"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."

Anyone who is a Chuck Palahniuk fan obviously will want to read this book. I also think that this is a good type of story for anyone who wants a more adult spin on magic and whatnot. This is a dozen steps up from Charmed and Harry Potter.

I enjoyed the fact that the protagonist, as usual in Chuck Palahniuk's works, was sad, cynical and stained with contempt for the world he lived in. I have a tendency to relate to these types of characters, as I believe most do.

I think what I didn't like about the book is as you get further along in the book, it feels like it is supposed to be picking up pace; and yet for some reason, it seems to go the same steady pace as it was going since the beginning. What's the rush? It's only a couple of tree-huggers with some serious joo-joo in their hands wreaking havoc on the world, right?

I wanted to pick up the next book of his that I bought, which was a bit disappointing after having read this one.

I felt like there is still hope for the cynics and sour-faced individuals in this society; like there is still a part of this society that hasn't been sugar coated in this politically correct, words are worse than "sticks and stones," wage a war until we see our wages cut crap.

Chuck Palahniuk

It's a damn good book. It's creative. It's original. It's different.

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Created May 29, 2012 at 3:17pm • Submit your own review...