Rating: 
Summary: 'I still smoke cigars!'
Review: It's hard to think of another book that has had an American Psycho-like impact in terms of reader attraction/revulsion. There are the legions of people who despise it, and these are often people who have refused to read it (so there's your explanation right there.) But walk into a college bookstore and what will you find? Stacks of this book in plain sight, and being scooped up by curious people just wanting to see what the fuss is about. Finally I picked the book so I could see what it was all about, and before I looked up I had read about 80 pages already. A very swift 399 pages is American Psycho, and I also found myself laughing out loud quite a few times. This is the blackest of humor, downright demented at times, and if you give it a chance it is incredibly funny, often in a disturbing way. Read it once and you might find the violence so disturbing as to distract from anything else and taint the book. Buy look at it again and you find that Ellis has made Patrick Bateman...a dork(!) (Indeed, this is how Christian Bale imagined the character in the film.) The violence is never the point in this book, but it is cut into a ludicrously-painted world of money run amok that it HAS to be over the top. Does it matter that the violence is real or not? Ellis doesn't care. There is no plot and it works best that way. Patrick Bateman is an ongoing monster: the yuppie. It's a book that people love or hate. By far the most disturbing fact is NOT the violence, but the fact that incredibly vapid people like Bateman and his crew really exist, and are out there withdrawing hundreds of dollars from ATM machines FOR NO REASON...
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely disturbing...
Review: This book is the most disturbing thing I have ever read. If I could give it negative stars I would. The author is in need of professional help, anyone who could think up the sick things that are written in this book has something very wrong going on in his head. I don't believe in censorship but I am going to burn this book this weekend to completely exorcise it from my life.
Rating: 
Summary: American Psyco
Review: This book is a fast read. The descriptions of the murders are troubling to say the least. But I thought this was a great book, and at times so funny I was laughing out loud. A contemporary moray, a droll spoof, a pucky satire aimed more at the heart than the head. As for me I was never interested.
Rating:
Summary: Worst book I've ever read
Review: Need I say more? Maybe I just can't relate to the lifestyle. Worst book, did not like the writing style.
Rating: 
Summary: less than zero
Review: "Less Than Zero" was Bret Easton Ellis's first book, and it's also an appropriate description of "American Psycho" too. I'll skip the details of the book, since you all know them. Suffice to say that like many reviewers I was seriously disgusted by the ultraviolence scenes. But there's more to this book than just extreme scenes, right? Well... no, not really. I was disappointed to see that he wasn't really saying anything remotely new. You mean Wall Street guys are conceited? Gee, I've never heard of the 1980's as being a shallow decade before! The problem with writing a nihilistic book is that it leaves the reader with... nothing! When your attitude is "What's the point of living?", then what's the point of reading about that! "Less Than Zero" differed in many ways, but had about the same outlook on life. It's not much of a stretch to imagine the college graduate Clay (or any of his friends) as Patrick Bateman. Both books have lots of social commentary, but no plot and no point. Is Bret Easton Ellis incapable of writing about anything of substance? I've heard that his latest book is about models; you can guess just how substantial that's going to be! If this is all Bret Easton Ellis is capable of, then he is going to be minus his readers when he runs out of shock value.
Rating:
Summary: excellent book!
Review: Patrick Bateman, the main character, is a complete madman: he's a yuppie (a much stereotyped one) who spends his days shopping for expensive furniture and designer's suits and his nights butchering models, prostitutes and tramps. As someone noted, the true horror does not rely in the torture scenes (which are extremely violent tough) but in the surrounding ambient: the consumistic society, the yuppism (personally i loved it but still, the author has got the right to express his opinions), the general indifference in which people live and die... well, this at least is Ellis' point of view... it's an hip novel who deals with an hyperboled era.
Rating:
Summary: The lifestyle is what makes me sick, not the violence...
Review: This book is probably not worth your time. The author delves deep into the minuate of everyday yuppie life with reckless abandon, and it is sickening....more so than the violence. If you want to see people being tortured and dismembered, check out the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, at least its original.
Rating:
Summary: essential
Review: this novel is more important than the film. and before i get off track, let me state my reasons for this: in the film, the character of patrick bateman, even when he is informing us that there "is no patrick bateman", is easily written off. psycho killer, qu'est que c'est. because the film does not show us how bateman is thinking..merely what he does. the novel, however, proves that patrick bateman is one of the most important literary characters of our time. his complete control over everything in his world, and his ability to make his homicidal psychpathic tendancies seem as normal as, oh, enjoying a phil collins album, prove that bret easton ellis has a marvelous knowledge of the human psyche. because what makes bateman, and ultimately this novel, so darn frightening is the knowledge that these thoughts..the urge and desire to inflict pain on those who bother and disrupt our way of life...is something that is in everyone. and patrick bateman is that nasty demon in the back of your mind come to fruition. ellis' way of writing..the stream of thought type..works with the mood of the novel perfectly. all in all, this is an essential book. do not pass this one up-PARTICULARLY if, like me, the film intrigued you but left you disappointed. this novel will not.
Rating: 
Summary: Daring Indeed
Review: Having seen the recent film (April 2000) I was curious to see where all the fuss began. The book is good, considering its subject matter, if meandering in spots (TOO MUCH time is spent describing every detail of people's attire, three whole chapters on the praises of various musical artists). The detail Ellis provides in the most gruesome chapters had me thinking "how could he know that?", unless he was a coroner in a past life. If you're into shocking stuff, this one's for you!
Rating:
Summary: STUNNING
Review: The finest novel I have ever read. Completely changed my view of literature in all of it's forms.
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