Burnt Tongues

Locations
Call Number: 808.83 Bu
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	808.83 Bu	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Live this down / Neil Krolicki -- Charlie / Chris Lewis Carter -- Paper / Gayle Towell -- Mating calls / Tony Liebhard -- Melody / Michael De Vito, Jr. -- F for fake / Tyler Jones -- Mind and soldier / Phil Jourdan -- Ingredients / Richard Lemmer -- The line forms on the right / Amanda Gowin -- A vodka kind of girl / Matt Egan -- Gasoline / Fred Venturini -- Dietary / Brandon Tietz -- Invisible graffiti / Adam Skorupskas -- Bike / Bryan Howie -- Heavier petting / Brien Piechos -- Engines, o-rings, and astronauts / Jason M. Fylan -- Lemming / Terence James Eeles -- The routine / Keith Buie -- Survived / Gus Moreno -- Zombie whorehouse / Daniel W. Broallt.
A collection of short stories from the transgressive fiction genre feature tales about taboo subjects from the horrific to the humorous with shocking imagery not soon forgotten.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Pulp at worst, pulp at best submitted by nashjeff on March 29, 2017, 12:40pm The first thing you should know about this book is that the writers featured in this anthology were on The Cult Workshop -- an online forum (which is no longer) stemming off of Palahniuk's official fan page. The majority of the writers featured in Burnt Tongues utilize elements of his style to varying effects. If you are not a fan of Palahniuk's work or style, you likely won't enjoy this read. If you're a newcomer to the author's work, I would recommend his novels Lullaby or Survivor as entry-points.

Of the stories that don't go after Palahniuk's style in a straightforward way ("Paper", "Bike", and "Survived", most notably), one wonders what would happen if they were given more room to breathe, more room to expand into a novelette. These stories are arguably less transgressive, less gross-out, and less weird, but they carry a different mood, which is welcome in this collection.

While I was reading this book, I was reminded of Palahniuk's book of rough-to-decent short stories/regretful poetry, Haunted - probably this collection's closest analogue. If you are a fan of the more upsetting stories in Haunted, you may find several stories worth enjoying in Burnt Tongues: "Live This Down", "Ingredients", and "Heavier Petting".

Overall, I didn't enjoy this book. The concept - a series of transgressive stories - is better than the execution. Go read Joyce Carol Oates' more recent short stories if you're looking for an unsettling read that doesn't resort to gross-out shock tactics.