Every so often I go to Barnes and Noble with the intention to buy a book that I'm looking for, not just wonder around until something catches my fancy. I had planned to do this recently when I herd that one of my personal favorite writers Chuck Palahniuk was coming out with a new book. However once I learned his new book entitled Snuff was about a porn queen who wants to retire by breaking the record for the most consecutive sex acts ( which is 600 different men ) I lost a considerable amount interest.

If your not familiar with Chuck Palahniuk he is the author of such books as Fight Club and Choke and has a very twisted sense of humor and always delivers a immensely entertaining and shocking read that does not leave you in regret. But when I learned what Snuff was about porn I just felt that it was to "in the open" it just sounded like a reach to me, like he was sitting at his desk one day and said " I KNOW! 600 penises 1 girl that will get so much controversy it'll sell millions! MAWHAHAHAHAH!" But like any good critic ( and fan ) and read it before I passed final judgment I read the book, and thank God I was completely wrong.

At a very modest 197 pages Snuff does something that I've never seen any other book
( That I've at least read ) do before, It conveys four different personalities and histories of four extremely different people in such a way that you know just enough about each character that you don't want to know anymore about any of them because your afraid you going to puke all of your brand new book and be out $24.95US.

Plot

Veteran Porn Star Goddess Cassy Wright is looking to retire. But before she ends he 20+ years in the business she wants to do one more movie, one for the record books. Cassie plans to break the record for the most consecutive sex acts with different men. The previous record was 251 but Cassie wants to go for gold so she plans to have sex with 600 different men in one day. She puts and add in local newspapers and word quickly spreads and soon enough there a greenroom full of 600 men waiting for their 2 minuets with Cassie Wright.

Within this very crowed greenroom are four people who are all strangely connected to each other and don't even know it.

Sheila - Ms.Wright's personal assistant and "wrangler" for the day's events. She's a modern feminist who has a hatred for men, but she is also brilliant with a mind full of knowledge.

Mr.600 - A veteran porn star just like Cassie, he's here to prove he's still got the stuff for the job and to help out is old friend Cassie, they have a history together.

Mr.137 - A washed up TV actor who's here for two things. To get some face time and disprove the rumors that ruined him. And to meet Mr.600 to thank him for making his erection into a exact silicon replica that gave his hours of enjoyment.

Mr.72- A 17 year old virgin who came here today on pain of death from his adopted parents. Now that he's been kick out of his house he's homeless and poor and has got something very important to say to Ms.Wright.

The setting of the entire book takes place in the greenroom but the plot unfolds in the minds of all the four different characters and how they interact with each other. Each chapter has a different person speaking ( it goes in no specific order )

Pros

By far the best thing about this book is how every single character has there own personality and it shines through from the first page. After your about 5 chapters into the book you could probably tell who's mind your reading without ever being told at the beginning of each chapter.

Also equally great....actually this all depends on how you look at it, is how Chuck really knows how to paint a picture in your head. Weather it's the part of book where he describes Cassie Wright looking out a window on a summer afternoon, or weather it's him describing a violent gay gangbag or how they way sperm "ribbons out of a cock" when the man it pent up. So yeah it's get a little intense some times.

Also the plot twist...and that's all I'm going to say because I don't want give anything away.

Cons

I really don't have many with this book but there are some that I did notice.

While the use of informal writing and slang is a good addition to each characters' personality it does get kind of confusing and annoying at certain points where major characters are constantly being referred to as "Dude" and "Guy"

Also it gets kind of cheesy with all the references to the trend of "porn movie names having altered names of actual movies" as well as the name for masturbating, pud puller is really only funny once

All in all this book is a great summer read and I think anybody which an afternoon or two to kill should defiantly pick it up. It's not going to win and Pulitzer prizes anytime soon but I do highly recommend it.