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From the bestselling author of Fight Club comes a dark, satirical parable about a string of mysterious high school disappearances, the seedy underbellies of billionaires, and the tough choices we make in the face of an uncertain future.
In Shock Induction, the best and brightest students at a seemingly reputable high school are disappearing. Every day it seems another overachiever is lost to an apparent suicide. But something far more sinister is lurking beneath the surface.
These kids have been under surveillance since birth, monitored and measured by an online service called "Greener Pastures." It's here, in Greener Pastures, that billionaires observe and recruit the next generation of talent. The highest test scores, the best grades, and the most niche extracurriculars just might land these teenagers an enticing offer at auction. A couple billion dollars in exchange for the remainder of your life and intellectual labor sounds like a pretty fair deal—doesn't it?
In a high school only Chuck Palahniuk could imagine, students must choose between the risk of following their dreams or the security of money and a lifetime of servitude to the world's wealthiest and most elite—but how much of a choice do they truly have?
"Peppering his book with passages and phrases from The Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina, and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Palahniuk is clearly enjoying himself, but he's also drilling down into the titular idea—a psychic or spiritual kick that gets you out of your own head for once. Readers' choice whether this is a coded message, a spiked cocktail, or just a secret love letter to art." —Kirkus Reviews
"Many of the one-liners target low-hanging fruit, but there's a cleverness to the depiction of Sam as a survivor ('Unlike Jay Gatsby,' Palahniuk writes, 'Samantha Deel would live beyond her early infatuation'). Die-hard Palahniuk fans will lap this up." —Publishers Weekly
This information about Shock Induction was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Chuck Palahniuk's novels include the bestselling Fight Club, which was made into a film by director David Fincher, Survivor, , Invisible Monsters, Choke, Lullaby, Fugitives and Refugees, Diary, Stranger Than Fiction, Haunted, Rant, Stnuff, Pygmy, Tell-All, and Damned. Portions of Choke have appeared in Playboy, and his nonfiction work has been published by Gear, Black Book, The Stranger, and the Los Angeles Times.
Link to Chuck Palahniuk's Website
Name Pronunciation
Chuck Palahniuk: Paula-nik
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