Samantha Deel endures a life of daily misery. Her parents quaff NyQuil by the bottle while heaping abuse and scorn upon her. While under the haze of nighttime cold medicine, her father shot a man who was in the midst of taking his own life. Samantha must contend with their cruelty while also tending to the care of her infirm but lecherous uncle. Singing provides the one pure enjoyment in her life, but her parents rebuke her aspirations. Sam is willing to resort to self-harm to achieve her goals, or at the very least drown out the naysayers.

"SHOCK INDUCTION is full of surreal moments and dark humor that only accentuate the drama at the heart of the story."

Sam’s overdose of aspirin leads to her loss of hearing. In her circle of friends and classmates, she would be considered an underachiever. A spate of teenage suicides has stunned her hometown, including the death of her boyfriend, Garson. As Sam is attempting to process his loss, she is perplexed by a vision of him alive and well. Her attempts to gain some clarity lead her to Mrs. Terry, a mysterious teacher who possesses knowledge of a group that can fund the escape of troubled youth from their domestic confines onto “greener pastures.”

Sam learns that the suicides have served as cover for a surreptitious exit from hellish home lives and is eager to sign up for this bold initiative. When untethered from her maladjusted family, she finds freedom from one predicament that might have led to a worse one. Sam is now established in an opulent lifestyle, yet some rules leave her fraught with anxiety. She will need to examine the motives of her liberators and figure out their plans for her before it’s too late.

Meanwhile, the federal government is attempting to tackle “functional illiteracy.” The youth of America is continually at risk of being distracted, and new initiatives are being pondered. The legislators know that they have to combat the lure of technology to keep the future of America focused, but their ability to turn the tide is moot.

SHOCK INDUCTION is the latest of Chuck Palahniuk’s wonderfully enigmatic books wherein a misfit attempts to find his or her place in a dysfunctional world. His genius is in creating a literary roller coaster that proves capable of going off the rails at any moment but never disappointing the reader regardless of where it ultimately lands. Sam is a suffering adolescent who decides to seize control of her narrative and escape the chains of her destructive home life. Palahniuk handles the minds of angst-ridden teens with empathy while also excoriating the heavy-handed tactics of savage parents.

The quick-fix mentality of those in power is also examined and how often the best intentions are offset by catastrophic blowback. SHOCK INDUCTION is full of surreal moments and dark humor that only accentuate the drama at the heart of the story. Palahniuk possesses an incessant ability to pen books of profundity that will make the reader think well after the last page has been turned.