so do you recommend this stuff or not?
I'm not sure what you're saying here
:)
if it's making YOU wince I can only imagine what it would do to me.....

:)

I highly recommend choke, it was a brialliant book.

Choke made me feel sordid. I wanted to put the book down after the third page, but the writing was too strong and the character too compelling. I thought it was a really well-written book, but kind of wish I had never read it at all.

He did tell you to do something else rather than read this book about a stupid little boy.

I didn't feel sordid by the end. I think the key to the book was:
(sorry quoting from memory)
Denny said, "You know, somedays I want to live a life definied by doing good things, not just a life defined by not doing bad things".

When the beautiful (but false) gifts that Victor gave to all these are returned to him (again misquoting - "they all came with rocks made of fancy meterials, pink-granite, Itialian-marble, obsidian") they just fell apart with their lack of substance.

Even Victor's diagnosis, his attempt at god-hood, and his taking on the sins of others, were not positive until he stopped living a life of negatives. You can't skip steps.

I couldn't get through the first part of Haunted, and I never picked it up again. I liked Diary very much, though.