American Psycho

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: The novels and stories of Bret Easton Ellis are imbued with a haunting sense of dislocation, nihilism and latent violence which - combined with a sense of not-quite-extinguished humanity struggling for recognition - this reader finds unforgettable. Ellis' spare style, razor-sharp characterisation, funny and incisive dialogue, evocative depiction of place and milieu - all informed by an unflinching lack of either compromise or PC platitudes - place him among the first tier of contemporary American writers. American Psycho, published in 1991, is a vicious black comedy, written in a consistently flat, languid tone. Its target is obvious: the obscene greed and materialism which permeated uptown US in the 1980s. That target is hit well, but like Swift, Wilde and others before him, Ellis invites hostility with his deliberately graphic, provocative (and very funny) book. The novel is no more explicit than any piece of splatter-punk or "erotic fiction", but its claim to literary seriousness and thematic ambitions have ensured that it has been taken seriously by the usual suspects: the cappuccino-left and assorted right-wing guardians of morality. American Psycho is, in many ways, the culmination of a trilogy which began with Less Than Zero and continued with The Rules of Attraction. In particular, American Psycho can be seen as a logical progression from The Rules of Attraction, to the extent that the central character in Amercican Psycho appears to be the brother of one of the protagonists in The Rules Of Attraction! This oblique intertextuality continues in The Informers, Ellis' most recent work, and contributes to the resonance which the four books carry as a whole. How would this reader summarise American Psycho? The novel is an excoriating black comedy, incisive, funny, shocking, uncompromising, obsessively monotonal, consciously bereft of traditional manifestations of literary "quality" and haunted by the sense of dislocation, nihilism and not-quite-snuffed humanity invoked at the beginning of this review. Highly recommended, along with Ellis' other books

Rating:
Summary: stupid, stupid, stupid
Review: If I could rate this book a negative, I would do so. Ellis is highly over-rated, this book is worse than his first attempt at writing (Less Than Zero, a phrophetic attempt to rate this book?). If this is his view of the 80's and the "me" generation, he is way off the mark. I suggest he open his eyes to reality, or else try his hand at writing comic books, which are supposed to be unbelievable

Rating:
Summary: Ellis blurs the line between insanity and sanity
Review: in this nausea-inducing masterpiece of a novel. The protagonist Partick Bateman's character will sicken you while he endears you toward him. His calculated and chilling acts of violence are enacted and narrated in such a way that you can almost understand why he does the things he does. This is the most disturbing aspect of American Psycho: you end up rooting for the bad guy. If you read this novel with an open mind, you will be affected by it in some way, whether you like it or don't. American Psycho is a brilliant journey into the mind of a serial sadist.

Rating:
Summary: Genius or Troubled Psychotic: Ellis' "American Psycho"
Review: When I started reading this novel, I figured it would be typical Ellis. Lots of brand name clothing labels, great Manhattan hangouts, and young people with too much money in their wallets and Valium in the medicine cabinet. I was partially correct. For the first hundred pages I wondered where Ellis was taking me (other than to some great restaurants on New York City's upper east side). I soon found out. Ellis has written a modern tragedy - sick and twisted - but often violently hilarious. Some of the scenes are so unbelievably shocking, I was convinced that Ellis had to perpetuate them in real life in order to describe them with such clarity and evil genius. I would not recommend this book to anyone with a weak stomach lacking a sense of humor. This book makes me wonder if Ellis was working through some very serious psychological issues when drafting this novel. If so, I find this a far preferable vehicle than the twisted serial killers in society who must mutilate and torture in order to satiate their dementia.

Rating:
Summary: Ellis rules!
Review: I must admit AP is not the best book I've ever read, but it came pretty close to it. What scares me most though is not the behaviour of Bateman but the behaviour of all of his friends. How can they ignore each other in such ways? How can they go on talking about utterly senseless things like the taste of mineral waters, what to wear or where to lunch again and again and again and again? There is a certain feeling I get while reading an Ellis-Book (no matter which). It's a feeling of lonelyness, the feeling you get walking in the rain on a quiet night with no special destination to head to. Ellis characters have no aim in life. No things to do, they just hang around, spending money, making relationships that never last...and that's what scares me most, to be aware that one day I might become such a person, that I care only about myself and noone else, to realize that I waste my life maybe in the same way as those characters. I like Ellis books (and "American Psycho" is really topping them...pure satire! Pretty sick, though!)because they make me feel something while reading. It's no good feeling but you feel relieved when you finish and hey, a little melancholy sometimes suits the soul....

Rating:
Summary: I will never look at Manhattanites the same.
Review: Had this novel not received such negative publicity because of its unorthodox contents, I would never had read it. However, my curiosity got the better of me. The book gave me a sense that I was witnessing the impossible - the protagonist's turbulent spiral into homicidal tendencies. Because of the novel's drastic deviation from my perception of reality, I was continually shocked out of my chair. Easton Ellis's descriptive style is a brilliant caricature of the materialistic ideals of the 80's

Rating:
Summary: "How does my hair look."
Review: This book is only "poorly edited" if you look at it from the conventional viewpoint. It's apparent lack of focus only serves to reinforce the reader's sense of Bateman's gradual descent into complete neurosis. Remember, the book is written in first person. If dramatic monologues have any chance of being realistic, they've got to portray a character dynamically, through a host of changes. Read <Psycho> and see if it doesn't take on a much more "conventional," and satisfying narrative structure when taken this way. It's <Huck Finn> with too much money and rotting corpses strewn around his raft

Rating:
Summary: This book should come with a barf bag
Review: This book is undoubtedly the most disgusting thing I have ever read. I literally had to psych myself into reading through certain parts, and even then I was dry-heaving. I will never look at Habitrails the same way again. Although I found this book revolting, Mr. Ellis did make me rethink the whole don't-judge-a-book-by-it's-cover adage. The protagonist is one slick, sick puppy. I must admit that I was amused by the chocolate-covered urinal cake episode and the descriptions of Patrick's shallow friends and lifestyle. That was definitely creative writing. Although the descriptions of the cool clothes our psycho-boy wore got boring after a while, I viewed it as another interesting aspect of his warped mindset. All in all, this is NOT a book I would recommend to anyone! I would not want anyone I cared about to be as disturbed as I was by the story, and I would be afraid to give sicko ideas to those who would be perverse enough to actually enjoy this book

Rating:
Summary: One scary book
Review: I don't like this book because I'm some kind of twisted freak who enjoys reading about violent people and their crimes. No, this book really scared me. No other book has ever done that. But besides that, this book is really well written. The main character goes into such descriptive detail about his stereo, his food, his clothing, etc., that you really think: This guy is a psycho

Rating:
Summary: THIS IS NOT AN EXIT
Review: I would have given this a 10, but the review on Genesis had one erroneous fact. Where else can you get good, wholesome sex, violence, haute cuisine and music reviews? Those who don't understand it, don't deserve to survive it