I have never read a book from Chuck Palahniuk before - this was my first. And Not Forever, But for Now has some of the most jacked-up characters and situations I've read. Based on the synopsis, it was something I didn't expect. The plot revolves around the depraved things that two brothers, Otto and Cecil, manage to do - so many things. This was a disturbing book. I would not recommend unless you're a big fan of Palahniuk.

There was a period of my life where I read nearly every single book Chuck Palahniuk put out. It felt like he was doing things with his writing that no one else was doing. His books were shocking, irreverent, and yes, sometimes disgusting. But they always felt like a breath of fresh air. It’s been awhile since I’ve read a book by him, so I was excited to dig into his latest title, “Not Forever, But For Now.” All of the same elements of Palahniuk’s writing are there: lots of gross references, characters with zero moral compass, and this wild display of imagination. And yet, this book somehow ended up feeling somewhat boring to me.

The novel is from the POV of Cecil, one half of a brother duo who’s being raised within a super wealthy family on an estate in England. It’s quite a unique family, made up of assassins who have secretly offed some of the most famous celebrities (Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, etc.). Cecil’s life consists of recounting his brother’s murders (mostly of their staff) and watching nature documentaries. However, Cecil and his brother are not ordinary in the slightest and their relationship is quite disturbing (which is a massive understatement). The question becomes whether the brothers will follow their family’s footsteps into the assassin business.

There are tons of bad reviews on Goodreads for this title – many of whom talk about how gross Palahniuk’s writing is. This is a completely valid point. There is something to offend literally everyone and a trigger warning should be posted for every possible thing you can think of. But this is Palahniuk’s style (for better or worse). To me, this earns only two stars because it ended up with a pacing issue. The only real action of the book occurred near the end, and by then, I had kind of lost interest in what was going to happen to Cecil. When you’re bombarded with lots of descriptions of assault and murder (and oh so many body parts), there has to be a payoff when it comes to plot. And there simply wasn’t enough plot for this to be worth raving about in my opinion.

At the end of the day, Palahniuk’s writing is tailored for a small segment of the population that can appreciate such twisted material. The time when I could stomach some of this content has most likely come and gone. But I’m glad he’s still doing his thing – maybe the next book will be better.

DNF @ 57%
Chuck Palahniuk used to be one of my favorite authors so I was very interested to check this one out. The synopsis made this sound like it had potential to be so good but the writing style is painfully dull to the point that I can’t bring myself to care. If you’re new to Palahniuk, this shouldn’t be your intro. Go with one of the older works instead (Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Choke, etc.)
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the e-ARC!

"At best, I can only look at what others have created, and the more beautifully made it is, the more joy I find in destroying it."

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I mean, when I read Chuck Palahniuk, I expect depravity but this one definitely knocked my Puritan socks off. The beginning is definitely a bumpy road of discomfort. Otto and Cecil are licentious and depraved and living in a family who is murderous and unfeeling. They spend most of their time sexually abusing one another and others while their mother and grandfather are out killing off famous people. There were a few times where I felt the record was on repeat and we got the point about the family's behavior. I'm glad I didn't put it down because there is an unusual humorous payoff and several reveals at the end which clarify the truth.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster for gifted access via Netgalley. All opinions above are my own.

Things You Must Know Before You Attempt To Read This Book:

1. If you are not already a fervent Chuck Pahalniuk fan (like I am), this book is definitely not where you want to start reading his work. This is not for beginners.

2. If you ignore my previous point, PLEASE be aware there is a lot of content in this book that could be considered as triggering to readers and in literary fiction it’s not standard practice to include a list of content or trigger warnings. So, take care before you read.

3. This book is going to be very divisive. It will be a book people will want banned. It is going to be a book a lot of people will DNF. I am not one of those people.

4. Chuck Pahalniuk books are almost never about the plot or the characters. They are almost always about the atmosphere, vibe, and the message. Everything else is wrapping paper. Not Forever But For Now is one of those books.

Onto the actual review!

I am so happy to be back in Pahalniuk land! Where everything is as gross and screwed up as possible but the prose is so sharp and the sentence construction is so immaculate I can’t tear my eyes away from the page. A land where the majority of people are only going to see and talk about the most obvious things they read about on the most obvious layer of the book and cast it aside as trash but will never take the time to consider the deeper themes surrounding toxic masculinity and the aristocracy, the dark comedic edge to the text, or the satirical take on the notion of the man child that just absolutely delighted me to no end (having been married to a man child for 18 years myself).

I see review after review calling for a plot, or for this book to be shorter, or (of course) how gross this book is, but all of these pleas are completely missing the point of a Pahalniuk novel: Chuck doesn’t write for the plot or the characters. He doesn’t care if you’re grossed out. After all, art is subjective and art should make you feel. If you feel grossed out then Chuck’s done his job. Chuck’s books are all about the journey, the vibe, and the message. He wants to tell you a story. He has a point, and he’s going to tell it his way. If you don’t like it, don’t read it.

This book reminded me a lot of my favorite Pahalniuk book, Invisible Monsters, in the repetition of phrases, in the way Cecil learns everything he knows from his brother Otto and absorbs these nuggets of wisdom like they’re proverbs or psalms. It’s there in Cecil feeling that same sense of ennui that Daisy St. Patience felt as she traveled North America with Brandy Alexander, feeling at times the best of times was behind them and all that lay ahead was to age or to somehow self-destruct. At the same time, I think Invisible Monsters has the better overall story and message.

So, if you’re a Pahalniuk fan, then give it a go, but be aware that you’re in for a real trip. And if you’re not a Pahalniuk fan? I’d consider starting on another one of his novels before attempting this one.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Horror/Horror Comedy/Literary Fiction/Satire/Serial Killers

*Honest review read book on netgallery*

Thank you to the publisher for letting me a book from one of my favorite authors. So, I’m going to leave an honest review.

This book is incoherent. I loved Fight Club, choke, and Lullaby. This author is hit and miss. Sometimes he writes these epic books with amazing story lines that have so many layers and meanings. Other times, he writes in a style similar to Jack Kerouac. Get messed up, and go for it. Whether it’s coherent or not. This book is incredibly incoherent.

Thank you again to the publisher.

I went into this one expecting weird, because, well, that’s classic Palahniuk. I’m not one that gets easily shocked or offended. This one was kind of a mix between Palahniuk and Edward Lee, the king of splattergore (in my opinion). An example of social construct on the extreme scale? At least it seems so. I can see why some people might be turned off by the book because of its graphic nature, but it really was quite good. I looked at it more of an examination of the evil that men do and what happens to people who veer away from accepted societal norms. The truth is, there are evil people in the world, and writing a book from their perspective is a unique approach. It’s no different from American Psycho, albeit much more graphic. So if you’re sensitive, please don’t read this book because you won’t like it, and there’s no reason to read a book only to give it a bad review. The characterization was exceptional considering who those characters were and the writing fit very well with the theme of the story.

Huge thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!

First of all thank you for giving me an advanced copy of this book. I enjoyed this book but not quite as much as his earlier works. I believe this book will find its way to the target audience.

Not Forever, But For Now, the latest book by Chuck Palaniuk starts with brothers, Otto and Cecil, watching a nature show about kangaroos. The small joeys have to climb up the kangaroo mother and into the pouch to find shelter and milk. This becomes the metaphor of the entire novel. Otto and Cecil are the baby kangaroos, born into a family of assassins, trying to get up their mother’s leg, to find shelter and warmth from her. They try to accomplish this by doing disgusting and evil things to the help (the maids, governesses, chauffeurs, and tutors), to strangers, and to each other. Otto, the oldest, wants nothing but to be noticed, doing whatever he can to get this accomplished. This includes escaping the estate to dress up in drag and dance for the drunks at the local tavern, be pen pals with pedophiles, serial killers, and the criminally insane (letters that explicitly tell these killers that he wants to have sex with them while they murdered him, or after they murdered him, whichever they prefer), corrupting the Jesuit tutor, and of course having continuous sex with his brother. These calls for attention get more and more drastic and depraved, and eventually Otto and Cecil do not have many other things they can do except blow up the world.

This story is not for everyone. Chuck Palaniuk has never been for everyone, and he is also working hard on getting rid of the people who just like him because of his earlier novels. Fight Club was released when I was nineteen years old, and it was a great novel for a nineteen-year-old. This was 27 years ago. I am not the same reader as I was then, and Palaniuk is not the same writer. Sure he uses some of the same techniques he has always used (depravity, repeated terms and phrases, deep dives into a certain subject that his characters use as coping mechanisms, etc), but his stories, particularly this novel and his last, Invention of Sound, feel like he is trying to write stories that are more for the grown fans of Fight Club, those who are now older and have different concerns. Whereas Fight Club is about trying to change the world, Not Forever, But For Now is about family, about trying to get the attention of absentee parents, and about leaning on each other when the whole world is against you.

I have read many Chuck Palaniuk books, and for the longest time, I thought I had outgrown his writing. I still do not think he is flawless, but I feel a glimmer of hope in his future books. Fortunately his last two novels have brought me back into the fold and make me more excited than I have in years about what Palaniuk might do next.

*Spolier-ish theory*

This also feels like a final send off to Fight Club and the early writings of Chuck Palaniuk. We have Otto and Cecil. They were five and three when their father disappears and their mother tells them that they will no longer age in their estate, no longer celebrate birthdays or get older. Thirty years have passed since then. In those thirty years, they get to the point where they still do the horrible stuff, but they also grow up even though they’re told they are not supposed to. They steal cars. They dump them into a lake. They corrupt the staff around them. They invent an app that is clever and sad at the same time. The crimes get more and more outlandish but they also get to where they are bored with things, where they will not do certain things (like killing animals), and this “maturity” happens whether they want it to or not, until they have to plot to destroy the world. They start doing some of the same things Tyler Durden was doing, and this final meltdown echoes the same meltdown in Fight Club. This could be a send off to Fight Club and the book that many people have tried to use to keep him from aging as a writer for, well, thirty years.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I finished this a few days ago and wanted to think about and process what I just read. This is also my first time reading this author. I've never seen Fight Club either.

First off this book has a lot of sex in it, which seems to bother a lot of reviewers, but wasnt a big deal to me. Also, it's quite gory, so if that bothers you, I'd skip this one. If you like absurdity, can keep an open mind, and not let the sex bother you, you might enjoy this.

I'm not going to summarize the book, because the blurb is accurate and I don't want to give anything away. From other reviews, it appears that his typical style is repetitive. You could die from alcohol poisoning if you took a drink every time the phrase "having it off" was used.

My main complaint with this book is that it is WAY too long. This should have been pared down to a short story or novella. It might have improved my reading experience, because I can't really tell you if I enjoyed it or not. The last 30 or so pages of the book are the best part.

A lot of this book is satirizing toxic masculinity and stereotypes of the kind of men we think about as having that toxicity. If you like this author, you'll probably enjoy this book. If this is your first time reading him, I'd find a different book to start with.

My thanks to Simon and Schuster, author Chuck Palahniuk, and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

As a satire, this story nails it. It’s an interesting look at masculinity and society and, I’m sure, a myriad of other things that went over my head. There’s plenty of weird, and the vibe reminds me of Pygmy. Not a particularly scary story, but definitely a disturbing one. The plot was fine. The characters were mostly difficult to root for. There’s better out there, but this one will scratch your itch for the bizarre if you got one.

Rounded up because this book is so much better than it is rated!! I am surprized at the prudishness here with the incest. Sex is more than just sex. Of course it's just sex as well. But why are you even here??

If you somehow missed Fight Club, you may be shocked by the content here I guess. The main critique that I have is how long the exposition took here. The latter part relies heavily on what you already know, so you can't skip right to it without missing the plot and the point, but some editing here would have been nice.

The biting satire about masculinity in modern culture is worth it. Toxic masculinity is toxic, and it doesn't always line up with what we categorize as masculine and feminine. There is also a lot of play with the concept of community and individuality. Which is actually more supportive and more freeing? How does power shape that reality?

I could keep going, but you likely get the point.

This book was weird. I can do weird. I like it. But this was just different weird.

From Amazon:
Meet Otto and Cecil. Two brothers growing up privileged in the Welsh countryside. They enjoy watching nature shows, playing with their pet pony, impersonating their Grandfather...and killing the help. Murder is the family business after all. Downton Abbey, this is not.

However, it’s not so easy to continue the family legacy with the constant stream of threats and distractions seemingly leaping from the hedgerow. First there is the matter of the veritable cavalcade of escaped convicts that keep showing up at their door. Not to mention the debaucherous new tutor who has a penchant for speaking in Greek and dismembering sex dolls. Then there’s Mummy’s burgeoning opioid addiction. And who knows where Daddy is. He just vanished one day after he and Mummy took a walk in the so called “Ghost Forest.”

With Grandfather putting pressure on Otto to step up, it becomes clear that this will all end in only two ways: a nuclear apocalypse or just another day among the creeping thistle and tree peonies. And in a novel written by Chuck Palahniuk, either are equally possible.

Interesting premise. Missed something in the execution. I felt a little too removed from the action. The last thirty or so pages were the best. Vey well written.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the digital advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. The novel will be published on September 5, 2023.

Goodness, it's been a long time since I liked a Chuck Palahniuk book (2009's <i>Pygmy</i>, for the record). I have to wonder whether it's him or it's me. When he's staked his reputation on being "transgressive" it feels like maybe it's hard to keep up the shock value after about 20 books. Am I tired of the schtick, or is it just getting increasingly unsubtle? I sometimes feel I should go re-read <i>Lullaby</i> or <i>Survivor</i> and see if they're as good as I remember without the novelty factor.

Now, I'm not saying I didn't like this book just because it was "shocking" or "offensive." It's probably less gross overall than <i>Damned</i> or <i>Beautiful You</i> (not that I liked those books much either, to be fair). It's just so <b>dull</i>. Palahniuk hammers a couple of transgressive notes over, and over, and over, and over again (to wit: masturbation, rape, incest, necrophilia), which would be repetitive enough, but the book is written in some bizarre caricature of British English in which sex and masturbation are referred to almost exclusively as "having a go" and "having it off" and it drove me up the wall. By my fuzzy tally I count 97 instances of "having a go" and 89 of "having it off" -- 186 total in a 256 page book! That's one every 1.37 pages. Talking about sex or masturbation every 1.37 pages would be pretty repetitive even if the prose had some variation, but the same two phrases every time? <i>Enough.</i>

Bad prose can be sometimes be salvaged by a good plot or characters, but this book doesn't have a plot, really. What plot there is feels like a castoff from some <i>Fight Club</i> sequel, with the POV character tagging along with his more assertive brother as he kills people and assembles some unbelievable army of socially cast-off young men, but that doesn't really go anywhere interesting. And the characters are all cartoonish hedonistic psychopaths and miserable to spend time with. One thing I've often enjoyed about Palahniuk's books are the little factoids and trivia asides into interesting things (like foley work in <i>The Invention of Sound</i>) but there isn't even anything like that here.

All in all a grueling experience that I would not have completed if not for receiving a copy on NetGalley.

Such a great writer and such a great book. His style and cleverness always comes through. Thanks for the opportunity tor read

Chuck Palahniuk is self described author of transgressive fiction. This genre is typically described as one where characters rebel or break out of societal norms or expectations, often in illicit ways.

In the latest book by the author known for Fight Club, the two youngest members of a family of professional killers, living in Wales, come of age and must decide if they will take up the family occupation or destroy everything. Our narrator is Cecil, the youngest. He spends his days alongside his older brother, Otto. Their hobbies include playing incestuous games, watching David Attenborough animal documentaries, writing suggestive letters to incarcerated individuals, cruising town in stolen cars or killing the help. That is when the help is not giving Cecil his daily bath and shave.

Since their father disappeared after the revelation of an affair, their mother has refused to change any of the household decorations or to consider her children as anything other than boys. Their grandfather visits, trying to get Otto to take up the family business and recounts some of the famous figures he's offed, the Judy Garland account being regularly re-enacted by the brothers.

The boys have been traumatized by the loss of their father, his murderous treatment of family pets and their stunted development. But they are working to make use of their impulses or at least keep to their own code. Honor of the family first, even if it means killing off the butler making eyes at their mother or corrupting their tutor, turning him from a scholar to a sex fiend with strong desires to take bodies apart.

It's irreverent and transgressive, purposely provocative. Many of the reviews and promotional materials refer to it as Palahnuik's take on Downton Abbey It could give a book club a lot to discuss, as it targets many different institutions and cultural mainstays. If you're already a Palahnuik fan this book should appeal, if you're not or have not read any of his works, this is not the one to start with (I'd recommend the best known, Fight Club or Survivor). Or perhaps I've just aged out of the appeal of this author.

As someone who loves bizarro literature, the weirdness of this book was not a turn-off. A lot of the complaints I've seen from other reviewers can be easily dismissed. Unfortunately, despite wanting to rise above the rest and say I enjoyed this book, the truth is I found it boring.

I truly don't understand what Palahniuk was trying to accomplish or say with this book. Even when I don't "like" his books, I at least have a good time reading them; they're wild and crazy and offensive and silly and over-the-top. But this one was just dull and, most sadly for Palahniuk, toothless.

When I heard the author of Fight Club had a new book I was ecstatic. Fun! Then I started reading it. Initially, I was like ooo this is interesting. These kids are watching basically a messed up documentary about Australian Wild Life. Fun!

Then, the nanny gave one of the sons a bath and it's apparent he is...not very kid like? How old is this man? Why is he talking about a memory of seeing a bum fornicate with a dog on the side of the road? What's going on here?

After that, the fun kinda stopped...

I will say this book is very unique. It won't work for everyone. It didn't really work for me. However, art is art and I'm sure it might appeal to someone? Idk. Idk how to feel. There is a lot of talk about anal and incest and yeah. I stopped reading pretty quickly, I couldn't hear the phrase "having it off" one more time.

Now I'll just go watch Fight Club to cure my disappointment.

I have no idea how to adequately summarize this book, but it centers around two brothers, Otto and Cecil, who are part of a family of wealthy professional killers responsible for killing some of the world’s most prominent celebrities. The grandfather wants Otto and Cecil—who are two giant man babies—to take over the business. There’s also a lot of incest and general sexual depravity. Yeah.

With all that being said, this is equally funny and disturbing, and it certainly isn’t for everyone. I read several reviews before I started the book, so I had mentally prepared myself for the absurdity. This isn’t particularly graphic, at least by Palahniuk’s standards, but it does explicitly talk about sexually deviant acts that could make people uncomfortable. You definitely need to understand that before reading. The writing style is very weird. It reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s style in that you’re never really sure wtf you’re reading. The chapters are short and the story is paced well, but the diction is just…weird. That’s the best adjective to describe every part of this book. I enjoyed the first third of the book, but the narration really took me out of the story. Honestly I was pretty bored most of the time. Thanks to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and Chuck Palahniuk for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review.