American Psycho

Deeply disturbing and hard to stomach, but beautifully (if horrifically) written. A fascinating dramatization of the vapid, yuppy 80's and the obsession with furthering self at the expense of others. Brett Easton Ellis' writing style really drives home Patrick Bateman's internal dialogue: obsession with labels and conspicuous consumption, detachment from personal relationships, numb emotion to any feeling other than arousal and anxiety. I don't know that I could ever re-read this, but I'm glad I soldiered on to the end.

I loved the movie. Bale's Patrick Bateman is one of my all time favorite characters. This book is awful though. And not for the very few disturbing torture porn scenes.

It is a first person fiction story narrated by the protagonist, and since he is a narcissist, misogynist, psychopath playboy, we get to experience the world how he sees it. And this is the problem, at least on the amount of details the author provides. It does make a good work in putting ourselves in his shoes, but man what a boring, even if very expensive custom made designer tailed shoes, they are.

I would say 80% of the book is exclusively the character detailing what he and everyone else is using. And it is a LONG book. I think this is how to watch the Kardashians feels like. He describes every single piece of clothe, for every single person he finds, in every single scene, naming every designer of that particular piece. Also he describes in painstakingly details the things he has in his apartment and the products he uses to keep his appearance. His sound system and skincare products, for instance.

He also describes other people looks, how good or bad their tan, their hair, and compare those features with hist. That's how he measures a person's worth. Unless its a woman, then he measures weather he would fuck her. That's the only thing women are good for according to him. That and killing them.

There are some chapters dedicated to him describing an album of music he likes. Yes, whole chapters of this. I managed to skip just the last one of these, as just then I knew that it wouldn't contain nothing relevant to the character or the plot.

These scenes of descriptions of his vestiary, on how he spent $400 in a sock or something, is followed by he meeting some random beggar on the streets. He describes his disgust for the scene, their stench, their lack of concern for their appearance, mocks, taunts and sometimes, kill them (of course) This is a very good critic of our society right there. Not the killing though, most people are content to just ignoring or mocking them.

When he is among friends, other psychopaths like him it would appear, all his talk is about this kind of stuff. They only talk about food, people they fucked or would like to fuck, mind you they all have steady girlfriends. They are racists, xenophobic, elitists, womanizers, superficial, a caricature of what incredibly rich and well successful wall street businessman are. Because of the time the book is written, AIDS is still a new thing. They believe themselves to be immune to it, only women and homosexual can die from the disease.

Among the interesting things about the book, we found out he lives in the same building as Tom Cruise. He has an awkward encounter with him in the elevator. He is fascinated with Donal Trump, has a brother whom he hates and wouldn't mind killing him. He also hates his father, who is very rich and successful as well.

The quality I like most about the character present in the book, his overreacting of things that most people would find trivial. The classic scene when he looses it when he sees his coworkers business cards is here, but it didn't have nearly the same impact as in the movie, as it was mixed with all the boring things I talked about. And there is many of this kind of overreaction scenes, which were nice. But the movie has thoroughly captured this aspect of his personality with just that one scene. And that is the thing about the movie, it is a much abridged version, and it was better because of it.

Also, there is much more killing in the book. Some murder and sex scenes are very graphical, especially toward the end of the book. Patrick is obsessed with watching porn, and masturbate to killing scenes.

The thing I loved most about the movie was its ending, which is not present here. They took an implied minor scene of the book and made the whole idea of the movie around it. It was BRILLIANT. The movie ends with Patrick doubting wheater he did in fact kill all those people he remembers killing, as they all seem to be still alive. It makes sense because of the copious amount of drug he uses, plus his disturbed personality. He has many hallucinations where he sometimes can't tell what is real. In the book its just one person he thinks he might not have killed. At least not the right person. But he has committed dozens of cruelty acts, inclusive with animals, and has killed maybe a hundred people, according to his calculations.

Not present in the movie is how Patrick Bateman is extremely vicious and cruel to his victims. Perhaps that's because of the details and time the book has, plus not being restricted by TV moral standards. He likes to torture them in very spectacular ways before killing them. He is also a cannibal.

In conclusion, I don't sympathize with the reasons people liked this book so much. I read the top reviews and I completely disagree with them. Its like an artist exposing a blank painting in an art gallery, and everybody praising it. I just don't see it. Then there is the complaint about how he treats women. This is an unfounded criticism. Its like saying “I will now describe how it feels to be under water”, and then people complaining that they now feel wet. Also, I don't know or care about the “torture porn” genre, but I would guess this would get a 1 out of 5. Its just too few scenes. I hate a book without content. Other reviews are praising the book's dark take on society. Again, 80% of the book is just FILLER. It is not a good book!

Overall I enjoyed the book, but nothing justifies all the useless info dump the book presents.

Warning: There will be some spoilers.

Normally a book of this length would take me two days to read. But at times I wanted to quit and delete it from my kindle. It took me roughly six days to read this book. I don't even know where to begin with this review honestly. Those who praise this book are 100% right. It is interesting, groundbreaking, disturbing, dark, and gut wrenching. However those who say it is graphic, boring, and utter trash are also correct. There were times where I didn't know what I wanted to rate this. One chapter it deserved 5 stars and then on some chapters it deserved none. I just added and divided by two.

There are chapters dedicated to singers, chapters dedicated to complete psychosis, and we see how the upper class lives. The book was all over the place just like the main character and in the end I felt empty and used.

Read the book first then watch the film. I never thought I would actually say this but I enjoyed the film way more than the book. At times I wanted to give up but then at times I was hooked. I love books that are based on satire but I wasn't thrilled with this.

Okay, so when I decided to pick up American Psycho, EVERYONE expressed their love for this book so I was excited to dive in. That's the last time I listen to people. This book is a hot mess. I could even go as far as saying I hated it. Let's start with the elephant in the room. I'm convinced the author is sexist. I know, I know the whole point of Patrick Bateman is to showcase that he's a sexist pig, but when you have zero strong female characters, basically no female characters with even a smidgen of personality outside being dumb, shallow eye candy for a serial killer and his obnoxious friends, that says something. His constant use of “hardbody” is annoying, as well as his basic descriptions of women in the novel. He could have put in a little more effort considering he doesn't shy away from excessive detail in other areas of the story. Also, I looked into interviews with the author and he openly says sexist comments, including comparing his younger self to Patrick Bateman. He also openly expressed his discontent for a woman directing the movie American Psycho. Considering a few of his books revolve around the themes of hurting, raping, and degrading women, that further enforces my opinion. If it quacks like a duck...

That aside, the book is a drag for the first 75%. Ellis overloaded American Psycho with an obnoxious amount of designer labels and details. The novel becomes tedious to get through. Once again, I understand it was done for character development but we get the point after the first 50 pages of detail overload. The excessive detail along with the absolute boring dinner conversations that brought minimal to the plot bored me. Let's be honest here, his writing isn't anything special. I'm not a fan of an author basically “telling” the entire story.

The gore was alright, however some of it was unrealistic and random. Often times it feels like Ellis wrote the actions of Bateman just for shock value and I wasn't impressed. The graphic scenes didn't bother me, but it came off sloppy and disorganized.

I'm going to have to pass on reading anything else from Ellis. I can only imagine how much worse it gets.

I couldn't finish it. The book is wonderfully written. The amount of thought and detail that goes into each and every moment is insane and impressive beyond what I've ever seen. However, that's what made it impossible for me to finish. Many of the scenes actually made me physically uncomfortable and disturbed.

I didn't think I would ever read anything that would make me think that an age restriction for a book could be realistically justified. And then I read Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho. Patrick Bateman is a New York City banking bro in the 1980s. It would seem like he has a pretty great life: his job is prestigious and pays well, he has a pretty fiancee, he works out regularly and is in good shape, he has a nice apartment. But what Patrick also has going on is a gnawing emptiness at his center, and violent urges he's not quite able to control. He lashes out at first against the powerless: poor people, prostitutes. But his need to hurt people escalates farther and farther until he's committing actual atrocities against even people he knows, while somehow still trying to keep it together enough to go to work and live his life as normally as possible.

I'm not usually overly puritanical about depictions of sex and violence in books. Sex and violence are (fortunately and unfortunately, respectively) parts of life. And I'd seen the movie! I thought I had a handle on what was in store. But this book doesn't just flounce right over the line of being gratuitous, it goes into actively stomach-churning territory. There are things I read in this book that gave me pictures in my head I will never unsee and honestly gave me heaves. And part of it, I think, is deliberate...besides being just gross, the book is also a razor-sharp satire. A recurring motif are Bateman's much-stressed-about trips to the video store, where he rents violent pornography which desensitizes him both towards normal sex and violence against women. Living in a culture where depictions of outlandish acts of sex and violence are easy to access means that it requires yet more extreme examples to achieve the titillating/disturbing effect...examples, of course, that the text itself provides. It's clever, if also very off-putting.

I had a really hard time deciding how I felt about this book. As a cutting send-up of the consumer culture of the 1980s, particularly in the heart of the NYC finance scene, it was extremely effective and often entertaining. The agonies about getting a table at the latest bougie restaurant serving the most unappetizing-seeming “exotic” food combinations were dead on. The way the book played with identity, with Patrick both constantly mistaking people he sees for people he knows and being wrong, and himself being called by the incorrect name, because as seriously as he takes his outfits (most of which are described in detail), the end result is that he looks just like everyone else, was smart and insightful. I would be pulled in and admiring the craft of it...and then there would be a gruesome murder and I would pulled back out again.

Even just skimming much of the over-the-top portions of the book (it gets worse and worse as it goes along), it was a reading experience I found really difficult. This book has age restrictions for access in several countries, and I'm actually not mad about it. I might have found one of the few things I actually don't think a teenager should read without an adult having to be a part of the process. I don't know that I would affirmatively recommend that anyone read this book, it's that messed up. Which is a pity, because the parts of it that are satirical are incredibly well-executed (pun sort-of intended) and effective. But the rest of it is just too much. Yes, it's worse than the movie. Much, much worse. If your interest in still piqued and you have an iron stomach, there is merit here. But be prepared.

What a crazy book. All of the vignettes throughout the book got a little boring after a while. It made me yearn for an actual plot than just a glimpse into the mind of a scary, rich psycho. I don't know if this book lived up to all the hype surrounding it. Yes, it was unnecessarily gory and demeaning towards women...but does being a sensationalist make you cult material? I'm not convinced.

Having read both Glamorama and The Rules of Attraction, I have to say Ellis does have the gift of throwing the reader off balance and keeping the reader thinking. I applaud him for not dumbing down his material for the layman. But I'm just not a fan of this book. Next time I need a dose of crazy I'll turn on my TV and leave this book alone.

This book really isn't what I was expecting it to be. Maybe that's partially on me. I was told about it's brutality, about the gore, and I'll admit that it was present. However, it wasn't present until you're well into the book, after Bateman has droned on about the people around him, the clothes they're wearing, the foods they're eating... god, it was fucking boring. I understand, and understood for a while after starting the book, that this is a social commentary and is satirical in nature. You're not supposed to like the characters, you're supposed to acknowledge how shallow they all are and how awful of people they are, but that doesn't make it more interesting to read. I found this book so boring, in fact, that the only way I could keep reading it was to make it a challenge to myself to see if I could finish it. Now I have, and I really don't think it was really worth the time.
If there was one thing I liked about this book, it was that there was a neat section near the end. Bateman kills a saxophonist, and then the cops pursue him, and during this time, the perspective shifts seamlessly. It shifts from first person to third person, switching from using “I” to “he”. I thought that was cool, and I appreciated the writing there for that.

Great read, really nasty. Felt it lingered at parts and lessened in plot as it continues. I know we shouldn't but compared to the movie, I felt the film condensed to the right amount that the books expanded story didn't contribute much more in terms of plot or word building. Still great, an interesting look into 80s male toxicity and the psychopathology that comes with it.