesn't stop his clients from threatening Misty with lawsuits over a series of vile messages they've found on the walls of houses he remodeled.

    Suddenly, though, Misty finds her artistic talent returning as she begins a period of compulsive painting. Inspired but confused by this burst of creativity, she soon finds herself a pawn in a larger conspiracy that threatens to cost hundreds of lives. What unfolds is a dark, hilarious story from America's most inventive nihilist, and Palahniuk's most impressive work to date.


    From the Trade Paperback edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 26, 2003
    ISBN9780739302859
    Unavailable
    Diary
    Author

    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.

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    Reviews for Diary

    3.5/5

    1,876 ratings58 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I found this book to be absolutely insane (in a good way). Totally mind-blowing. I loved how everything ended. Palahniuk's words are harsh and his ideas are out-there, but he weaves those two things together to make a beautiful, interesting story. Honestly, I thought the book was pure genius.
    • 5/5
      Wow. Palahniuk's best, in my surely unpopular opinion. There are passages in this book that quite honestly took my breath away. Seriously, several times I had to stop and reread a particularly divine passage ten or twelve times, and then I'd remember to breathe. No book affected me more this year.
    • 3/5
      This novel was not as raw and twisted as some of Palahniuk's works-- which I mean as a compliment. The subtlety allowed me to just read the book without constantly being reminded that the author is sick and twisted. The plot, while making no attempt to be believable, was well spun and well told. Palahniuk did a superb job of weaving in a constant mood of dread which stuck with me during the entire read. This is probably my favorite of his novels that I've read.
    • 5/5
      I found this book to be absolutely insane (in a good way). Totally mind-blowing. I loved how everything ended. Palahniuk's words are harsh and his ideas are out-there, but he weaves those two things together to make a beautiful, interesting story. Honestly, I thought the book was pure genious.
    • 5/5
      I really liked this! It was a pleasant surprise, given that I'd just finished "Invisible Monsters" and found it underwhelming. The characters were all interesting and complex, and I can honestly say that many of the twists and turns the plot took surprised me. The ending was satisfying--which I worried about as suspense kept building, as I would not have been shocked if Palahniuk had ended the novel right before the "event" he'd led up to--but while I had a sense of closure, it still left me thinking for quite a while after the finish. I'd definitely recommend this to someone who would appreciate it.
    • 4/5
      Good story, keeps you turning pages. Riddled with profundity. Nice little twist. Worth a read.
    • 3/5
      This is my least favourite Palahniuk book, and I'll tell you why. It feels like 1970s horror film turned into a book, while filling it like a turkey with Palahniukisms.

      It's got atmosphere and is well-written, but feels quite empty. And yes, cinematic. And quite lonely. At times it's funny and a bit scary, and it's even hard to put away but all in all I'd much rather recommend "Rant" or "Snuff".
    • 4/5
      A bit of a rocky start, but kept me just interested enough for a nice payout!
    • 5/5
      Always a great read.
    • 4/5
      Took me a long time (ummm...almost the whole book) to figure out what it was even about since my copy had no blurb - just praise for other Palahniuk books. It was interesting though. I liked the contrasting voices of the story (second person and third person). It reminded me a lot of Palahniuk's "I am Jack's {X}" from Fight Club. I don't know why. Crappy review is crappy...
    • 4/5
      I didn't think I was enjoying this as much as his others until I found I couldn't put it down. Dark, but so imaginative. Very tightly plotted. I get tired of some of his literary devices, the repetition of "Just for the record," for example. But Palahniuk is an artist, no doubt about it.
    • 2/5
      I didn't like this one at all.
    • 3/5
      Some asshole (or teenager, come to think of it) had circled every standalone sort-of-profundity in my, which called attention to some bits I wouldn't have dwelt upon otherwise.
    • 5/5
      Excellent mind-fuck, such as Palahniuk is wont to write.
    • 3/5
      Some funny stuff in there, but the plot was not that engaging to me.
    • 4/5
      I am usually weary of authors attempting narratives from the perspective of main characters of the opposite sex, but Palahniuk delivers. This book is about a woman dealing with the attempted suicide of her husband and the unravelling of a lifestyle she spent her entire life dreaming of and trying to obtain. She is sometimes infuriating in her relentless bitterness and sometimes pitiful and worthy of a reader's deepest sympathies, but she never stops being Misty, so kudos to Palahniuk. Woolf would be impressed, I'm sure. This isn't a nihilist fiction, but it is fatalist in its presentation and message. It's straight to the point, a bit terrifying in places, and thoroughly entertaining. I could not put it down. Long-time fans and new readers alike should enjoy this novel.
    • 4/5
      This is a story written in diary format from Misty's perspective, but it's a letter to her husband, so there is second-person narrative element to it, which I liked. Basically, this story is about Misty, a girl who fell in love with a guy and ended up getting pregnant. So, she quit art school. She quit art, period. Though her husband comes from a rich family, they fall on hard times, so she gets a job as a waitress. He gets a job remodeling houses. We come into the story after the husband has tried to kill himself and is now in a coma; Misty gets calls from her husband's clients and finds that his remodeling jobs held secret messages; and Misty's mother-in-law keeps trying to get her to paint. For some reason, this will save all the residents of the island on which they live, and island that is being overrun by tourists.To describe Diary in two words: deliciously weird.This was my first foray into Palahniuk's mind. I have quite a few friends who are in love with him, but I have to admit, for the better part of this novel, I just wasn't sold. The beginning is just strange. Costume jewelry seems to be a big issue, and I just didn't get. Everything was surreal; the way Misty was able to find hidden messages that led her exactly where she needed to go; the way Misty's mother-in-law, daughter, and doctor treated her; really, everything about it was simply strange.None of it seemed to connect, and I thought I was reading a story that was strange just for the sake of being strange. However, it still intrigued me and I kept on going. I wanted to know what would happen to poor Misty. Would she start painting again? Would her husband wake up? Would her mother-in-law lay off? I had all these questions, and I wanted them answered.Thank goodness for those questions, because Diary comes together beautifully. Don't get me wrong, it's still strange. But it's strange with a purpose. Everything is happening for a reason, and once that was made clear, I fell in love. The narrative is expertly done. I was taken on the journey with Misty, who also had no clue about what was going on. Along with her, I discovered the island inhabitants' strange beliefs and their even stranger plan for saving their livelihoods.There were some times where I thought the story was too drawn out, but for the most part, I enjoyed it. It's horrific, terrifying, and intriguing all at the same time. For those who like their books weird, definitely pick this one up. You won't regret it.
    • 4/5
      This was my first book by Chuck Palahniuk. I had received an audio version of the book, which is read by Martha Plimpton; I am not certain if it was the way she read it, or the book itself, but I was hooked! I listened to the book every night for a week when I went to bed… starting it at different spots but never allowing myself to hear the end. Finally, I went out to the store and purchased my own copy. Even though I had heard most of the story it was still a fantastic fresh read. Every chance I had I read… waiting in line… in the car waiting for the kids after school… waiting for my professors to start class… I could not put it down. The first page reeled me in: “Today, a man called from Long Beach […] he says his bathroom is missing” (1). The need to find out why this room and many others went missing was gnawing at me.The story is told to us by ex-art student turned wife and mother, Misty, who is writing a diary for her husband, Peter, who now sits in a coma after a failed suicide attempt. The entries are mostly in third person narrative, with a bit of second person thrown for emphasis, “[a]nd Peter said, ‘If you only knew…’ You said that” (80). Misty is writing the diary at the urging of her mother in law, Grace.Throughout the beginning of the novel all Misty wants is a “couple of drinks. A couple of aspirin. And repeat” (74). The manner in which she tells her moods with the weather reports, “[t]oday’s weather is partly furious with the occasional fits of rage” (42), was interesting. What Waytansea Island had in store for Misty Marie Kleinman reminded me a little of Stephen King’s Misery. “Just for the record”, I would highly recommend this book to anyone.
    • 4/5
      Loved this book. Anything by Palahniuk I adore. It's Palahniuk's usual dark twist and if you love his other books, you'll love this book. The ending of the book surprised me and I honestly did not see it coming.
    • 4/5
      this book was good at parts boring at the others. I had no idea what was going on until the last 100 pages however these pages make reading the whole book worthwhile. another great suspensful novel from chuck!
    • 2/5
      This was actually my first Palahniuk book, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I had to fight the first chapter or three not to put it down, but in the end, it was a quick read that was slow to start, engaging in the middle, and lackluster at the end. Without giving too much away, the book is the diary of a woman named Misty regarding her life following her husband's suicide attempt, which left him in a coma. Misty used to be an artist and her mother-in-law and daughter are urging her to go back to her art, taking some pretty extreme measures to that end. My real problem is that the conception of the book was really just too far-fetched to make me feel anything at the end. I didn't feel mind-blown or even mildly interested... just, really? That's how you ended it? That was the whole big deal? I didn't learn enough about the characters to make their complete 180 degree switches make any sense at all, and in the end I just didn't care. Maybe, in the end, I'm just not cool enough for Palahniuk.
    • 5/5
      Reading this book was a bit like falling down the rabbit hole. The rhythm of Palahniuk's writing is so urgent, it compelled me to keep turning pages, even as the images his words painted grew more and more twisted and terrifying. I stayed up until the wee hours to finish because I knew if I left off in the middle of that horror I'd have nightmares, but it definitely wasn't a typical horror novel. Intriguing themes and subject matter--I loved the way the author wove in the study of facial muscles and the origin of pigments with the Stendhal Syndrome and the questions about the meaning and purpose of art--and an extremely creepy concept kept me reading, and the unique voice of the main character kept me caring about her fate.
    • 5/5
      One of Palahniuk's better books. If you have read Rant before it kind of spoils Diary a bit; alas this is a great one of Palahniuk's "out-there"/"Fantasy" style 'over-ambitious'' projects; like Rant. Definitely better than Survivor or Invisible Monsters.
    • 4/5
      I personally found quite a bit to enjoy in this novel. I though the diary entries as a timeline to the storytelling worked extremely well. Each chapter in the novel is a diary entry with a date associated, and it helps to really establish a sense of time in the novel. It also worked well to really establish the levels of mental decomposition of Misty as the novel develops. I will be frank and admit that at many levels the conclusion to the plot is extremely far-fetched and kinda comes out of nowhere. But at the same time, I really found it to be exciting and engaging even if being a bit derivative. I thought it had a very good conspiracy theory feeling going and reading the layers and layers of this conspiracy unfold, and seeing earlier events of the book in a different light was interesting. I will admit there were some events, that when they happened did not make all that much sense, leading the reader to come to expect this type of event, but I still believe that it was effective at some level in creating a good story. The one thing that I will not deny as being a bit annoying is how he resolves the third-person storytelling in referencing other people in the novel. There is a ton of "my this" and "my that" that goes a bit overboard and repetitive, considering a lot of the time it is repeated (for example she will talk about the Diary, which we know is hers, and say something on the lines of "the Diary, My Diary,") and after a while this can get annoying. I think my take away from this novel was that I really enjoyed the level in which conspiracy theory and plan played out and some of it's level of intricacy. I think if you are looking for a place to start with Palahniuk's work, I don't think this is the novel to start off with. But if you like some of his other work, and this type of plot is something that you think would be interesting, I personally felt that it made up for the book's sometimes annoying narrative voice.
    • 2/5
      If I am unsure of a book, if I want to like it but the first few pages make me want to gnaw my face off, I give it ten percent. Figure out how many pages it has, divide by ten, and that’s how many pages I’ll give it to convince me that continuing is in any way worth it. I used to agree with the old librarian rule of reading your age (i.e. I’m 25, so I’d read 25 pages) but on shorter books, that proved silly. In this case, the book is 260 pages, I read to page 26. And I still hated it. But I kept reading, probably out of some sadistic need to end up hating myself, Palahniuk, everyone in the novel, and viewers like you.This epistolary novel revolves around art-school-dropout Misty Marie Kleinman Wilmot and her fated existence among the chipped paint facades of Waytansea Island, located somewhere, it seems, in New Jersey. Appropriate for a hellish existence, New Jersey. There, she has been baited and lured, and now she hangs on the line as her life, and her previous lives, flash before her/our eyes.The novel is not without merit. It’s intelligent and colorful and, if nothing else, proves that someone’s done their painting homework. But anything written in (even semi-) second person (i.e. addressing the reader as a character) as this is, can be jarring, unnerving and uncomfortable. It was like having an anxiety attack for three days straight.Somewhere around page 200 I decided that I didn’t completely hate it, that it wasn’t just some sadistic need to be reading that kept me doing so, that there was something of me in it relating to the art. But as I reached the last few chapters, that vicious self-serving need to just finish the damn book took the wheel again. By the end, I felt like Peter Wilmot, sitting alone, gas tank empty, engine exhausted, poisoned by prose-y sleeping pills and fumes.But the real kicker came when the story seemed over. On the last page of the book, Palahniuk does exactly what I loathe, exactly what Porter Grand did with Little Women and Werewolves by including the fictionalized publisher’s letter and exhibiting the novel as a previous version by Alcott. It’s a cop-out. Palahniuk’s work is far too intelligent to sink to that kind of nonsense. Better to end on an anxious high than sink in the finale with that kind of kick in the head that makes the psychological and kind of horrifying tone of the novel feel trivial and dull like hard plastic. Lauren Cartellitheliterarygothamite.com
    • 5/5
      I bow down to Palahniuk and his absolutely perfect use of ‘You’ in the telling of this story. He pulls the point of view off beautifully and the direction of reference is placed toward the intended audience, the coma ridden Peter Wilmot. An impressive and original piece of work that again sticks with you long after you read the last sentence. I found myself still pondering different parts of the story for days and marveling at the gutty grit with which so many issues and themes are revealed. After reading a Palahniuk tale, you can’t help but look at humanity with eyes wide open and see all the wonderful, shocking and often laughable flaws. Each story is a social experiment that leaves the reader stunned, horrified and thankful that someone has the tenacity to be honest. I loved it! This excerpt says it all and resonated so strongly for me that I had to highlight it. We don’t learn from happy, sweet stories or events — unfortunately, we must be scarred.“It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.”Palahniuk will not appeal to everyone. This isn’t necessarily a flaw, but a reality for most authors. He has a cult-like loyal fan base but may not attract a large demographic especially across the age gap. However, if you have an open mind and crave something original, I say give it a try. Nonetheless, whether you love Palahniuk or not, you won’t easily forget the experience.
    • 2/5
      Not as good as the rest of his novels. Interesting premise - a woman is the reincarnated soul of a painter and she paints a mural so wonderous that it stuns the viewers so much that they don't even care if they burn to death while viewing it. She is trapped on an island and the old families that rule it, who use her to save their island from being co-opted by the rich summer tourists who are looking for an escape. You feel very sorry for the main character, Misty, because she has no idea what's going on, and its almost like she wants to be an artist so desperately that she doesn't care what happens to her or others as a result. She endures physical and emotional pain and doesn't try to escape, though the warnings are obvious. There is a lot about what it takes to be an artist - the idea that pain is a necessary part of it. There is also a theme that is common to Chuck about mothers and what they do to their daughters, and how willing they are to sacrifice them for themselves - it is very bitter. It's also written weirdly - as a diary for Misty's husband who is in a coma, as a record of what she does without him. It is also bitterly tragic to see how much she was in love with him and how little he cares for her - he likes her only enough to not really want her dead, but not enough to tell her what's going on.
    • 5/5
      I really liked this! It was a pleasant surprise, given that I'd just finished "Invisible Monsters" and found it underwhelming. The characters were all interesting and complex, and I can honestly say that many of the twists and turns the plot took surprised me. The ending was satisfying--which I worried about as suspense kept building, as I would not have been shocked if Palahniuk had ended the novel right before the "event" he'd led up to--but while I had a sense of closure, it still left me thinking for quite a while after the finish. I'd definitely recommend this to someone who would appreciate it.
    • 4/5
      While this novel moves quickly, capturing the reader's attention and refusing to let go, at the end, it's a creepy story that doesn't seem to have enough thought to really move it too far out of the horror/mystery genre. The plot is fabulous and twisting, as you'd expect from the author of Fight Club. However, it's disappointing that Chuck Palahniuk couldn't move away from creepiness for creepinesses sake and further explore some of the psychological and philosophical issues he touches upon. If Tom Robbins could take this book and do a re-write, he would take the great ideas, such as handwriting analysis, the ideas of what makes an artist great, and perceptions, mix them with a bit of his humour, and have a masterpiece. Palahniuk, on the other hand, seems too fixated on shocking his reader, and his intellectual ideas get lost. Overall, Diary is still a novel worth reading and spending a few hours with.
    • 4/5
      The style, the physical and psychological violence were all very similar to Fight Club. Characters struggling to understand their environment which is not what it seems, bizarre crimes and conspiracies, wanderings between reality and imagination. While the plot was interesting, albeit sometimes very confusing, the denouement creative, and the premise intelligent, there were some elements I found really too far-fetched (namely the use of the diary itself and the fire at the end). I also had trouble believing the main voice was that of a woman - it sounded much more like a man. It was very reminiscent of a David Lynch movie: uncomfortable yet mesmerizing.