"It's only in drugs or death we'll see anything new, and death is just too controlling." I had owned this book for years (I don’t even remember why I picked it up, particularly as I had never read any other Palahniuk) before I finally decided to take it off the shelf and enjoy it yesterday. It’s a relatively quick read – I started at about eight and finished, even with lots of interruptions, by midnight. I would agree with the reviewer below who states that “Survivor” does tend to be a tad repetitive (specifically with the “testing one two three” and the household cleaning hints, which were practically useful but got old after the first hundred pages). However, off the top of my head, that’s my only complaint. The (endlessly biting) satire really heats up at about the halfway point, when Tender Branson, the morally ambiguous but compelling main character, starts to become a religious guru. This section is gold. Also, I’m impressed by the staggering amount of minute research the author evidently did for this (airplane mechanics, stain removal, depression medications, religious cults, etc). Lastly, though suicide is a thread that runs thickly and constantly throughout the book, I didn’t find the novel (or its ending) to be as wholly and utterly depressing as some have. Tender has long been searching for the certainty of life after death, and he ultimately finds it – just not in the way he or I would have expected.