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Published Oct 2013
336 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
Madison Spencer, the liveliest and snarkiest dead girl in the universe, continues the afterlife adventure begun in Chuck Palahniuk's bestseller Damned. Just as that novel brought us a brilliant Hell that only he could imagine, Doomed is a dark and twisted apocalyptic vision from this provocative storyteller.
The bestselling Damned chronicled Madison's journey across the unspeakable (and really gross) landscape of the afterlife to confront the Devil himself. But her story isn't over yet. In a series of electronic dispatches from the Great Beyond, Doomed describes the ultimate showdown between Good and Evil.
After a Halloween ritual gone awry, Madison finds herself trapped in Purgatory - or, as mortals like you and I know it, Earth. She can see and hear every detail of the world she left behind, yet she's invisible to everyone who's still alive. Not only do people look right through her, they walk right through her as well. The upside is that, no longer subject to physical limitations, she can pass through doors and walls. Her first stop is her parents' luxurious apartment, where she encounters the ghost of her long-deceased grandmother.
For Madison, the encounter triggers memories of the awful summer she spent upstate with Nana Minnie and her grandfather, Papadaddy. As she revisits the painful truth of what transpired over those months (including a disturbing and finally fatal meeting in a rest stop's fetid men's room, in which ... well, never mind), her saga of eternal damnation takes on a new and sinister meaning. Satan has had Madison in his sights from the very beginning: through her and her narcissistic celebrity parents, he plans to engineer an era of eternal damnation. For everyone.
Once again, our unconventional but plucky heroine must face her fears and gather her wits for the battle of a lifetime. Dante Alighieri, watch your back; Chuck Palahniuk is gaining on you.
"While Palahniuk's fans will surely be pleased, the books reads like a YA novel from hell whose threadbare premise only sporadically entertains." - Publishers Weekly
"If you only read one book this year about a dead teenager posting on message boards about playing supernaturalist and tempting Satan's wrath, let it be this one." - Kirkus
"[Madison's] a compelling character, and she drives a novel that will resonate from the get-go with Palahniuk's many fans." - Booklist
"Palahniuk's follow-up to the best-selling Damned does not disappoint. Our eccentric, sharp-witted tween narrator walks the line between hilarity and sorrow throughout. Highly recommended for the author's many fans." - Library Journal
This information about Doomed was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Chuck Palahniuk's novels include the bestselling Fight Club, which was made into a film by director David Fincher, Survivor, , Invisible Monsters, Choke, Lullaby, Fugitives and Refugees, Diary, Stranger Than Fiction, Haunted, Rant, Stnuff, Pygmy, Tell-All, and Damned. Portions of Choke have appeared in Playboy, and his nonfiction work has been published by Gear, Black Book, The Stranger, and the Los Angeles Times.
Link to Chuck Palahniuk's Website
Name Pronunciation
Chuck Palahniuk: Paula-nik
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