Adjustment Day: A Novel

The world is falling apart. Resentment is at an all-time high. Civil discourse has vanished. Racism, homophobia, and ignorance abound. Government officials are planning a sham war just to decimate the numbers of angry young men in the country. But there’s a new movement gathering strength in the shadows, one determined to set things right by any means. Adjustment Day is coming, and it’ll change everything…for a while.

Adjustment Day is Palahniuk’s razor-sharp take on nationalism, conspiracy theories, and social movements. As absurd as it is engaging, the novel lampoons our society’s hypocrisies, biases, and excesses, even while building a utopia that’s even more insane and dysfunctional.

As always, Palahniuk goes deeper, even making the reader part of the story. You see, if you remove the book jacket for Adjustment Day, the blue hardcover beneath reads “Talbott Reynolds.” By simply carrying around the book in this state, you’ve become part of the narrative, which forces you to question how you’d conduct yourself in this society. It’s subtle and immensely clever.

This is social commentary as only Palahniuk could deliver it. It’s weird and funny and mean and considerate all at once.