If you’ve read other Palahniuk or seen Fight Club, you know what to expect from his storytelling- outrageous characters in exaggeratedly dramatic situations working out some deep, deep issues. In that sense, there are no surprises. In every other sense, this book is an endless ride of surprise and shock.

Thematically, it deals with the very human desire to reinvent yourself- to wipe out the past and start over, and to become what you really want to be/ really are. In the Palahniuk style, it is done through a car “accident,” guns, drugs and sexual ambiguity.

The characters are Brandy Alexander, who is one surgery away from becoming a woman but is already a few dozen reconstructive surgeries into being beautiful and uses it to her full advantage- she is the Queen Supreme, the leader of the core group of three, and her role is to push everyone to find themselves and push their limits. She does it with whirlwind grace.

The narrator is an ex-model who is, after an unfortunate “accident,” in her car involving a mysterious bullet flying through the windshield, now missing her jaw. She met the Princess Brandy Alexander in the hospital.

And then there’s Manus- male companion to the two women, former lover of the narrator, and driver extradordinaire. The ladies are feeding him estrogen and laughing in secret about it all the way home…
Things are kind of like that- secrets, secrets and more secrets… plenty of pharmys, plenty of car chases, and plenty of soul searching. The three of them are on a journey of escape across the United States, running scams at house showings in wealthy neighborhoods, stealing the drugs to fuel both their own personal mental escapes inside of an overall escape from reality. All the while they are searching for the narrator’s brother- and when they find him, it’s a beautiful secret worthy of a dramatic book, but you’ll have to read to find it out.

The book is a roller coaster ride between intense self-discovery and intense escape, which makes for a compelling ride. All the while she weaves fashion photography lingo with postcards to the future with a deep, piercing self-investigation, one that rings true enough through the gimmicks and the show to give the book enough substance to go along with all the flash. It really does make you question your own provocations and motivations for what you do and why you do it- which I think is the role of any good novel.

It’s a quick and entertaining read- I think of it as the ideal book to take with you when you go on an airplane trip- about 300 pages of excellent escape, enough for some to read while you’re waiting for travel going each way.

On the first page there is the awesome sentence:

“Evie is standing halfway down the big staircase in the manor house foyer, naked inside what’s left of her wedding dress, still holding her rifle.” If you like that, you’ll like this book- I did, and I did.