Does Haunted get....better?

A somewhat general consensus around here is that it's a great short story collection that should've been left at that without trying to wrap a story around it. If I could re-experience it for the first time, I'd skip that stuff and would have a higher overall opinion of the book.

Also, I hated how he info-dumped all the characters on us at once at the very beginning. Way too hard to keep track of such a large cast that would've benefitted from more gradual introductions.

Been awhile since I've read it, but if I recall, I just figured the stage was where they presented the material they'd been workshopping.

Short stories are definitly worth it. But yeah, the story is extremly hard to follow, especially in the beginning. If you just read all the short stories you wouldn't really be missing too much.

aaawwwww... Well I've decided to put it down anyway and start a new book. I'll go back to this....sometime.

I forced myself to read more of this last night and today. I'm actually starting to warm up to it a little bit now. The progeria guy dying was quite a surprise to me. I figured he'd last longer than that.

i started reading Haunted a few days ago,and all i think about when i am not reading that book, is when will i have time to read more of this book? I love it.

I absolutely adore this book. It introduced me to Chuck, so I think having no prior knowledge of his style helped me appreciate it more. Having read everything except [I]Diary[/I] now, it remains one of my favourites.

I liked Haunted a lot, but I found it very difficult to keep up with all of the different character names and profiles that are thrown at the reader in the very beginning.
Some of the short stories are classics, but the poems leave much to be desired.

Haunted is the first Chuck-book I read, and I loved it! The short stories. <3 Have to say that I wasn't too crazy about the poems, but they weren't bad either. I wanna read it again. I've been away from home for several months now and I didn't bring the book. I miss it, haha.

Well, it never got better. Thanks to everybody who participated in this thread. Caligula, tom, giggan, jkabol, imke, jinxed rockabye, huxtable, molly, kaetea, jsh092, elegantly bitter, byskyb, oh jeez...umm... mom and dad, Chuck....I couldn't have done it without all of you.

I dug Obsolete.

I'm currently reading it, and I personally love it.

I think the poems and joining sequences add a lot to the book, to be honest. I love that a few of the stories make sly references to each other... for example, in Dissertation by the Missing Link, he mentions being on the Today show, "Maybe even the A Block . . ." (306) which reminds you of the earlier Miss America story.

I don't know, I think those little nuances make the book so much better than just a bunch of random horror stories strung together. I'm thoroughly engrossed in it. But I don't think it really gets better, it is mostly the same level of awesome. So if you hate it at the beginning, you will probably continue hating it. But I'd vote give it a shot to see it through, it's at least worth a read. 

The poems don't serve much of a point other than a view of how the characters perceive each other, but the connecting story is some of the best, goriest, nastiest stuff. Plus, you have no idea what these people are driven to do because of their background short stories if you skip the connections.

Thats kind of what I had to do at first was force myself to read it, but then it got more interesting and I got really into it.
Overall, I loved it once I understood what was goin' on.

I remember the day I made this thread exactly, cause it was Christmas! I had the flu and stayed home alone while my family went to visit my other family. I laid on the couch and watched those Robert Redruiguz(SP!) and Tarantino grindhouse movies. Sick on Christmas. How about that?

This thread is wow. Every few weeks, it gets another lowly post.

Sickness on Jesusmas is something everyone must go through, its like a right of passage. I've never had it, but I've done the sick on new year's thing twice. But you can only feel so bad when there's a TWILIGHT ZONE MARATHON!!!

Sounds familiar, I'm sure I have.

I love the one with the gorilla dude on the wing of Shatner's plane...it's so incredibly stupid a premise, but works so well.

it took me a few chapters to really get into this book. I agree with who said that without the story of Mr.Whittier and the others...maybe just the short stories would have been pretty cool. At the same time though the inbetween stories are the ones that really tie everything together (in my view) i really enjoyed this book.