Amadan na Briona

I think Chuck Palahniuk is one of those authors I just don't and am not going to get. I tried to read another book of his years ago and it left me the same way as this one -- weird, with intriguing ideas, but the writing style just doesn't work for me. Too much nihilism and odd, uncomfortable scenes that make me squirm, not in a good way.

Diary is ostensibly the diary of a Misty Wilmot, whose husband is in a coma after a suicide attempt. She was an art student before she married her schlub of a husband, Peter, who brought her back to Waytansea Island, which is some kind of shitty little tourist town with insular, busybody, slightly creepy locals and well-heeled visitors. Now Misty is a fat, aging, for-all-practical-purposes single mother who cleans hotels, takes care of her daughter, and reflects bitterly on the death of her artistic dreams and why she ever married Peter.

It turns out that the island's residents are creepier than you think. When Misty's daughter tragically dies, she is seized with a burst of creativity and begins to paint. Her fellow Waytanseaers encourage her. She begins to find clues left around the island that other women have come here before her in similar circumstances. The plot, when it is revealed, is a creepy little conspiracy with a touch of the supernatural.

There are a few bright moments in the book, and some lines that stood out, but it just couldn't hold my interest enough for me to get past how much I disliked the voice and all the characters. Overall, it kind of resembled an inferior approximation of a Stephen King novel.