Doomed
Damned (2011) introduced us to 13-year-old Madison Spencer, newly arrived in Hell after her death; as she tried to figure out what exactly happened to her, she took us on an exciting and often very funny tour of Hell. Now, in the sequel, Madison is back on Earth, stranded there on Halloween, facing the prospect of spending an entire year as (shudder) a ghost among the living. Although not quite as entertaining as Damned—primarily because it lacks the first book’s hellish travelogue—the novel nicely continues Madison’s story, filling in a lot of the blanks in her life (we find out, for example, the real reason why she’s been damned) and exposing an ancient satanic plot that—believe it or not—has poor little Madison at its center. As with the first book, this one lives or dies on the appeal of its teenage narrator. On the face of it, Spencer isn’t the most likable of girls: she’s self-centered, in-your-face, and almost too aggressively clever for her own good—but so was Holden Caulfield. She’s a compelling character, and she drives a novel that will resonate from the get-go with Palahniuk’s many fans. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Palahniuk’s 12 novels have sold more than five million copies in the U.S. His latest will profit from both traditional print publicity and an extensive social-media campaign. --David Pitt