Rating: 
Summary: Damned Brilliant
Review: An absolute masterpiece. The book although admitedly slow to begin with, becomes a fast paced overview of the secret life of Patrick Bateman, a Wall Street psychopath, whose macabre lust for blood and pain is fulfilled by the disembodiment and torture of his mainly female victims. They guy has a problem, but Ellis describes it brilliantly, flitting between sanity and insanity with ease.
Rating:
Summary: Rocking book on yuppie serial killer.
Review: This title has mislead many people. It's not so much about the "Psycho" part than it is about the "American." Patrick Bateman is the new American Dream, it just so happens that he kills people. He's not disguised as the American Dream, he is the American Dream. It's just that the new American Dream is hollow, and where it is hollow, anything can fill in. Anything (saaaay... mass murder?). He's not really disguising himself anyways. Throughout the book, he nonchalantly mentions killing people, talks about methods of killing people, confesses to his crimes, and talks about serial killers. But no one really pays attention. No one listens. No one takes him seriously. And no one really cares. If it wasn't for the fact that Bateman killed people, he would have been just another guy. He's primarily a yuppie, and he's not even a particularly interesting yuppie. He's the same as everyone else. Hip to be square. They're all constantly mistaken for other people (sometimes they seem to forget who they're talking to mid-conversation). And even though he's a maniac, he's still a complete yuppie. He has bland taste in music, cares about nothing more than his possessions and appearence, and he makes a complete fool out of himself trying to impress some black guys. Bateman doesn't self-loathe, as many people think. He's more than fine with himself. He doesn't kill because he has the urge or anything. He kills because he just does. Ellis doesn't know where to draw the line with this book, and there's a reason for it: excess. There's a lot of 80's excess. It goes over the top on everything. Completely hilarious book. Don't be one of those people who won't laugh at something like this because it's "sick" and "disgusting", stressing that it's "not funny". If you're like that, you shouldn't be touching this book in the first place. It is a black comedy. It is supposed to be funny. You're not evil for laughing at it and so on. It's Bateman's ridiculous behavior that really cracked me up. Bateman was completely outrageous himself. Reading is believing, and you won't really know just how graphic this book really is until you actually read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing stuff
Review: After reading so many conflicting reviews of this book, I had to read it myself. I agree with both sides. It is disgusting and revolting. But you know what? There are a lot of disgusting and revolting people out there. We can't just bury our heads in the sand and pretend they don't exist. What I would like to know is, why the people who were so revolted by this book even read it? Didn't they read the jacket? What did they expect? If you ask me they are hypocrites, all of them. I thought the book was a good, fast read. It entertained me (in the morbid sense). Kind of like when you pass an accident. You don't enjoy the horrifc scene. But you look anyway. I think the people who criticize this work, are the ones who never miss the news, an episod of cops, Americas Most Wanted, When pets attack and all the other shows that show us violence. I also think they are ashamed to admit that they liked the book thinking that everyone else will think they are sick for enjoying it. Well, to each his own. But if you ask me, the story fell a little flat, but this character was anything but flat. It's scary to think that people like him exist.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the Faint Hearted
Review: The book was at times extremley gorry. Several scenes went from one extreme to the other - from hardcore porn to some of the most horrifying violence I have ever encountered. Much of the book is centered on the 1980's mentality and lifestyle - money, clothes, socializing, drugs etc.. It is well written and did keep my interest peaked - I finished it in one day, however, this is definitley not one for younger readers.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth a read...
Review: Right on the nose....this book does it all. When I closed this book, I had a new outlook on my own life as well the life of those around me. The main character, Patrick Bateman, is the literal personification of an anti-hero. He is smart, funny, charisamtic, rich and (of course) psychopathic. Ellis does an incredible job of creating a scenario in which one man who has everything material and nothing emotional expresses his rage. By taking the anger felt by all people when simple and frusterating events happen in our daily lives, and using Bateman's first person perspective to show the extreme outcome of channeling this anger against others, Ellis drops your jaw. However, the scariest part is that I KNOW there are many of you out there that will find yourselves relating to the rage in which Patrick Bateman acts upon....Ellis has shown sheer brilliance in his portrayal of upper class America climbing higher on the ladder of wealth, while spiraling downward through the black hole of immorality. Bravo Ellis.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best critiques of modern society!
Review: Patrick Bateman, a yuppie during the day, a bar, club, and restaurant hopping killer at night. That is the main character of this book. Many people have been taken back by the detailed description of murder and torture in this book. Why? In order to arouse peoples interest or reaction you need to write in a bizarre and twisted way. And Ellis does so in a brilliant manner. All in all the book is a brilliant critique of today's society with money and physical looks as the prime motivator for action. Ellis sure uses an interesting, and evil, character to describe this. The writer of this review does not agree with Ellis' critique of our society. But the reviewer will still have to admit that it is brilliant in all its goriness and darkness.
Rating:
Summary: An aesthetic illusion
Review: Quite why I was riveted to this book would be something for my shrink to work out - if I had one! It is repetetive, grotesque and pornographic and yet the underlying point of the book is brought across very subtly and powerfully. By the end of it you are numbed to the horror you have been subjected to in much the same way as Pat Bateman is in his own life. The book reflects a lifestyle that many would like to believe they have left behind in the 80's but I contend that very few actually have. Living here and living a similar corporate lifestyle gave me something in common with Pat, which I suppose was the hook. It wasn't too much of a stretch to understand his complete bewilderment and behaviour at some points, which is a fairly horrifying admission. I suppose I would recommend this book on the basis that it will make you realise you're not as far removed from the emptiness and extremeties of Pat Bateman's life as you would like to think.
Rating:
Summary: * * *JUST A LITTLE BIT ICKY AND A WHOLE LOT STICKY * *
Review: My reading group just finished a book called Pseudo Cool in which there was quite some graphic human relations described. It caused several of the ladies in our group to blush. Well, thanks to my husband's suggestion, our reading group will no longer be complaining about Pseudo Cool. I literally felt like throwing up after reading some parts of this book. An author's talent rests in his ability to get people to read. For this, Ellis has done a fine job. But I look forward, along with the ladies in my reading group, for something much more uplifting from this author in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Made it thru, but barely
Review: I finally decided to read this book to decide for myself whether it was most appropriate for papering the bottom of birdcages (as one customer review suggested) or whether it was a brilliant, misunderstood work. All I can say at this point is that...it had an impact. First of all, this was much better written/orchestrated than The Rules of Attraction, and I felt more involved with the characters and drawn in. (Not on the level of a Kingsolver novel, but you get the idea.) I admit that I don't take BEE seriously as a writer - he's a schlock artist. But he did a shrewd thing in not having the first violent act be committed until 130+ pages into the book. Up until then, there were fleeting moments in which Patrick Bateman didn't seem like that bad a guy - a slick Yuppie, yes, but not wholly without the hint of some nice-guy qualities. (And even his obsession with money and objects and looks often hid what I took to be a craving for a real connection with other people.) It made his first attack that much more jarring. But even though the novel was written in the first person narrative, it didn't really give much glimpse into the WHY (aside from "I just want to be loved")...okay, so I knew this wasn't going to be a convincing psychological portrait of a sick individual (after reading Rules of Attraction, I figured this was just going to be one of these endless yarns about trust fund babies, 80s excess, coke, etc. and little else), but a little more WHY and less HOW would have made Bateman a more interesting character. Some more introspecting, in other words. There were two moments in which there were glimpses of this - 1) after killing the child at the zoo, Bateman realizes that the act has given him little satisfaction and he explains why; and 2) after having brunch with Jean and feeling a "breakthrough" of sorts, that life is full of possibilities (as trite as that sounds). Having said that, there were many laugh-out-loud moments, especially the chapter in which it takes Bateman and his cronies 2+ hours on a conference call (with various call waiting interruptions) to agree on a restaurant hip enough to warrant their attention yet accessible enough for them to score a table; how all of the traders were so interchangeable in appearance/behavior that they were constantly calling each other by the wrong names; and the fact that someone so obsessed with style and sophistication should do such un-hip things as worship Whitney Houston & Huey Lewis and the News and watch Alf! What disturbed me were the mighty big plotholes. Call-girls disappear after Bateman books them, and their "employer" never thinks to follow up on the fact that they've stopped showing up for work after a night with a particular client? Paul Owen's apartment - after being a storage unit for body parts and organs - is somehow cleaned up and put on the real estate market with nary a police investigation (other than Owen's disappearance?) I have to be truthful - I skimmed over the violent parts. I'm a woman and am a little more, ah, sensitive to certain images. (Like, I got the gist with the rat, didn't need to know all the details.) Having self-censored these sections, I don't know if I got the "full" American Psycho effect. I don't feel that my life is lacking for it though. Already I've been lying awake at night disturbed by what imagery I've absorbed. If BEE intended to shake people up, shock them, horrify them - then yes, the book was effective. Is it brilliant? Not to someone who thinks T. Coraghessan Boyle is the definition of a brilliant contemporary writer. (And am I glad now that I didn't wind up dating the guy who told me "you have to read this! " ;-))
Rating:
Summary: Reasons for this book's popularity
Review: I think this book failed as a piece of art because there is nothing about it worth saving. It is like reading Sade today; and you read either just for the gratuitous descriptions; and if you must read either then you put yourself alike with pederasts and snuff enthusiasts. Besides, this book was utterly unrealistic and incredibly boring. Ellis was acting out his fantasies in prose (consider the tiresome accounts of cnlingus that permeates all his books), and the readers who championed his fantasies--sadly both male AND women--needed a fictional monster to cherish and model their own fantasies after. In our society today, even serial killers have groupies; and the popularity of this book reflects that pathological mindset. You know, Hitler had his followers; and those who would have followed Hitler then are today substituting with Patrick Bateman. Also, why is it that anytime someone posts a negative review, all of the "groupies" of this book automatically claim it was not helpful?
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