Rating: 
Summary: Constructed Notions of life in "American Psycho
Review: There is a point in the novel where (forgive me for saying so)for a brief moment Patrick Bateman sounds as if he is speaking the truth. There has never been a golden age of civilization or a time of unfettered love and prosperity. Human beings are brutal and predatory. There will never be peace or universal acceptance, there are only brief moments of illumination, glimpses of a life that could be-but won't-that tempt and tease a person. False hope that prods people for only more struggle. Honestly, what truly separates the end product of two completely different people-one who strives "valiantly" towards a goal, and another who takes the path of least resistance? Action versus inaction. Bateman's world is, if nothing else, tangible. As a person who grew up in the 1980's, I have to admit, there does seem to be valid reasoning for the "mindless preppy lifestyle." People want some sort of gauge to determine the progress of their lives. Terms like love, sympathy, etc. (I could easily quote the book, but, uh, like, I'm not going to)ARE rather abstract and mean different things to different people in different proportions-thus individuality. For a society that fosters this notion, I always felt it was rather comical that all the "individuals" always seemed to dress and act the same. There is strength in numbers. A universal human maxim. But there is such a prescient factor of anonymity in these groups that the actions (even sins) of a person can be watered down and rationalized away. Any and every group has a rather rigid structure whereby, eventually, everyone looks and dresses and acts the same.
Humans see their lives in relation to other humans. Even the meaning of their lives-thus the continuing motif of the clothes, posessions, etc. In the end, the only things that human beings truly and universally realize are birth, procreation, and death. In the end, does it really matter what someone feels or thinks or believes beyond these three landmarks? Does anything change the three in regards to the importance of the continuation of the species? Bateman systematically breaks every aspect of life into their constituent parts. This is done so mechanically, so robotically that even everyday actions such as brushing hair, wearing clothes, etc, become dehumanizing processes. Bateman looks for the soul in the "machine," which, quite frankly, human beings become out of habit, routine, doctrine. Does it matter THAT much that the time period happens to be the decade of the 1980's? Don't the 1980's make sense on some level? An industrial society in an increasingly global and shrinking world that values individuality as a major precept also has to deal with the fact that there can only be a finite amount of "producers." Logically, there must be people who overlap and produce nothing-i.e. socialites and homeless people, the very people that Patrick attacks (for the most part.) The best part of the book occurs a little past the half way point of the novel in a chapter called "Nell's." Bateman and pals meet and dine with three models. One, named Daisy, Bateman sees as a mindless ditz. She is. Superficially speaking. This is where one has to read against the grain of the text. All of Bateman's actions and words are responses to the world he sees. He keeps things hidden, under the surface, (he has to, for self preservation, a murderous, depraved, cannibalistic, lunatic...) and yet he lacks all empathy and can not see the "otherness" of people. He does not realize that other people have thoughts and feelings as well, they might be playing "the game" just to fit in with the herd. Daisy is faking just as Bateman is. Daisy blows smoke at his face, insults him to her friends under her breath, and actually seems to have intelligence, no matter what Bateman says. In fact, Daisy uses the same word choices and phrases that Bateman uses when talking to others. She even holds down a conversation with Bateman so well (once he relents and decides to talk to her) that they seem to be synchronized and tuned into one another. Even the description of their bodies and the sex they have are in tune. Their personalities are artificial shallow constructs. Bateman even leans over and warns that she will be hurt if she stays. She understands intuitively. Bateman mutters something about how he is "losing it." Maybe this is because he is, even as a psychotic, not alone (gasp) in his existential misery and search for an answer. The two are different sides of the same coin. To quote Charles Aaron, (parenthetically, and about an entirely different topic-review of the album Nevermind by a little band called Nirvana) Bateman rages at the void as if he expects an answer while Daisy understands life's darkest little jokes, gets up, and leaves-unharmed. The one person who actually may have had something of an answer for him, he does not kill or punish, yet...lets her go. What if there is no point, and the sacrifices and lives we lead are intentionally created to merely give us something to do?
Ellis's book is exceptionally written and is purposefully without a catharsis. Perhaps this is how life IS going to be. For what has really changed except the time period? Ellis does not have a tremendously affecting or, at any rate, sophisticated world view in the other novels I have read, which, quite frankly are rotted sores on the chunks of horse vomit. And yet American Psycho truly is outstanding.
Rating: 
Summary: Stock Brokers Are Stressed
Review: This was a well written book, although I would like to say that the author did a little bit too much research for the book. The way the book is written it is like he himself was the Psycho. I wouldn't recomend this book to anyone that has nightmares at the movie "Scream" by Wes Craven. Even though it isn't "scary" in the sence that there is alot of violent activity, and straight forward horror. It is "scary" in the sence that the man that the book is written around acts perfectly "normal" in the sence that he believes what he is doing is the right way of living. The book and its context was a little graphic for anyone old enough to read this book, and should have an NC 17 rating, because of its context; but it was a good book and anyone brave enough to read it through to the end should never be frightened of anything that is ever written again.
Rating:
Summary: because he cares?
Review: Hmmm, maybe I was wrong, but I read this caustic story as a wake up call. It seemed as though Ellis was trying to take his fashionable, desensitized audience by the throat and scream in their face - this is what is happening, this is the life you are leading. He vividly creates a character so isolated and dislocated that the acts he commits have no meaning whatsoever for him, except perhaps as momentary diversions, attempts to relieve the boredom of existence. Bateman is a perfect mirror of a generation seeking meaning through a world of purchase power and instant gratification. So, in a strange way, I found it an inspiring and essential attack on the accelerated culture of the 80's - and since nothing's really changed - by extension, the 90's and beyond. I finished the book grateful for Ellis' bravery in writing a book so extreme that it would inevitably attract (understandable) accusations of pornography, obscuring any literary merit it clearly has. The book can easily be accused of going too far, but that is the game Ellis is playing with us - where is your limit? When do you withdraw and pause to think about slaughter as entertainment? Unfortunately, as the ante is raised from random murder to revolting torture, I felt the narrative eventually lost credibility - these didn't seem to be the acts of a character, but of an author with a point to prove. Despite this, it remains a favourite of mine and, for me, one of the most resonant novels of the 90's.
Rating:
Summary: From a psycho's reality - magnificent
Review: A big part of this book and Bret Easton Ellis may say the most important part is how these Wall St. fast-paced men care so much about their social status but I really enjoyed the violent scenes with women which Ellis has played down in the popular public press. From the protagonist's mind, women are only sexual objects meant for pleasure and mutilation. A woman wearing shoes showing her heel and broad, beautiful legs is enough for the protagonist to lure him to his apartment where he then cuts out her vagina, sucks her nipples and then cuts them open and ... He then disposes of her. This is just one example in the book and for all the men who would never act out these things in real life but fantasize about them this will rock your world. In this mindset, women serve one purpose. Whatever the man needs it to be and then bye, bye. Not for the faint of heart or the political right but realistic in ways most people never want to face deep within their souls.
Rating: 
Summary: American Psycho
Review: I thought it was keen of Ellis to wait a couple hundred pages before Patrick Bateman started killing people. American Psycho, the novel is much better than American Psycho, the movie. I found myself laughing aut loud during a number of the parts of the book including the never-ending phone conversation between Bateman, and friends, and also the part where Evelyn is tricked by Patrick into eating an urinal cake. However, these comedic passages are far overshadowed by the horribly detailed descriptions of Bateman's murders,tortures,mutilations,and decapitations of many of his dates throughout the second half of the book. To be honest, I could not put this book down. The descriptions of the clothing of the hundred, or so different people that Bateman meets does get old fast. This novel does an excellent job of describing the empty, materialist, egotistical, and greedy lives of it's characters, 80's stock brokers and their consorts.
Rating:
Summary: An important novel
Review: "American Psycho" is a novel of subtlety. If you've seen the film, you already recognize the coldness, the *nothingness,* of the character that takes the title name. Many readers venture into it expecting a first person breakdown of WHY a man has become cold and deranged and literally void of emotion. But this novel really isn't about that, because it's already too late from page one. Patrick has fallen into a hole he barely recognizes. His life is simply in the hole, and he accepts this. Does he embrace it? Not necessarily. This is the fragment of a man's life twisted to the point of rupture. In college he was better, but now he's much worse, and now he's working in Wall Street in the 1980's, concerned with *things* and extreme behavior. These are the remaining embers in this man's dying fire, and half way through the book you understand this. Patrick Bateman is a vehicle for all things bad: Consumerism, yuppidom, serial killer chic, etc. He is nothing more than a transport for important themes that should not only be faced but dealt with. The nothingness of Bateman's life is an important crux of the story. There are two instances in the book where I truly felt this. There is some vague hope for Bateman, but it's not enough. I give it four stars because toward the end, the pace and momentum really began picking up. It was cut short with a 10 page review of Huey Lewis and the News. It was simply bad placement in accordance with the rest of the novel. Perhaps if it was placed earlier on, near the Genesis and Whitney Houston career reviews, it would have been okay. But I had to skip it to keep up the momentum. The above should tell you this is a dark novel full of humor. It's a fun read, and constantly engaging. When you think conversations and yuppidom begin to drag and you feel impatient, so does Bateman. It's wonderful.
Rating: 
Summary: Would of been better if it was more streamlined.
Review: I recently read this book again for the second time to see if it would make more of an impact on me, unfortunately i was left with the same feelings as i did the first time around. While I like a weighty read this was far too long, like someone else mentioned, the characters obsession with each person's clothing was a clever literary device but it was repeated too much, we got the idea after a few chapters. And this was what i felt throughout the rest of the book, that the points was rammed at you too much to the point of obvious. The graphic killings didn't bother me apart from the obvious initial revulsion, but again were over used. The first half of the book keeps your interest ticking over, the after about halfway through it just seems to repeat the pattern, maybe this was the intention of Ellis but it left me wondering why i should bother to continue reading. I would of liked it more if it had changed direction, it just seemed that the author tried to stretch out his limited material.
Rating:
Summary: who missed the point?
Review: I read American Psycho (twice) many years ago. Both times I came to the same conclusion, but one that was different to anyone else who read the book. Most (if not all) of the violence occurred in his head. It never actually happened, he imagined it!! It is because of this that I found American Psycho to be a fantastic and entertaining read. Fantastic in that Bret Easton Ellis kept, and continues to keep many readers captivated through out. It is entertaining in the use of satire and gore and the yuppy bashing of the 80's. What a laugh. The repetitive name dropping and obsessive nature only gives credence to the fact that Bateman only imagines brutalising his victims, he is so caught up in his own little world. This book is a must read if you want to be horrified by the violent capabilities of man.
Rating:
Summary: Chilling
Review: This book is dark and chilling. It is not for everybody. Ellis has crept inside the mind of a physcopath in a very realistic way. He graphically portrays each black scene that will leave you shaking. I recommend this book for those who are interested in the minds of the mentally unstable who create sad and black crimes. I don't recommend it if you are nauseated to the bone by highly descriptive scences of death and debauchery.
Rating:
Summary: Too much
Review: I admit up front to a certain bias - I saw the film version of "American Psycho" first, and LOVED it. Not that the book is bad per se, but the movie is simply so much better as to make it look mediocre by comparison. It takes the basic theme of the book, namely a very dark, biting satire on the Yuppie culture and its obsession with status, and packaged it in a more subtle, nuanced manner while conveying the basic mood brilliantly with visuals and music. But enough of that, this is a book review, not a movie review. My principal problem with the book is that it simply bludgeons its points home again and again until the reader is just plain numb. At the start, the principal character (Pat Batemen) describes, in obsessive detail, every piece of clothing, accessory, restaurant offering, and entertainment equipment he comes in contact with. This is fine for setting up his basic character (i.e., infatuated with status, and having the Best of Everything) but when he's still doing it on page 100, 200, 300, etc., well, it gets old. And of course there's the violence. To his credit, Ellis is subtle - initially. We get the casual comment or reference with clues us in to the idea there's more to Bateman than his "perfect" young Wall Street hotshot image. Gradually, the violence builds, as each attack becomes more overt and sadistic than the last. Initially this works well as a literary technique, however, there seems to be a point where Ellis just goes over the top. The violence gets so out of hand as to become ridiculous, in fact, it reminds one of the scene with the immensely fat man barfing gallons of puke all over a restaurant in "Monty Python's Meaning of Life". In short, it's just TOO much, Ellis indulging in gratuitous overkill apparently for the sake of pure shock value. In contrast, the filmmakers convey Bateman's basic psychosis and sadism without turning the story into an all out gross-fest. Anyway, the book is by no means bad, the basic premise is solid. But if you really want to enjoy the "American Psycho" experience, see the movie instead.
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