"Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk

Link to Wikipedia's plot synopsis.

I didn't really like "Choke", but I can't quite put a finger down as to why I don't. It could be the episodic narrative, which toggles between Victor's present day and his confused childhood, or it could be the utter lack of elaboration of -- to use his words -- the "bordello of the subconscious", or his inner thoughts.

I also found the book rather ambivalent.

• Victor runs a scam so that he can get extra money to pay off his mother's burgeoning medical bills. He exonerates himself from ethical considerations by claiming that he is letting everyone have the opportunity to play the hero.
  
• At the medical centre where his mother is staying, he admits to perpetuating a multitude of "crimes" laid on him by other patients, in an effort to let these people find their inner peace.
• He is a medical student dropout, but he thinks of going back to school one day.
  
• He has a sexual addiction problem and knows it. But he attends sexual recovery workshops to cruise for new partners anyway.
  

And then there is his upbringing. His mum of the alternative upbringing ideas who went in and out of jail, who sprung him regularly from foster parents to teach him about the workings of the world. Who ran scams of a scale that the police and foster parents had to put pressure on him to tell them where she could be found. Whom Victor feels wedded to in a way that a son never completely weans himself from the influence of his mother, hence the struggle to meet the monetary demands of his mother's medical bills.

It's really a story that has no clear lines drawn, no satisfactory "end of the story" type of book. All rather sad if you ask me.

Geek rating: 2.5 out of 5