Lullaby
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - From the author of the New York Times bestseller Choke and the cult classic Fight Club, a cunningly plotted novel about the ultimate verbal weapon, one that reinvents the apocalyptic thriller for our times. "A harrowing and hilarious glimpse into the future of civilization." --Minneapolis Star-Tribune Ever heard of a culling song? It's a lullaby sung in Africa to give a painless death to the old or infirm. The lyrics of a culling song kill, whether spoken or even just thought. You can find one on page 27 of Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, an anthology that is sitting on the shelves of libraries across the country, waiting to be picked up by unsuspecting readers. Reporter Carl Streator discovers the song's lethal nature while researching Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and before he knows it, he's reciting the poem to anyone who bothers him. As the body count rises, Streator glimpses the potential catastrophe if someone truly malicious finds out about the song. The only answer is to find and destroy every copy of the book in the country. Accompanied by a shady real-estate agent, her Wiccan assistant, and the assistant's truly annoying ecoterrorist boyfriend, Streator begins a desperate cross-country quest to put the culling song to rest.
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Community Reviews
I'm counting one, counting two, counting thr...I can't freaking finish...
I just couldn't do it. I thought that the idea was really amazing and I was hooked at the beginning, but then it starting getting so repetitious that I found myself skipping over full sections. Aside from that the characters were all completely insufferable. I don't think I liked a single character in the entire book! I just couldn't finish it.
I just couldn't do it. I thought that the idea was really amazing and I was hooked at the beginning, but then it starting getting so repetitious that I found myself skipping over full sections. Aside from that the characters were all completely insufferable. I don't think I liked a single character in the entire book! I just couldn't finish it.
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Palahniuk has such a wonderful, melodic writing style. His use of "he says"sounds poetic and he has beautiful thematic language that ran through this book. I loved his use of counting and his play on the phrases "these noisaholics. These peaceaphobics" that popped up over and over.
The premise was cool and eerie. Parents sweetly read their children poems and stories from a certain book, and a specific poem is an ancient culling song that brings about death. Palahniuk takes SIDS and somehow manages to make it even darker.
The last third of the book veers off into some very bizarre territory and although I thought the ending was fine, I know it frustrated others. I also struggled a bit to make sense of the timeline of the story, but I believe that's because I listened to the audiobook. I read that in the actual book, different timelines use Italics so it's easier to differentiate. I thought the narrator was fantastic and I enjoyed the experience, but I would recommend reading it vs. listening simply for timeline clarification.
The premise was cool and eerie. Parents sweetly read their children poems and stories from a certain book, and a specific poem is an ancient culling song that brings about death. Palahniuk takes SIDS and somehow manages to make it even darker.
The last third of the book veers off into some very bizarre territory and although I thought the ending was fine, I know it frustrated others. I also struggled a bit to make sense of the timeline of the story, but I believe that's because I listened to the audiobook. I read that in the actual book, different timelines use Italics so it's easier to differentiate. I thought the narrator was fantastic and I enjoyed the experience, but I would recommend reading it vs. listening simply for timeline clarification.
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