Tell-All

This book wasn't exactly up my alley; but regardless of that I feel the author did a fine job of writing a cinematic novel about Hollywood of the past through the cynical eyes behind the scenes manipulator of an aging movie star told in the language of a gossip column (including a bizarre, silly side story featuring Lillian Hellman).

Kids - this is quite different from all his previous novels.

I highly recommend this book for anyone that is interested in Mormonism, the LDS Church, and the history of the Church; or for anyone that is interested in what life was like for the early Mormon pioneer settlers of Salt Lake City.

After enjoying his first 3 books, I liked each of this author's successive books less and less, and I thought I'd never read one again. I gave this one a chance, and I'd have to call it a " noble failure". He tried something new, and succeeded in doing something different, but it fails as a novel.

Even at novella length, this book felt too long. The gimmicky style and plot wore me out pretty quickly, and the boldfacing made it hard to read- the eye skips from boldface to boldface and I had to force myself to follow the text.

This book is best appreciated by those familiar with the Hollywood of the period, and how many of Palahniuk's readers are old enough to get the references?

So, I get what he was doing, it just didn't get me. Pretty dust jacket, though.

I read in a review that Chuck Palahniuk is coasting; I think that if you keep that in mind, Tell-All will be exactly what you expect.

The (very short) novel is about an aging actress and her puppet master "servant," full of the name dropping and ridiculousness one would expect from Hollywood. While the ending is quite predictable, the novel itself is a quick read and is MUCH more readable than Pygmy, probably on par with Snuff. Absolutely not one of Chuck's best novels (and if you're looking to start reading him, please don't start here), but definitely not his worst either.

Title Tell-All
Author Chuck Palahniuk
Rating ***
Tags experimental fiction, movie stars, murder, humor

This is the sort of experimental fiction some readers love and some don't. I'm in the don't category, so the fact that it is a short book quickly read was one of the high points for me. It is the fictional story of movie star Katherine Kenton, one of the biggest stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, as told by her servant who is also her teacher, Hazie Coogan. It is deliberately reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard, though rather as if Sunset Boulevard were being staged by someone on acid.

The name dropping that occurs on every page is rather fun, and one could spend some pleasant time looking up the names one doesn't know. It is also a funny device, and it must be admitted that the book is funny, especially when all the roles Kenton has played are mentioned and add up to a large percentage of the famous women in history, or at least the wives of famous men. We so rarely see Mrs. Genghis Khan mentioned.

I had not read Palahniuk before. He is perhaps most famous for Fight Club. I don't plan on reading him again, but he is obviously more to some people's taste.

Publication Doubleday (2010), Hardcover, 192 pages
Publication date 2010
ISBN 0385526350 / 9780385526357

There's only one Palahniuk! Change the name on the cover, read the book, and you'd still know the words are him. The lines are packed with brash blunt wisdoms; they are riddled with rude and hilarious perversity; the characters are wicked /bent /dark /shameless /funny /pathetic /raw /honest. His sentences are prose poetry, and profane. The research is thorough -- careful but then spun through what seems a brain that's reckless and ever-laughing. You can hear Chuck laugh as you read his words, always, and this is true in Tell-All as well as the rest. In recommending Tell-All, the only item I'd highlight besides those signature characteristics is that the book has perhaps a more specific audience than his others. I suppose that readers who love old Hollywood / classic movies and the celebrities who made them (I think of Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve, Mildred Pierce, The Picture of Dorian Gray, etc. etc. etc.) will love this book the most. Palahniuk's research into this period is brilliant (reminds me of the type of research work -- as well as his application of the research -- that he did for Snuff) and when I didn't know the references I found myself seeking them out, often then marveling over how he'd played with the reference so cleverly, so ingeniously, to suit his purposes. For readers who love how Palahniuk tells a story, for readers who love how he shapes our language, the book's got your name on it, and for those who love old film, you're twice as lucky.

Chuck was phoning it in for this one. Weak story, predictable twist, annoying gimmick. The gimmick is namedropping celebrities, and glamorous name brands that you would care about if you were 80 years old. It sucked like a HOOVER vacuum. If Hoover were in bold, that's how it would be. See what I did there?

Couldn't finish it. Sorry. Really wanted to love this book. But it was just too dull. The bold-typed namedropping was cute for a minute, then got annoying. Honestly, the book just felt pointless. It felt like a witty blog more than a novel.

Love Chuck, but this one was lame.

what has happened to our once-great american literary giant? did he decide to be an orson welles type, shooting his talent wad early on and using the latter portion of his life to become a fat recluse with limited/misunderstood creative ability? i miss the chuck that gave us "survivor", "invisible monsters", "even "rant"...oh charles, you have made it hard for me to list you as one of my favorite authors, even though i still do, because i am loyal. i still read all of your new novels, and i become more and more disappointed. i need a hot, new novel with greatness on every page. please. now. we still love you, charles! make us proud, proud and happy, and covered with happy juice.

This is going to be the last Chuck Palahniuk book that I ever bother to read.

I grew up just before the generation that found "Fight Club" so...influential. I enjoyed the book and the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed "Choke" (at least in novel form, I never watched the awful movie). I thought that "Survivor" was good, and that "Invisible Monsters" was compelling. This is all background to say that I don't hate Chuck Palahniuk's writing style or his material.

However, the writing style that was once fresh has grown tepid. The ideas aren't fresh anymore, and the characters are stale. Once upon a time, the character's misanthropy was fun and kind of interesting.

So, the skinny on this book. Hazie Coogan is the womanservant of Katherine Kenton, something like Alfred to Bruce Wayne. She has spent the last who knows how many years grooming and protecting her close friend from all manner of threats, such as husbands who want her to stay at home and publicists who want to destroy her legacy.

But her latest husband, Webster Carlton Westward III, has something more in mind. He already has a biography of her written, including the ending. An ending that has to change when Hazie and Miss Kathie manage to put a kink into his plans.

Surprisingly enough the material in this one could have carried a book. Just not this book, because the author doubles the first part of the book (it's 80 pages that should be 40), shrinks the middle (it's 40 pages that should be 80), and gives it an ending that could have been good, but only if the rest of it didn't suck.

In short, not one of Chuck Palahniuk's better efforts. It falls into the pile with "Lullaby", "Haunted", and "Diary". You know, the pile of stuff that you probably shouldn't bother reading. Maybe the next one will be better, but I won't find out.

Harkius

In this work, Fanny Stenhouse reveals her life as a Mormon woman living in Utah during the middle part of the 19th century. Her experiences as a young convert and then first wife of an Elder are vividly captured and come alive even a century later. I was especially intrigued by the descriptions of her every day life and opinions as a woman living through a very difficult period of American pioneer history. She is very well written and expresses her opinions movingly. I would suggest this for anyone interested in American history and religion.

Clever concept, intriguing plot, not poorly written... BUT this book is simply unreadable. It's disjointed. And it's a disappointment, given the proven success of the author. Don't waste your time. I'm sorry I did, and I am simply writing this review hoping to save at least one other person from experiencing the same frustration. I have NO idea what was real, what was imagined, what was present vs. past, etc. The narrative feels obsessive and sick. I hate the book. There, I said it. I hate it.

Tell- All marks Chuck Palahniuk's return to form. Although Tell- All is his shortest book yet, it did not feel rushed. I was very happy with this novel and would recomend it to all Chuck Palahniuk fans and even anyone new to the Chuck universe.

This novel is written in the style of a script/ gossip magazine. Many reviewers have said that the Bold faced name dropping was hard to read and was annoying but, i felt that once you got into the book it was bairly notticeable or distracting. I will also say that since I am younger (22) I was unsure as to who many of these people were that were being name dropped. This did not really distract from the story at all.

Now the ending: I must say that I was totally taken by surprise with the ending. I thought it was very well thought out and quite clever. I didn't see it coming at all. Maybe I just didnt figure it out like so of the other reviewers said that they did. Although I can hardly believe that many people feel it is a predictable ending.

All in all I really enjoyed this newest novel from Chuck and will remain a loyal fan. Chuck has not lost his touch yet. I can't wait for the 2011 novel Damned!

Just finished today and after some of the bad reviews i was kinda worried about this one even though im a huge palahniuk fan. It took me over a week to read pygmy (though normally i read a palahniuk in about 2 days) and it actually turned out to be great if you can get past the language style. Tell all was an amazing book and i recommend it to any palahniuk fan if you just give it a chance it will blow your mind it could definitely be a candidate for a movie deal. READ IT

This book is unbearable. I was so excited to hear a new Palahniuk book was coming out (this was a few years back). I tried soooo hard to get through it because I have loved the majority of his books (survivor, lullaby, fight club, diary, invisible monster, choke - all great). I couldn't read it. I couldn't get past 50 pages. Even worse, I felt "stupid" because of the CONSTANT name drops that I just didn't get. I convinced myself to try again after putting it down for a year or so thinking I must have exaggerated the importance of knowing celebrities in order to read it - I didn't. Maybe there's some small niche out there who can follow... but I'm not part of that crowd.

Because this book is horrible. The constant bold faced names is rather annoying, There is hardly a plot, and the characters are very flat. The only things to make up for the lack of creativity and the lack of a good read is that
1. it's short.
2. Some parts of it are quotable.

Huge Palahniuk fan - he missed the mark on this one! I usually can't put his books down because of his writing style but that is precisely what led to so few stars this time around. I found it distracting. Quite possibly attributed to the fact that every elementary teacher in the U.S. instructs children to stress the word when it's BOLDED so I found myself doing that in my head way too much with the many references bolded throughout the text. Would've been an interesting technique if used for a chapter or two, but the entire book just became exhaustive. Still a fan forever - will dip into the next with optimism!

After hearing so much about this author, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and check this one out.

I shouldn't have.

I get that we're a celebrity-obsessed society, but the constant (in bold!) name-dropping (many of whom I'd never heard of), the flat characters, and the screenplay-like way it was written did nothing to hold my interest. Add exaggerated irony, how predictable and anti-climatic this book was, and not-so great writing and you have TELL-ALL. I barely made it around halfway through the book before I stopped.

This book wasn't my cup of tea and I'm not sure I'll be reading Palahniuk's other novels. I was very disappointed.

I loved Fight club, Survivor, invisible monsters (my favorite)and Rant. I liked Choke, lullaby, Haunted and Diary. I tried to read Snuff but failed.

I HATED Tell All. I was on vacation with only one book-Tell All. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't have even read it all...but I did and I regret the time I put into it. I'll just re-read one of his better books next time. Maybe Damned will be better. I haven't given up on him yet....but it's getting close.

Chuck Palahnuik cannot write a bad book!! Again, another blockuster, hilarious novel from one of the funniest and most creative authors today. I have never been disappointed with one of his books! In Tell All, Chuck takes on the world of celebrity with his usual whit and charm. As usual, the plot is completely unpredictable and chaotic and totally engrossing. Full of sex, gossip and scandal, Tell All is the perfect book to dive into this summer!!

My theory with this and the two books before this one, is that the author is experimenting with different ways to make a book unreadable. With "Pygmy" he accomplished this by not using English (or any other known tongue) for most of the main character's thoughts or words. "Snuff" was nauseating in it's subject matter. This one seems to be going for flat out annoying you into throwing it away. Why? Who knows? Perhaps you must learn to appreciate the author's genius despite his best efforts to stop you.

No. Chuck Palahniuk has not gone missing. I have read nine of his other books and this is him. Take it or leave it. I LOVED this book. The only flaw: it was too short. I thought it was boring ad useless at first but the twists halfway through and at the end make it all worth while. Read this book. This deserves AT LEAST four stars.