I see what you’re doing, Chuck Palahniuk. You’ve written a Purgatorio to go after Damned, your Inferno. We all know what’s coming next.
I only read Doomed because I own (won) it, so I’ve been meaning to read it only for that reason, and it was immediately available on OverDrive when I needed another audiobook to read. Which means that I didn’t even read the copy I won. Anyway, I’d been putting it off because I didn’t remember liking Damned, though I apparently did. It’s funny how quickly I forget books and what I thought about them. Which is why I keep this blog – but that’s neither here nor there.
In this installment of Palahniuk’s Divine Comedy, thirteen-year-old Madison ends up stranded on Earth. She’d made a reasonably comfortable place for herself in Hell, but the Universe had other plans for her. She’s somehow supposed to reconcile God and Satan. But that doesn’t exactly happen yet. I imagine it will in the third book of the trilogy. Here, she’s a ghost, getting into trouble on Earth and finding out exactly what’s going on with her parents. She meets her dead grandparents and tells stories about their involvement in her life and death. Things Happen – this time involving a new religion and an entirely plastic continent floating on the ocean, composed of styrofoam and similar societal discards.
Like Damned, Doomed is funny, but that’s its only saving grace. It’s certainly not as good. I’ll read the third one just because I’ve read these two, and I’m vaguely interested in what happens to Madison and her family.
A bit of a warning: if you have a weak stomach, this is not the book for you. There’s a long scene (45 minutes of audio, or so) involving a glory hole in a truck stop and what Madison (at thirteen years old?) thinks is a big piece of dog poo. It’s not pretty. If you’ve read Palahniuk before, though, this is just par for the course.
In non-book news, I got mad enough at Apple because my iPhone 5 kept breaking that I went over to Verizon and bought a Samsung Galaxy S5. I was worried that I might regret it, but it appears to have been a fantastic decision. I’m considering writing an entire post about the glories of Android.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lindsayloveshermac/15171398836/
There’s also, of course, the puppy. She got first photo honors with my new phone:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lindsayloveshermac/15196070991/
She’s starting to look more like a dog than a puppy, which is a bit disconcerting. She’s so big!
