Rating: 
Summary: Well..
Review: Not bad. I laughed at times, but I wasn't quite shocked. Then I realised that I missed the point, because if this book doesn't shock you, then it'll not leave the right impression on you. Its whole emotional punch is provided in the shock the reader is supposed to get, and this seems a bit too removed from reality. I thought the constant use of drugs and the random sexual encounters were a bit repetitive after a while, but they do convey the "moral vaccuum" Ellis wants to show. I did not particularly care about Lauren, a bit about Sean, but I found Paul fascinating. I missed him when he was gone...He actually seemed to have a pulse,to be really passionate, to be able to focus his mind on someone else, probably because I never thought his only priority was to get stoned and then go to bed with some stranger. There was a compelling story in the novel, but it was only a third as long...Look out for the shifting perspectives, which succeed in revealing how we often misconstrue other people's action. That, and Paul, prevented this from being a waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: The Cream of the Crop
Review: In "Rules of Attraction" Ellis has written a masterpiece. A sublime blend of anthropology and emotion. The book is brilliant. It is so right-on and so mysterious at the same time. What really happened is a moot point. Sean, Lauren and Paul are alive. Somehow Ellis has managed to create real breathing, THINKING human beings. Even Ellis does not know what really happened. Sean, Paul and Lauren do not always tell us everything but they definatley tell us something. I feel as if I know them well. As if we have been friends for a long time. As if I was a student at Camden and watched these three with intense scrutiny. All of it happened and none of it did. Those who bash this book are those who feel threatened by it. Either because they had banal college experiences or because the words American Express make them feel inadequate or because they feel that all things must follow one set format. Well, they don't. Long before "American Beauty" there was "Rules," which celebrates and mourns at the difficulty of living when the only thing left is time and thought. The book shows us the sad fact that we all are running from. The fact that no one will EVER KNOW us. And that we will never know anyone. But is also illustrates that none of us are alone. That we are all thinking the same things. Well, maybe not all of us. But a special few. Don't go near this book if you don't appreciate people. If you don't relish in the details. If you don't understand the sudden highs and sudden lows. Don't keep reading if you don't smile at, "and this is a story that will bore you." The only things Lauren, Paul and Sean have is their thoughts. Maybe that is all that is left. It does not bore me. Not one word. Please write more about these three Mr. Ellis. I have lost contact with them through the years. And She...
Rating:
Summary: Flashback: Collegiate Mode
Review: There is no higher meaning to the lifestyles that BEE writes about here, just wonderfully delicious pith.... I cannot get enough. I go back to this book again and again when I want to recall exactly what it was like to be 19, buzzed and perpetually under the state of a passionately dispassionate crush. I love to reread this book, especially in a single sitting. While I agree that American Psycho is, in fact, BEE's masterpiece, "Rules" is my emotional favorite. Buy it. Re-live it. Get a crush on it.
Rating: 
Summary: more nihilism
Review: Again, nihilism reigns on in this all too true book. The characters are never who they appear to be and they never do what it is they really desire. Everyone seems so vapid and devoid of anything resembling true love, and yet, the anonymous note writer, a sort of foil to their superficiality, appears to us as silly and outdated.
As I myself have attended a private college, many of the chracters and situations were like all the familiar gossip I might hear in passing. Very revealing book.
Rating:
Summary: The Absolute
Review: According to a few sources (including the one who turned me on to this book) all the situations are true. This book is the most amazing piece of literature I have ever read, and that's saying a lot. The way he writes makes you FEEL the characters and the situations, and it made me feel some of it so much that I questioned everything concerning my life, and I do believe it made me a more open, better person.
Rating:
Summary: Too close to the truth
Review: Although the people and places he writes about seem like a different world to me (seeing as I'm an eighteen-year-old English boy!), I don't think I have ever read a more compelling writer then Bret Easton Ellis. In this novel, the third of his I have read, he portrays an almost nightmare vision of the 'American Dream' gone horribly wrong. The casualness with which the characters lead their nihilistic lives is at times disturbing, at other times hilarious. The endless spiral of drugs, sex, suicide and parties still holds frightening relevance today, but what sets this out from other Bret Easton Ellis novels is the caring heart it has: despite the flaws of these spoilt-rich-kids, they all have one noble quest in their lives; the pursuit of love. Where the novel excels is how it poignantly describes the hopelessness of this eternal search, and how it shows the desperation the human spirit can sink to in it's pursuit of this unobtainable goal.
Rating:
Summary: Trashy fun.
Review: According to another reviewer, all the stories in this book are true. If that is the case, they did not happen over the course of one month as it seems to indicate in this book. Focusing on three spoiled brats, this book is about sex and drugs and sex and drugs and suicide and more sex and more drugs. Fashionably bisexual, into all the cool music and all the cool drugs, these people have lives devoid of any meaning or introspection. Which makes the whole "character speaks for himself in the first person" aspect of the book utterly fascinating. Toward the end of the book it gets kind of boring and you know you are reading about the people who were getting laid and getting stoned as opposed to you who was worrying about schoolwork or something mundane like that, but this book ranks up with Valley of the Dolls and Fanny Hill as one of the great trashy books of all time.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Look at college life...
Review: I enjoyed this book for the most part, but found myself exhausted in parts. I am only 5 years out of college and I remember this lifestyle very well, but in reading it I began to wonder when you really get any rest living like that. I guess I am getting older... What I found very interesting was how Sean pined for Lauren, but he would sleep with any warm body that passed his gaze. I wondered also if Sean really was having sex with paul, or if paul was imagining/fantasizing the sexual relationship. This book is much more readable than The Informers...I found the appearance of Patrick Bateman to be a neat little twist, not distracting but thought provoking none the less...
Rating: 
Summary: a mediocre effort
Review: I am no big fan of bratpack novels, but I have to say that I usually find B.E.E compelling. Sadly this was not the case with this attempt. There is too much focus on the more sordid aspects of College life and not enough plot to make it readable, and the narrative style is stuttering at best. I would recommend Glamorama or Less than Zero as better B.E.E efforts.
Rating:
Summary: College Life as You Are Glad It Wasn't
Review: When I went to college, it seemed like nothing but hard work. Didn't connect with anyone and was jealous of all the stories about how fun college could be. BEE's book makes me appreciate my dull college experience. His characters show the shallowness of using college to party all the time. 4 years of studying and learning something beats a 4 year hang-over that these college students experienced in ROA.
|
