recent reading: fake liar cheat

title: fake liar cheat

author: told goldberg

purpose for reading: fun

copyright: 2000

pages: 162

chapters: 21

review: i really didn't care for this book at all.  it really felt like the author was trying way to hard to be ironic and over used a dead-pan style of writing.  it felt like he was TRYING to be shocking, but i never bought it.  the premise for the book is that this regular joe [who somewhat lives the lifestyle of jack in fight club, i.e. being obsessed with buying things from ikea, not living life to the fullest] is approached by a beautiful girl who shows him the high-life in the l.a. scene.  the main thing that they do for fun is dine at fancy, upscale restuarants and skip out on the bill.  honestly, that really doesn't seem all too exciting to me.  

the beautiful woman, aka claire, has a nice car, apparently lives in a mansion, and dresses to the nines all the time.  the main character, lonnie, falls hard for her and loves what she brings out in him.  until she apparently performs a sexual favour for her boss.  lonnie then blackmails her boss by informing him that he will tell the boss' wife about his extramarital activities.  the story just gets ridiculous here because apparently this totally improvised and impulsive blackmailing scheme causes claire's boss to commit suicide.  where the hell that comes from, i don't know.  i really don't think that a rich, successful person would respond to some young punk and his girlfriend blackmailing them by killing themselves.

then, in even more unbelievable scenarios to follow, claire disappears and lonnie discovers that she has framed him for murder.  oh and also, he develops a cult following from copy-cat dine n' dashers who call themselves "lonnie's army."  of course he had nothing to do with this so-called army of his and these people carry out horrible things in his name like setting a school bus on fire.  it's just really ridiculous.  there is no way that someone could go from skipping out on a dinner bill to being wanted for murder.  this story reeks of fight club and i really feel like goldberg was trying way too hard to imitate chuck palahniuk's biting writing style, but he has miserably failed.  in my opinion palahniuk is probably the best contemporary writer that i've read to date and to try to imitate him is like trying to imitate van gogh: there's only one.  as a writer, i understand being inspired by a fellow author, but trying to imitate someone usually just makes you a second-rate THEM instead of a first-rate YOU.  

if you're in the mood for something edgy, quirky, and full of black humor, save yourself and just read some chuck p.

rating: 1.5