Palahniuk's latest is no Fight Club (1996) or Choke (2001), his two best, but with frequent laughs and a slew of unexpected turns, readers will find in it a certain charm. Our narrator, Madison, a chubby, 13-year-old outcast, awakes in a cell, realizing she is not only dead but also condemned to hell. Chalking her circumstances up to a marijuana overdose, Madison quickly settles in, befriending a sort o. Dead Breakfast Club. complete wit. the brain, the jock, the rebel, and the prom queen. Palahniuk's hell, sometimes goofy (The English Patient plays on repeat), sometimes gross-out (mountains of nail clippings and dandruff are commonplace), is a far cry from Dante's more devilish than hellish. As she chronicles her afterlife (assigned to work as a telemarketer), she recalls her life on earth and, in turn, discovers there was more to her death than smoking marijuana. The story scoots along like any great adventure story, as she takes on Hitler and Catherine de Medici, and it's a delight seeing Madison find her place in life, even if it's in death. . HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A seven-city author tour, extensive print and online advertising, and author appearances on national media will round out the robust promotional campaign designed for Palahniuk.--Bayer, Case. Copyright 2010 Booklist

Smart but awkward, chubby Madison gets fried on marijuana and dies the night her Brangelina-like parents are accepting Oscars. She finds herself as one-fifth (the Ally Sheedy) of a new Breakfast Club, this one trapped in Hell rather than detention. Alongside the cheerleader, jock, nerd, and punk, Madison gains confidence battling history's villains and mythology's demons, wandering the bad candy-strewn landscape in search of Satan, whom she has decided is not such a bad guy. She also works as a telemarketer, enticing the diseased to join her in an afterworld that she likes better than life. VERDICT As in Tell-All, Palahniuk takes a high concept and kills it with a meandering plot and an unsatisfying conclusion. His humor occasionally scores, but the best jokes are repeated until they become more annoying than funny. Thirteen-year-old Madison reads like a snarky grad student, while other characters barely register. The oceans of bodily fluids in this Hell could serve as a symbol for Palahniuk's wasted talent. Longtime fans will be left wishing for his return from limbo. [Seven-city tour; see Prepub Alert, 4/11/11.]-Neil Hollands, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A teenage girl named Madison dies of a drug overdose and awakens in hell, alongside every stereotypical character in the history of bad writing: a jock, a cheerleader, a headbanger, and, naturally, a science dweeb. The twist is that this is a hell that only Palahniuk could have imagined, and the journey to escape it is as unpredictable as anything he's ever written. Narrator Tai Sammons delivers a stellar reading in which she captures the essence of Madison. Her dialect, delivery, and tone are perfectly suited to that of a 13-year-old who's having a really, really bad day. Listening to Sammons's narration is an intimate experience as her rendition of Madison pours her heart out and prays her words won't fall only on dead ears. A Doubleday hardcover. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.