Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk

This weekend (and a bit this morning), I read a book without being told/forced to for the first time since those awesome little Goosebumps books. Elementary school. I got suckered into buying it and finishing it, but the book turned out to be pretty good, even if it did cost me $15 for two days of entertainment. So...a review:

The book was decently twisted, as I'm told much of Palahniuk's works are. There was a lot of hidden information, things you had to read deeply to really understand. At the same time, this book had little to no real action involved and was an easy read, though still enthralling.

Survivor is about one of the last survivor's of a recent death cult. Every child past the first in the church families is raised and shipped off to do "missionary work" - basically white slavery. As the years go by, the survivors dwindle down. As news spreads of the mass suicide of the church, members are committing suicide as they had learned, though some are dying by other means (read the book, this would be too much to give away). The last survivor evolves through a stage of media fame as a religious icon. He cycles through drugs and struggles with the demands of stardom as he moves through his life to his impending doom. A cast of unique characters is drawn along the way with great detail, even down to his goldfish, aptly named "Number Six-Hundred-Forty-One."





















**SPOILERS/QUESTIONS**



My main question that I ask is why Adam Branson is killing off survivors. He initiated the Deliverance for what was a "reasonable" motive, but his killings after the fact seemed offset. If he was essentially rebelling against the Creedish church rules and culture, why was he still working to enforce them? Was it that deep of an inner struggle between his brainwashed values and his morals? Also, why was Tender the one person that was set to escape his wrath? In the process of bringing the Deliverance to the survivors who did not carry out their training, he must have encountered and killed relatives, friends, and close family. What made Tender so special? A twin connection?


Also, Fertility Hollis. I'd hit it, seriously.