I'm guessing that this book was suppose to be about Bateman living in a society where everyone is fake. But all I got out of it was whole chapters on Whintey Huston and several pages out of fashion magazines. Along with the graphic scences and odd writing style, this book is very hard to get into.

American Pycho is not your check out/super market thriller/horror. It's a thriller meant for people who seem to have a serious chip on their shoulder about the 80s and the thoughs who are young urban professionals. And it is defiantly not a book for people who have short attention spans.

Ellison writes in the form of 1920 satires, where that narrator describes things to death. Mind numbing detail about things that on the surface don't have anything to with the story of homicidal maniac Patrick Batemen, and obviously because of this type of narrative the book is extremely slowed paced.

However if one understands what Ellison is trying to do, this type of satire fits right in. Bateman is hopelessly obsessive with his appearance and is constantly measuring himself up to his peers, if he feels annoyed or extremely angry at any of them he will not hesitate to kill them. His serial rape and murder of various women has no real set pattern. The detail enriched narrative focusing on fashion and chic restaurants and clubs is right for the story about a psychopathic materialistic yuppie

Truthfully this is a brutal book about a psychopath. It is also a compulsively readable book. I find violent movies and violent books repulsive as a rule, but sometimes I come across one and give in and read it. And then put it down as unbearable because the story or the character is not good enough to outweigh my revulsion at the topic. I guess I have a nervous stomach or a vivid imagination. I know the genre has it's fans and I don't want to denigrate that.
American Psycho was an exception for me. I put it back on my wish list to remind myself that this is a book I plan to re-read. I also want to read other books by Brett Easton Ellis.

A main feature of American Psycho, is how Bret Easton Ellis is capable of including the reader as a part of the story. By his several pages descriptions of his morning dressing, exercice and make up, the dishes they get served in fancy New York Restaurants and the songs on the albums he listens to Eliis succeeds to make the reader as bored as Bateman is. Because for the first several hundred pages of the book, bored, rich and not too empathic toward people worse off than himself is what Patrick Bateman - and probably many of the readers is.

When Patrick Bateman finally puts imagination into practice and starts elimintating what he regards as the trash of society - prostitutes, beggars, black people and colleges standing in the way for him making more money, Bret Easton Ellis manages to make the observant reader to realize that the descusting monster Patrick Bateman might has more in common with the dark side of their own personality than they care about. One of the most magnificant ways that Ellis illustrates this point is by the many comments he acomplishes to make people complain about their stomach - as if they got a unsatisfactory meal in a restaurant - rather than identifying how relevant his objections really is. This projective way of writing makes Ellis a part of the inherritage of James Joyce, who in Ulysses introduced this litterary tradition of combating rather than amusing and entertain the reader, while the reader's reaction to what he reads works as an integrated part of the story the writer wants to tell.

On this basis of this same tradition of I regard many of the objections about American Psycho - as boring, a challenge for the stomach etc as rather irrelevant. They can simply not have understood that this feelings that Ellis novel provoces in the reader, is the Writers aim. Alternatively they can not recognize that the dark side of the mind has a place in litterature. If you agree on this view, American Psycho is not a book for you. If you belive that the dark side of the mind indeed has a place in litterature, even that the dark side of the mind indeed can be the subject of some of the greatest litterature, if you are ready to spend some time on puzzeling with understanding what the writer is aiming at and may be even is ready to identify and take in that you, yourself might be a part of the problem that the book identifies, this is definately a book for you.

i really love this book. this is a very discriptive and detailed book, and not for weak stomaches. its grotesquely detailed. but wonderfully written. i highly suggest it if you can stomache it. some desctiptions are along the lines of being x-rated

What would the experience be like, if one could crawl into the mind of a madman. Meet Perfect Patrick Bateman ... perfect hair, perfect body, perfect job, and perfect fiancée. What more could a shiny shoed Wall Street up-and-comer ask for in the over-indulgent 80's. For success in the 80's was all about perfection -- who had it and who didn't. Patrick Bateman is certainly not lacking in perfection. Even the gruesome, cruel, beyond rational thought acts of violence he commits are perfectly orchestrated down the very last detail, much like his attire.

But what is a young man to do when everyone around him can distinguish the infinite subtle details of a business card, yet they cannot remember his name. When is being trendy simply not trendy enough? What does a man have to do to get noticed ... kill people? Of course, set yourself apart, get your anger out, be creative -- nail guns, chainsaws, axes, and hangers ... puppies, kittens, and rats. Now that is what Patrick is talking about ... if your life has become a chocolate covered urinal cake, make your girlfriend eat it and then go play around in someone else's blood, but be sure to nail them to the floor first, you want their undivided attention, don't you?

I won't kid you, this satirical look at the world is well beyond disturbing ... but what can you expect from a psychopathic lunatic. Patrick takes us through a day in the life -- his life, as grotesque and evil as it is. Yet, one minute, you will be falling over yourself with laughter at the trendy bar banter, and his upscale 1980's musical commentary, and the next minute, you will be walking away, hoping only to attempt to vomit what you just read out of your head, swearing you won't pick it back up again. And yet, for some reason you can't seem to help yourself, you need to keep turning those pages as Patrick takes you deeper and deeper into his nightmarish world ... and lithium will not save you.

An extraordinary work of genius. Although I have no comprehension how Mr. Ellis slept at night with Bateman at his side. And for those who spent their twenty-somethings in the 1980's, you will understand without a doubt the profound social commentary, which might even be more disturbing than Bateman himself.

After months of hesitantation, I decided that I was going to read this book many claim could not get pass 30 or so pages. I had finsihed reading a small novella by Michael Chabon before picking up Ellis' 'American Psycho'. It was already late but I wanted to break into it as much as I could. After the 30th page, I wanted so bad to continue reading. I though it great so far: intriguing, well-written (easy to follow), funny, and very, very detailed (perhaps this is what others disliked about it). I closed the book. I had to sleep to get up for work the next morning where I found myself taking it to work and reading a bit there getting more and more involved. After work I read some more at home passing the 100 page mark just like that! After two more nights, I was finished with the book, and I'm very surprised to say that I liked it a lot.

The story is about Patrick Bateman, a wall street yuppie, who may or may not be a serial murderer -that's one of the things I liked about it: it's ambiguity about if he really did kill people or not (besides Paul Owen, I think he did). The book's chapters all involve Patrick as it's told By Patrick himself at the restraunts, bars, dance clubs, the office, his apartment, etc. The reader is literally logged into his brain and eyes as we witness everything he does and thinks.

At time it can be very facinating and funny. While at other times, it can be very disturbing especially when he describes his killings -very very detailed stuff here that could make anyone cringe. However, there are a few light moments in the book that may seem tedious to some. Patrick discusses everything in detail from stereo units to the music that comes out of them. Ellis devotes 3 chapters to music artists and their records: Genises, Whitney Houston, and Huey Lewis and the News. It's all interesting, and I didn't find it distracting or uneccessary, but some might. It's all about developing the character of Patrick, who, is one of the best characters I've read about in a long time. It's also funny but while I was reading this, I couldn't help but think that in 20 years or so, this book could be considered a classic.

Firstly, this could easily have been a short story. 50 Pages would easily cover everything. The repetition in the narrative is mind-numbing and after the first 20 pages or so I was skipping paragraphs. Towards the end of the book I was skipping chapters and 50 pages from the end I gave up.
In the blurb on the back, this awful book was compared to "Bonfire of the Vanities". Tom Wolfe should have taken out a writ and prosecuted the reviewer.
I really don't know why this book was ever published. It is utter nonsense.
I can't advise others strongly enough. DON'T BUY THIS BOOK.

American Psycho is wwild-wild-wild. It's one of the best studies of a psycho killer ever written. Those other serial killer books, like Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal and even The Stranger Beside Me (Revised and Updated): 20th Anniversary do not understand how warped and twisted a serial killer is. Ellis does. He gets it. He gets that a serial killer, Patrick Bateman, is so shallow that he's the sunlight bouncing off the oil slick on a rancid puddle. Damn, but Ellis is good. He's so good that this book bounced around publishers because normal people can't believe how twisted a serial killer is. Ellis uses the serial killer to play off 1980s NYC, but that's secondary to his damn-fine characterization.

Damn, but I need a cup of coffee. This ain't coming out right.

American Psycho is American, but it's also Psycho. Read the book. It's a deep character study, and I like thost, like Rabid: A Novel or Time's Arrow.

The Bookeater!

I saw American Psycho, the movie, when it first came out with a friend of mine. i have only laughed out loud twice at the movies, and my friend and i were perhaps the only two doing so. Other people just didnt seem to understand it. so finally nearly ten years later now, i see the book at the library and decide to see how it compares. i was not disappointed. there are multiple ways of interpretting this book, all basically covered in the reviews here. this book is terribly violent, but it is not a horror in my mind. just as "City of God" was so much more than the violence that it displayed. the violence is a necessity. if that sort of thing is not your thing, then dont read the book. you can say that what the book tries to say is cliche - oppulence, bad; superficiality, bad; society going down the toilet, etc. but i look at pat bateman, either who he actually is or who he desires to be, as part of all of us. the worst of what we all are taken to the extreme to show it to us. when we can and do have it all, what's next if not more boredom. all our lives are just the search for happiness, avoiding boredom. we all either distract ourselves from this mess or avidly pursue it. both really. so what can we learn about what we are doing. that is the question that one has to ask themselves after reading this book. perhaps the theme has been used before, but i feel that this book does a fantastic job at awakening thoughts in oneself that are very important to contemplate.

also, i want to say that this book is readable not just because of the message and commentary that is thought provoking. it is the humor that makes it truely readable. i have read many a book that is supposed to be the greatest work of fiction of all time that says so many new things, bla bla bla. this book like every other book says the same thing, maybe in a new way relating to new societal situations, but the same really. it is the constant humor that makes this book special. it is funny on every page. no one knows anyone's names; people disappear but someone saw them, but not really; the obsessive detail in description of clothes, music, etc. this book is great because it is a marvelous satire filled with meaning. nothing compares to the brilliance of satire in my opinion.

After reading his other work (less than zero, rules of attraction)I was eager to put a book to the cult classic movie. What I read was an overly descriptive and sadistic book filled with some of the most disturbing scenes I've ever read. For those considering this book, 90% of the violence is against women and involves cannibalism, removal of sex organs and inserting rodents in women while they are still alive, albeit not for long...

There are nearly eleven hundred reviews of "American Psycho" posted here, but in the spirit of '80s excess, there's always room for one more. Simply put: this is one of the funniest, bleakest, and most clever novels I've ever read. I've had copies of it since ever it first appeared at the start of the 1990s, and I've given copies to many a friend and girlfriend over the years. I always tell people that reading "American Psycho" cost be hundreds and hundreds of dollars, since I *had* to have Patrick Bateman's hair and skin care products (I could never have afforded his suits,let alone dinner at Dorsia). "American Psycho" is...well...Jane Austen with power tools: an arch and knowing riff on the opening of "Pride and Prejudice": a young gentleman with a seven-figure income must be in need of...constant social approbation and...victims. The brilliant business-card scene, the barrage of grotesque menu items, the utter indifference to individual identity as opposed to display items--- "American Psycho" is a comedy of manners better than Wilde or Wodehouse, and at least as good as Austen (and the sex scenes are...vur' hot).

Netlix and downloads have ruined Patrick's all-purpose excuse of "I have to return some videotapes", but Patrick's life and world (and even his utter lunacy) are still worth exploring through repeated readings. And how else would we learn about the wonders of Huey Lewis...or that Bono is the Devil? "American Psycho" is too hilarious and dead-on not to read again and again.

And...am I the only one who's noticed that Christian Bale's take on Bateman in the (underrated) film is an exact riff on Tim Matheson's character from "Animal House" (same voice, same inflections, same jawline)?

I believe that it is about time that critics and readers worldwide were let in on the great lie embedded in the cultural subtext of "American Psycho". This lie is perpetrated for whatever artistic reason Bret Easton Ellis has found fit. The novel has inveigled millions of readers to an interpretation of human nature as base and groundless in intrinsic value. It has furthermore convinced them of the state of nature and the true face of mankind. It attempts to pull back the veil and show human beings as baseless creatures, convinced of the power of their own egos. Patrick Bateman doesn't merely imagine killing women and street gutter hobos, the book makes-good his thoughts. Patrick Bateman brutalizes and maims people with little to no falter into the realm of realism. This is no science fiction novel of a wicked, futuristic and cannibalistic society. This book establishes the ever evolving pathos of Patrick Bateman as a wickedly remorseless and fully-self-invested id. Patrick Bateman kills people, he enjoys it, and as the book progresses he develops a pathos that is stark in its depictions of radically violent behavior. The realizations of snuff porn-like violence has a poignant and rather upsetting realism to it that describes the sexual gratification of pure violence. Both of them are equally wicked and ungratifying comments of the human being. What most of the readers, and professed fans of the novel do not focus on, is the very real possibility that Patrick Bateman is, in truth, an idiotic coward who slums about in his wicked psyche pondering various painful ways to destroy a human being. The truth is different however. Patrick does not commit any radical acts of violence, instead he merely resides in the basement of his primal bestial urges, without act. He is a powerless pervert. That this is a commentary on the uncommon power of the rich, the ability to supersede societal laws and norms, is not license to condemn general society along with the free radicals of the bunch, like Patrick Bateman. We have no more emotional connection to the persons that he kills than to the various characters that populate his life, characters better described simply as those he does not kill. Patrick Bateman's whole world is pure fantasy. What is dangerous and unbecoming to society is the interpretation that Patrick Bateman killed people, and no one cared. This dangerous emotional pivot takes the better part of mankind's positive and generous nature grinding it into a chunky bone meal of blood and ichor. This vile character is a despicable anti-hero and representative of the modern man. A being who has forsaken value and concern because the great satirist, Nietzsche chided mankind for its more puerile motivations. These are the leftover intellectual products of Nazi thinking, dressing Nietzsche up in a clown suit for the Nazi propaganda machine. Patrick Bateman, the novel professes, is the modern creature. Bret Easton Ellis is simply an iconoclast that picks off easy targets and radicalizes them without fleshing them out as interesting material. They are all impulse. It bores me and makes me vaguely ill, that such an imagination, as Ellis obviously has, may find these as important and essentially gratifying illustrations of where mankind's condition. Bret Easton Ellis, despite this, has hesitated to comment on the character or the prevailing motif of the novel. We are left in tow with an interpretation that is horribly inconsistent to general social temper. What bothers me most is the feeling that the world, as defined by Ellis, is terribly nihilistic spilling over into absolute antipathy. That critical readers embrace this interpretation with a certain type of relish, advancing it as an epiphanic statement concerning mankind, is nauseating. Ellis writes with such conviction and ardor that it appears that he wholeheartedly embraces this intellectual understanding. This is not merely social commentary, or at best, satirical dance, for Ellis, this is real sport. Sure he has caricature stuffed into almost every page of the novel, but Ellis describes everything from violence to Versace clothing with almost lavish, religious aplomb. You can feel that he enjoys writing this novel. This is frightening. I don't like Patrick anymore than I like Ellis. This is not to say that Ellis is a despicable human being for writing this novel, it just makes him a lot less relevant. Ellis owes an apology to his readers as well as to the human creature for painting it in such garishly angry tones. You can get by with a lot less cynicism in your life if you pass this novel by. If you don't, its not that you won't like the novel, you very well may, I don't know, people's tastes are peculiar. Perhaps you will get rewarded for writing a review like mine, or not, either way the novel is impressive, insofar as it is a massively negative portrayal of the human being. If you like that, get it, if you don't, don't.

I believe that it is about time that critics and readers worldwide were let in on the great lie embedded in the cultural subtext of "American Psycho". This lie is perpetrated for whatever artistic reason Bret Easton Ellis has found fit. The novel has inveigled millions of readers to an interpretation of human nature as base and groundless in intrinsic value. It has furthermore convinced them of the state of nature and the true face of mankind. It attempts to pull back the veil and show human beings as baseless creatures, convinced of the power of their own egos. Patrick Bateman doesn't merely imagine killing women and street gutter hobos, the book makes-good his thoughts. Patrick Bateman brutalizes and maims people with little to no falter into the realm of realism. This is no science fiction novel of a wicked, futuristic and cannibalistic society. This book establishes the ever evolving pathos of Patrick Bateman as a wickedly remorseless and fully-self-invested id. Patrick Bateman kills people, he enjoys it, and as the book progresses he develops a pathos that is stark in its depictions of radically violent behavior. The realizations of snuff porn-like violence has a poignant and rather upsetting realism to it that describes the sexual gratification of pure violence. Both of them are equally wicked and ungratifying comments of the human being. What most of the readers, and professed fans of the novel do not focus on, is the very real possibility that Patrick Bateman is, in truth, an idiotic coward who slums about in his wicked psyche pondering various painful ways to destroy a human being. The truth is different however. Patrick does not commit any radical acts of violence, instead he merely resides in the basement of his primal bestial urges, without act. He is a powerless pervert. That this is a commentary on the uncommon power of the rich, the ability to supersede societal laws and norms, is not license to condemn general society along with the free radicals of the bunch, like Patrick Bateman. We have no more emotional connection to the persons that he kills than to the various characters that populate his life, characters better described simply as those he does not kill. Patrick Bateman's whole world is pure fantasy. What is dangerous and unbecoming to society is the interpretation that Patrick Bateman killed people, and no one cared. This dangerous emotional pivot takes the better part of mankind's positive and generous nature grinding it into a chunky bone meal of blood and ichor. This vile character is a despicable anti-hero and representative of the modern man. A being who has forsaken value and concern because the great satirist, Nietzsche chided mankind for its more puerile motivations. These are the leftover intellectual products of Nazi thinking, dressing Nietzsche up in a clown suit for the Nazi propaganda machine. Patrick Bateman, the novel professes, is the modern creature. Bret Easton Ellis is simply an iconoclast that picks off easy targets and radicalizes them without fleshing them out as interesting material. They are all impulse. It bores me and makes me vaguely ill, that such an imagination, as Ellis obviously has, may find these as important and essentially gratifying illustrations of where mankind's condition. Bret Easton Ellis, despite this, has hesitated to comment on the character or the prevailing motif of the novel. We are left in tow with an interpretation that is horribly inconsistent to general social temper. What bothers me most is the feeling that the world, as defined by Ellis, is terribly nihilistic spilling over into absolute antipathy. That critical readers embrace this interpretation with a certain type of relish, advancing it as an epiphanic statement concerning mankind, is nauseating. Ellis writes with such conviction and ardor that it appears that he wholeheartedly embraces this intellectual understanding. This is not merely social commentary, or at best, satirical dance, for Ellis, this is real sport. Sure he has caricature stuffed into almost every page of the novel, but Ellis describes everything from violence to Versace clothing with almost lavish, religious aplomb. You can feel that he enjoys writing this novel. This is frightening. I don't like Patrick anymore than I like Ellis. This is not to say that Ellis is a despicable human being for writing this novel, it just makes him a lot less relevant. Ellis owes an apology to his readers as well as to the human creature for painting it in such garishly angry tones. You can get by with a lot less cynicism in your life if you pass this novel by. If you don't, its not that you won't like the novel, you very well may, I don't know, people's tastes are peculiar. Perhaps you will get rewarded for writing a review like mine, or not, either way the novel is impressive, insofar as it is a massively negative portrayal of the human being. If you like that, get it, if you don't, don't.

Repetition of boring or dusgusting scenes come after each other in this "literary" work. The writer was clearly out of ideas and stuck to the formula "gore+boredom+fashion tips from eighties (really?)" I only started to read this book because friend of mine said that's it's the only book that he could not finish because of gore and another one said that he couldn't finish it because it was so boring.
seriously, don't waste your time, whatever the autor was "trying" to say can be paraphrased "I was a yuppy and I hated it," spend the 10 dollars on ice-cream.

Horrifying book. Mr. Ellis has a masterpiece, the original book. Thank you: Ronnie Reagan, Wall Street, New York, Materialism, Racquet Clubs, Phil Collins, and of course Huey Lewis and The News. Great book and also a fantastic film. Christian Bale cut his "American" cinema teeth off of this book. The film & book do differ greatly. READ THE BOOK FIRST. If you a film addict and literate then watch the movie.

I don't even know where to start in describing this horrific, terrifying, wonderfully written novel. Well, I guess I just have.
I started and finished this book in August of this year, and it was a very rewarding experience. It really brought me into the horror genre, a genre I really had no interest in before.
Patrick Bateman is an amazing character, his dialog and his thoughts and dreams are funny, horrific, and just plain witty. It's tremendously fun to sit behind Bateman's eyes and read his day-to-day activities.
Nothing really happens for the first half of the book, most of the time Bateman is just hanging out with "friends" or watching porn, but even in these seemingly bland sections Ellis' writing really draws you in.
An amazing book by an equally amazing author, but not for the faint of heart.

American Psycho satirizes the status-obsessed designer-label contemporary American consumer culture at the same time that it does a better job than any horror novel of depicting the personality of a psychopath. Sadly, we realize that Patrick Bateman's killings are his only way to retain a connection to human life and to an individual identity, and in the end we aren't even sure he has managed to maintain that. This is a great book to read only if you have the stomach to wade through the many incredibly gruesome sex and death scenes.

AP is hardly Ellis' better work. The idea behind the satire is brilliant, but 400 + pages is just aggrivating. One thing the length accomplishes is it completes the "emptiness of excess" theme; but is that really worth the aggrivating length. So much of the dialogue and the narration seems repetitive. If you jump around in the book you'll find a lot of chapters that are just like ones you have already read. Pretty lame. Also, a lot of chapters take scenes right of Less Than Zero and simply slap new names on the characters, who are in indeed flat and fungible... Very, very lame.

Ellis got so much right with Less Than Zero; the stripped down minimalism, the metonymy, the irony and black humor. AP just rants. It isn't even the violence of the book that bothers me, it is just the endless emphasis on pointless minutia. If you really think critically about the book's satire it makes an interesting statement, albeit tired and cliche by now, but it really doesn't all say that much - materialism is bad, corporate domination breeds institutional violence, the elite are often elite out of privilege and not because they are actually intilligent, moral human beings. This is not a new idea.

Still, the book is funny, and has its moments. The movie, however, and I rarely say this, is immeasurably better.

American Pyscho is terrific horror. This classic book is set in Manhattan 1980's. The author Bret Easton Ellis goes deep into the pyche of an inhumane serial killer.
Back from the Bardo: Three Short Stories by James Cage

American Pyscho is terrific horror. This classic book is set in Manhattan 1980's. The author Bret Easton Ellis goes deep into the pyche of an inhumane serial killer.
Back from the Bardo: Three Short Stories by James Cage

American Psycho is easily the most graphic and disturbing novel I've ever read, not to mention a brilliant satirical romp.

The beauty of this novel is how Ellis immerses the reader into the setting, a business-frenzied Manhattan of the 1980's. This is a character study that elucidates the shallow and incorporeal existence of an elite New York businessman, Patrick Bateman, who attempts to fill this void by surrounding himself with expensive wears, eating at only the best restaurants, and killing people; mostly women. The latter was the catalyzing factor (aside from the lack of satirical imagination in Feminists) of why American Psycho was met with such strident criticism. Given the idea that the first murder does not take place until well after the first 100 pages should have been ample evidence to Feminists and Humanitarians that the book is not just a catalog of arbitrary violence.


From the get-go, the story follows Pat Bateman as he vaults from one high-class social situation to another, getting air-kisses from his almost equally shallow fiancé and checking his perfect hair and chiseled features in any reflective material available. One thing that I found repetitious, but ultimately essential to the plot, was Bateman's scrutiny of his peer's clothing; a Valentino Couture suit here, a Matsuda blouse there. Another aspect of Bateman's character (in the book and the movie), one that I find to be the most hilarious, is the way he panics when some external and completely trivial situation poses a threat to his inherent perfection: "I am certain that we will not have a good table, but we do... relief washes over me in an awesome wave."


It's apparent that Ellis wanted to exemplify the degree of apathy held by these so-called 'Masters of the Universe.' Women are referred to as 'hardbodies,' the style of business card font and color is indicative of class and ranking, and reservations at the most exclusive of restaurants are seen as the same. One subtlety that is picked up on with a close reading is how all of these New York elites are clones of one another. Not one character can remember who Jack is from Sam. This story also harbors one of my favorite quotes: "Where do you Summer?" A hilarious dichotomy occurs during an extravagant dinner (complete with sorbet, never ice cream) when these Free-Market Capitalists are conversing about massacres in Sri Lanka and how social concern needs to stand against racial bigotry, all the while the word 'nigger' is used liberally by the same characters.


As the plot progresses, Patrick slips further and further into insanity. This is creatively articulated with monologs that comprise half if not most of the book. Bateman is the type of guy whose anger can be set off by anything. The murder scenes, unlike the ones in the movie, are easily x-rated and were hard for even me to stomach. I think Ellis found this imperative in this, his most relentless attack against rich, unsympathetic yuppies.


Between the book and the movie, I found that both have their strengths and their weaknesses. The music reviews (Phil Collins, Huey Luis, etc.) that Bateman meticulously narrates are character-driven and often funny, but hold not a candle to the amount of hilarity and style as that of Christian Bale articulating to a pair of escort girls; or Paul Allen. Where the book is more descriptive and transcendental, the movie is more goofy and amusing. I think Ellis spent a little too much time and effort stressing how completely callous the rich can be at times and could have cut a number of paragraphs out of the book. That said, this is definitely a story that needed to be told.

"American Psycho" is a savage vivisection of society and relationships as portrayed through the depraved exploits of Patrick Bateman. Bateman flourishes in the yuppie-driven mores of the 80's. His wealth and intelligence are the facilities of his deranged obsessions and evil compulsions. Rather than satisfy the blood-lust, Bateman's oblivious victims stoke and embolden his psychotic frenzy.

"American Psycho" is extraordinarily graphic. Sex and violence imagery explode from the pages with Bateman-like fury. However, it is the duality of the character that is truly unnerving. Bateman can be charming, can be ruthless, can be generous, can be vicious, can be insightful, can be shallow, can be elegant, can be disgusting. Bateman's character attracts you with his panache and repulses you with his horrific offensives. It is an emotionally disturbing journey where sanity has no compass.

Ultimately it is clear this Bret Ellis novel transcends time and place. It is an expose of the human condition and how it can be exploited, deceived and imperiled.

"American Psycho" is a savage vivisection of society and relationships as portrayed through the depraved exploits of Patrick Bateman. Bateman flourishes in the yuppie-driven mores of the 80's. His wealth and intelligence are the facilities to shroud his deranged obsessions and evil compulsions. Rather than satisfy the blood-lust, Bateman's oblivious victims stoke and embolden his psychotic frenzy.

"American Psycho" is extraordinarily graphic. Sex and violence imagery explode from the pages with Bateman-like fury. However, it is the duality of the character that is truly unnerving. Bateman can be charming, can be ruthless, can be generous, can be vicious, can be insightful, can be shallow, can be elegant, can be disgusting. Bateman's character attracts you with his panache and repulses you with his horrific offensives. It is an emotionally disturbing journey.

Ultimately it is clear this Bret Ellis novel transcends time and place. It is an expose of the human condition and how it can be exploited, deceived and imperiled.

I came to this book after thoroughly enjoying the movie adaptation; fantastic movie. In this case I found the book to be a little tedius and quite explicit, at times. I like to consider myself just as decensitized to violence as any North American in the 21st century, but the amount of gruesome detail Mr. Ellis goes into, is too much for tastes.

2.5 STARS

I know this is a satire.
I know this is supposed to be making a point.
I know that the main character is as sad, yuppie who lives for working out, getting laid, having the best stereo system and, oh yeah, one other thing, killing people in the most sick and sadistic ways.
That being said, I really liked the character but I disliked the style.

Patrick Bateman, our lead, is a homicidal maniac who is a day trader by day and by night he is a coke sniffing, club hopping, music lover who gets off on sleeping around and killing people. To top it all off, this all happens at ground zero of the yuppie era, New York City. This alone would make the book interesting, but Ellis takes it one step further in writing the book in an almost stream of consciousness style. Not only do you know what Patrick is thinking about during conversations with his victims, but you also get a sense of who he is and what makes him tick and what makes him explode.

The character is so well written that he could be real. He is supposed to be the stereotypical yuppie, but it goes beyond that. We get a sense of Patrick with all of his weaknesses, his likes, his intelligence and his lack there of. I literally found myself laughing at some of the things he said and thought and agreeing with him at other times. That is how good the character is written.

That all said, I found the writing style difficult to follow and that is why I gave it only 3 stars. The fact that 1 1/2 pages per chapter at times would be dedicated to what everyone was wearing made for tiresome reading. I know that we are looking into the mind of someone who could stand to take some real strong medication (stronger than what was available in the 80's) but I found that it took away from some of my enjoyment.

If you are a fan of books like Fight Club you should like this book.

I know this is a satire.
I know this is supposed to be making a point.
I know that the main character is as sad, yuppie who lives for working out, getting laid, having the best stereo system and, oh yeah, one other thing, killing people in the most sick and sadistic ways.
That being said, I really liked the character but I disliked the style.

Patrick Bateman, our lead, is a homicidal maniac who is a day trader by day and by night he is a coke sniffing, club hopping, music lover who gets off on sleeping around and killing people. To top it all off, this all happens at ground zero of the yuppie era, New York City. This alone would make the book interesting, but Ellis takes it one step further in writing the book in an almost stream of consciousness style. Not only do you know what Patrick is thinking about during conversations with his victims, but you also get a sense of who he is and what makes him tick and what makes him explode.

The character is so well written that he could be real. He is supposed to be the stereotypical yuppie, but it goes beyond that. We get a sense of Patrick with all of his weaknesses, his likes, his intelligence and his lack there of. I literally found myself laughing at some of the things he said and thought and agreeing with him at other times. That is how good the character is written.

That all said, I found the writing style difficult to follow and that is why I gave it only 3 stars. The fact that 1 1/2 pages per chapter at times would be dedicated to what everyone was wearing made for tiresome reading. I know that we are looking into the mind of someone who could stand to take some real strong medication (stronger than what was available in the 80's) but I found that it took away from some of my enjoyment.

If you are a fan of books like Fight Club you should like this book.

This book is written very well. The message is haunting throughout the entire book (yuppies always confusing people because everyone looks the same, super insecurity, and brutal insane killing). The only problem I had to overcome when reading this is Ellis' need to describe everyone's attire. That was a bit over done, but I understand he was reinforcing a valid point of vainess throughout the novel. All and all the book was both scary and compelling; It made you sometimes feel sorry for Patrick (the main character)for his downward spiral into madness.

I would be willing to accept the defense that Ellis's quickie squib is in fact a satire of consumerism, a literary bit of photo realism if there was compelling art here. There isn't, however, and the defense falls apart. Ellis writes as if he had to submit this against a deadline, and he'd wasted his considerable lead time by living off his hefty advance. Ellis does a good job of diagnosing the narcissism of the eighties, but that by itself does nothing for either our understanding or empathy.

but this book is utterly astounding. I'm only a 14 year old girl, and yet I feel like this book has become somewhat of a part of me and our culture. I don't think anything's wrong with that, considering this book is hilarious, witty, and downright frightening most of the time. But what amazes me most about it is that it is not for one second daunting or patronizing; Patrick Bateman is a total a-hole, but he expresses it with the good grace and complete awareness. Most a-holes live their entire lives not realizing how they've hurt the world with their mannerisms and temperament, but Patrick, inside, knows he is a total monster. And most monsters, even when they've had mirrors shoved into their face multiple times, still can't see what lies in front of it.

This "novel" is utterly dull and poorly written. I could write this garbage. There is no finesse, just the same, boring ideas regurgitated over and over. If you seriously think this is satire, you clearly don't know what that means. This is a sexual violence thriller. But if you hate women and hate original writers, you'll probably love this.

I loved this book!!!!! it is so god damn funny!! the things that Pat Bates thinks while commiting the many sadistic murders and tortures on the weakest of people (6 year old child at the zoo and the homeless to name a couple). i would recommend this book to anyone that loves black comedies and has a stomach for hearing about sadistic torture (i can't stress sadistic enough!!!!). a good imagination(like any book is suppose but more stressed for this one) helps in bringing this story truly alive.

i did not like it. too much icky stuff.

I ordered this book, excited to read it. I had heard many good things about this novel, and began reading as soon as I received it.

I was incredibly disappointed. This book was filled with narcissistic ramblings and obsessive details which matter little to the story itself. The gore, though extensive, ends up being boring. There is gratuitious sex, which is also boring in its detail and violence. Every time Patrick bateman feels dread, it is "nameless." The story did not progress, and in the end, there was no resolution. In fact, i felt the book fell apart at its end.

This book is not an American classic, nor was it worth reading. Once I finished it, I felt I had wasted my time.

OK, so it's not really the greatest book ever written. But its my favorite, so in my little self-centered world, it is the best book ever written. It does start out a bit slow, but stick with it, because "American Psycho" does speed up and become - well - the greatest book ever written.

Readers who enjoy Chuck Palahuniuk (sp?), Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S Thompson, A Clockwork Orange, pointless violence and other fun stuff will LOVE this book.

What would the experience be like, if one could crawl into the mind of a madman. Meet Perfect Patrick Bateman ... perfect hair, perfect body, perfect job, and perfect fiancée. What more could a shiny shoed Wall Street up-and-comer ask for in the over-indulgent 80's. For success in the 80's was all about perfection -- who had it and who didn't. Patrick Bateman is certainly not lacking in perfection. Even the gruesome, cruel, beyond rational thought acts of violence he commits are perfectly orchestrated down the very last detail, much like his attire.

I won't kid you, this book is well beyond disturbing ... but what can you expect from a psychopathic lunatic. Patrick takes us through a day in the life -- his life, as grotesque and evil as it is. Yet, one minute, you will be falling over yourself with laughter at the trendy bar banter, and his upscale 1980's musical commentary, and the next minute, you will be walking away, hoping only to attempt to vomit what you just read out of your head, swearing you won't pick it back up again. And yet, for some reason you can't seem to help yourself.

An extraordinary work of genius. Although I have no comprehension how Mr. Ellis slept at night with Bateman at his side. And for those who spent their twenty-somethings in the 1980's, you will understand without a doubt the profound social commentary, which might even be more disturbing than Bateman himself.

This book was the most disturbing book I have ever read.
I'm pretty thick skinned but this one had me reading during the day, it was too disturbing to read before bed, just couldn't handle those images dancing around my head before going to sleep. Despite that, I read this book from start to finish.
I have heard this book described as a black comedy, if this is the case, it's blacker than any black I've ever encountered. Though I have to admit, that Patrick Bateman's (our main psycho) obsessiveness in his personal hygiene routine, business cards and favourite musical artists, was both amusing and tiresome, with pages and pages dedicated to describing these things.
In the end I was glad to give this book back to it's owner, and hope that the images it left me with will fade in time.

It's been a long time since I read a book that really freaked me out, and made my skin crawl. But this one did it. From living through the 80s, I understand the AMEX/business card obsession all to well. This book is not for the faint of heart. It's a creepy, disturbing look at someone who is almost all the way undone, and is only hanging on by a loose thread.

It's been a long time since I read a book that really freaked me out, and made my skin crawl. But this one did it. From living through the 80s, I understand the AMEX/business card obsession all to well. This book is not for the faint of heart. It's a creepy, disturbing look at someone who is almost all the way undone, and is only hanging on by a loose thread.

Pat Bateman, a product of Exeter and Harvard living in Manhattan and working on Wall Street, backed up by a trust fund, is an "arbiter elegantiarum" of the most refined taste in clothes and food, with a side hobby of grisly serial murder. He narrates the whole story in the first person and present tense.
There are some nice take-offs on competitive modish consumerism. In one scene the juenesse doree compete for the most fashionable and stylish business cards. I enjoyed the satire on fancy food in the scene where "for an appetizer I ordered radicchio with some kind of free-range squid. Anne and Scott had the [sic] monkfish ragout with violets." (In spite of his sophistication Bateman is one of those who think that restaurant food has to be preceded by "the.")
One of his idiosyncrasies is long-winded and detailed descriptions of clothes and cosmetics, not only his own but of every character he meets. Sometimes this was effective but often it was repetitious and became exactly like reading a Jos. A Bank catalog. The same applies to the splatterpunk, Books about nasty people doing nasty things are not necessarily bad. It's an old literary tradition (think of Macbeth, King David, Raskolnikov, and the cannibalistic goings on in the House of Atreus) but if gore bores then what's the point?
I had enjoyed "Less Than Zero" which used the same gimmick, schtick, trope, or whatever, of describing the casual amorality of rich people with a weird set of values, but this disappointed me.

I've just finished reading American Psycho. I'd have to say this was the most disturbing book I've ever read, and yet it was compellingly readable.

Ellis is brilliant in not depicting the first graphic murder until 150 or so pages into the book. This gives the reader a chance to be completely wrapped up in the novel's social satire, with only a few glimpses of the horrors to come. If Ellis had started with the gore from the first chapter, I would have flung down the book as unreadable. (As it is, I had to skim the most graphic scenes in shock, because I knew I couldn't tolerate all the details.)

For example, the scene in which Bateman takes his blood-soaked sheets to a Chinese laundry was both hilarious and (bearably) shocking. We are gradually made to realize how many people are complicit in Bateman's murders, from the maids who silently clean up the gore to the co-workers who hear his confessions and laugh them off as a joke.

I loved how the novel never showed any of the Wall Streeters doing a lick of work. It seemed Bateman's major occupations were renting and watching videotapes (why didn't he just buy Body Double, for God's sake?) and listening to vapid pop music. I personally loved the irony of the "music" chapters, in that they are clearly written by a psychotic who doesn't understand that the banal songs he is painstakingly explicating have no emotional content at all. Bateman's pseudo-understanding of human emotion is just as studied and hollow as his obsessive-compulsive fashion expertise.

The long descriptions of fashion details which have struck some reviewers as boring seem to me intrinsic to both the characterization and the social commentary. No person in this book seems to be described by how they look in terms of hair, face, expressions, emotions, or other personalizing characteristics; Bateman sees only clothes and hardbodies. Bateman's perception of every character only in terms of what he/she is wearing--as if clothes could be distinguishing characteristics--leads to the constant cases of mistaken identity. If you only look at clothes, haircuts, and identical (nonprescription) eyeglasses, how can anyone tell anyone apart?

The interchangeableness of one person for another sparks most of the humor as well as the deep sadness in this book. For Bateman, there is nothing inside any interchangeable suit except equally interchangeable meat and bones. He never connects with any of the girlfriends, who are only greedy for his looks and wealth anyway--his image. Luis and Jean are tiny, inconsequential exceptions--not strong enough to break through or fill Bateman's inner void. I was impressed that Luis was the one person Bateman started to kill but then didn't--but only because he was momentarily stunned by Luis's feelings for him. Incredibly, Luis actually seemed to see someone in Bateman! And Bateman's subsequent disorientation seems to have been the only thing that momentarily saved his life.

All in all, I'm in awe of this book for its depiction of a descent into madness--even though I'm not the book's ideal reader, and had to wimp out when it came to some of the gore.

Ellis paints a portrait of a man called Patrick Bateman, who lives in the materialistic New York City in the 80s.

In his third novel, Ellis creates a world where everyone is exceedingly narcissistic and self absorbed; characters in the novel don't hear or see each other. They are however concerned with where they are seated at a restaurant, and with all the designer labels they are wearing. Friendship is reduced to comparing designer clothes, business cards and contemplating the differences between different brands of bottled water together. Seduction and romance are nonexistant, and as for sex, in the novel Patrick has sex with many women, and each scene is as unmemorable as the last, often resulting in boredom on the part of the participants.

In this materialistic sphere everyone is equally rich, equally in designer fashion and equally superficial, making them interchangeable (Patrick and others in his circle of "friends" are often mistaken for one another), and this makes it uncertain as to whether Patrick actually committed his gory crimes only in his imagination. But does it even matter? Even the heinous crimes he theoretically commits result in nothing; there is no recognition, no consequence, no missing of any of his `victims'.

Ellis flawlessly satirizes modern consumerism, exposing its redundancy through his unique prose; gaining personal wealth, a perfect body, designer clothes, designer girls, no longer makes a person stand out. In Bateman, he creates a character that is so caught up in his materialisic world that he is not free to have whatever he wants and be happy; on the contrary, he is trapped in a rigid, monotonous existance, and he loses his identity, and control over himself.

Ellis' novel embodies the makings of a true contemporary tragedy. Patrick Bateman is a man with everything, and nothing. Ellis uses this vapid character to portray the growing lack of emotion and rise in a purely consumer society. Bateman is perhaps one of the most crucial characters in 20th century literature, and Ellis is definitely one of the most important authors.

Yes, I warn you that the violence is graphic and horrifying. But don't get stuck inside that. Look further. Don't miss this book!!!!

Taking us inside the oftentimes seedy world of card counting and high stakes gambling in Las Vegas, Ben Mezrich has written a gem with his first excursion into non-fiction, Bringing Down the House. No matter who you are or what your personal history in gambling is, this book will exhilarate, enthrall, and captivate you from the start.

Mezrich tells the story of Kevin Lewis, an MIT student who lived a double life for nearly five years - one as a respected student and graduate of MIT, the other as a high stakes blackjack player with several aliases and loads of cash at his disposal. It all begins with a relatively innocent weekend in Atlantic City with two friends, and from there Mezrich takes you down a suspenseful path from casino backrooms to IRS audits.

One of the best non-fiction books I have ever read, Bringing Down the House will run the gamut of your emotions. Sometimes you will envy the high-flying life a blackjack team as they party like rock stars, get comped front-row seats to the biggest boxing matches, and make a better living than most of us ever will in the job we work now. At other times, however, you will feel like their lives are empty and meaningless, for most of these people make card-counting their life. They see it as what they are supposed to do here on earth.

Perhaps dangerously, Kevin Lewis's story tells us all that Vegas can be beat. But the question is, at the expense of what? Decide for yourself when you pick up the page-turning true story by Ben Mezrich, Bringing Down the House.

When first skimming through or even reading in entirety the novel `American Psycho' one can made the assumption, wrong as it may be, that it's nothing more than a perverse catalog of sadistic events. Like I said, that assumption is wrong. Bret Easton Ellis is and will always be one of the most intriguing authors of our generation for he knows how to probe the mind with the things we often repel, satisfying our sense with his perversion while telling a story that, if stripped bare of it's disturbing gloss coating would resemble a detailed study on what makes us as a society so horrifying. `American Psycho' is no more a story of a serial killer than it is a story of a lost generation of self absorbed zombies who find more satisfaction and or horror in the detail of a co-workers business card than they do in a meaningful relationship or, yes, a sadistic murder.

The novel succeeds in being utterly spine-tingly due to Ellis' decision to make our psycho, Patrick Bateman (just me or was Ellis going for the obvious `Psycho' throwback...Norman Bates/Patrick Bateman), a first person narrator. In this way the reader not only knows the acts of this man but knows his feelings on the subject. The murders are all horrifying, gut-wrenching and not for the squeamish, but it's really the way in which Patrick recounts the events that are truly repulsive. As has been mentioned, he states everything in a blunt, matter-of-fact type dialog that portrays an air of corrupt morality, as if none of this even matters.

As the reader gets through the bulk of the novel he's forced to question how much of this is reality and how much of this is all in Patrick's head, and that for one is what makes this novel so brilliant. The answers are there but the reader will have to find them on his or her own. Bret refuses to answer the question for us in any point-blank fashion but leaves it to our own imagination and or astute deciphering to uncover the truth in it all. What this allows the reader to do is really probe into the mind of this man and discover he's not so different than us all. It's in this discovery that I was able to truly appreciate Ellis' madness/genius for he was able to take a prose that could and should repulse us all and make it relatable and very close to home. Patrick is a man so absorbed in the media, the pop-obsessed culture we live in that his whole life and purpose can be summed up in a `People Magazine' article. He's so impressed and influenced by what is pressed upon him by television and magazine advertisements that he's become dulled to the reality of the world around him. After reading this novel one is forced to face the idea that we're all just one designer pair of underwear away from slitting someone's throat.

Ellis' use of detailed description has turned some away from this novel. The fact that an entire chapter is devoted to the products he uses to clean himself may appear as needless and redundant but in actuality it proves to be a brilliant way to unravel this mans madness before the brutality of his crimes ensues. This mans mental soundness is brought into question every time he converses with his friends about mundane things such as brands of water and or the font of a specified business card. These men are so dulled as to the real issues at stake that the brutal slaying of a child gets nothing more than a passing remark. It's because of this void of any real feeling that Patrick finds murder and torture so essential for it's the only way he can feel anything. His life would have no meaning otherwise.

Underneath the gritty exterior lies the story of a man not unlike the rest of us. What Ellis has accomplished here is not something to be taken lightly or disregarded as trash for it's far from it. It may take more than the average reader to sit through and uncover what really lies within these pages for this is far from leisure reading. This is above all else a study of human interaction and human relations with each other but more importantly with ones self, and it exposes the power that society and culture impresses on an individual, good and bad. Ellis is in my book a literary genius and has given us one of the most powerful displays of raw talent available in your local bookstore.

I am the type of person who loves the sick and twisted genre of entertainment as much, probably more than the next guy. In my opinion, the author does not explore the character's inner thoughts about his depraved behavior anywhere close to as deep as this reader wanted him to. Maybe it's unfair coming from someone whose top author list includes Dostoevsky (who Ellis is compared to by some reviewer on the back cover!). He starts to get into the character's head a bit but waits until the book is about 330 pages in. I am a painstaking reader and process every word, but all the detailed references to clothing labels and cusine could be skimmed over. I know it's a social commentary and the wildly over-exotic food dishes (e.g. eagle carpaccio) are supposed to be comical in their exaggeration but it gets old quickly and the books becomes quickly ridiculous. This goes too for the extremely over the top attempt at creating shock value with the violence and sex scenes. They are so over the top that they lose their shock and had me wondering why he did this. I will give it two stars and not one because the theme of materialism is relevant. It is a creative idea to say that his life is so hollow that he must replace it with something- in this case psychotic behavior. PLEASE READ IT BECAUSE IT'S ORIGINAL AND MAKE YOUR OWN JUDGEMENT.

total madness! at first i thought it was starting slowly. it only deeply illustrates the complexity of Patrick Bateman. how does Ellis write the character so insanely perfect. the horrors that BAteman commits to only skate the trendy social decadence of the late 80s make the character so dynamic. the quick cut style of writing that was more like a diary on speed kept the book moving at a griping pace. the climax was written in such a fluid drug induced blur that it seemed a bit too crazy, but it worked. am i psycho for liking the sociopath and his logic so much? i hope not. if sex, drugs, brutal violence is not your preferred reading trifecta, then this may not be for you. but if it is, this book is quite a socially aware ride into the world god knows what. this book is great.

I cannot believe how bad this book is, and I am only on page 94! It is a pointless, rambling piece of garbage. There is no point. Nothing. I am such a huge fan of the movie that I decided to read the book, and I am sorry I did. The movie moved along at a good pace and was fascinating to watch. It was funny, depraved, interesting and horrorfic. The book just rambles along. If you want something that gives ou information on name-brand clothes, restaurants, perfumes, colognes and hair gels and interesting places to visit, this is the book for you. If you are intetested in reading an interesting story, don't waste your time. This book sucks. Go see the movie. Nine out of ten times, the book is always better than the movie - not this one! The book cannot even compare to it.

I agree with a previous reviewer that said "this book is sickly amazing". It's true. When it was released there was a huge social uproar to get this book taken off the shelves, and this only succeeded in propelling it up the best sellers list.
The wierd thing about the novel is that it doesn't really have a plot. It breaks all the rules. You are inside the psycho's mind in first person, and just along for the ride. It makes you feel what you don't want to feel, and yet you can't put it down.
On a final note, it's more of an intellectual read. There is a lot of symbolism, and allusions so keep an eye out for it.

This is a very well-written novel and an important commentary on modern American society. I don't hesitate to call it an excellent novel but, as you've surmised from the other reviews, this work contains some unbelievably graphic content. I've seen the movie, which is very tame compared to the novel, and I'm far from squeamish or easily frightened by works of fiction...but at several points during my reading I was deeply disturbed and revolted. Kudos to Mr. Ellis for his ability to evoke such a strong reaction to his work, and for using his grisly imagination to convey such a powerful story, but even someone with an iron stomach will find it hard not to take your eyes off the page in disbelief and horror on a fairly regular basis. I'm eager to read some of this author's other works, but I'm not sure that I would recommend this novel to anyone. If you've read the other reviews and feel like you can stomach the detailed depictions of extreme--and I do mean extreme--violence then I won't try to dissuade you.

I got this book finally after about 2 years of planning to read it, and I must say that I was slightly dissapointed after all that time. I did read this after seeing the movie some years ago, and was hoping for a further insight into the mind behind the madness; I did not find the book revealing in the way I thought.

It is also a very graphic novel in its gory descriptions of Bateman's violence, I found it unnecessary and overdone. It seemed to be that the writer was really trying for the shock value mainly.

I would not recommend it to anyone less than 21 years old. Younger than that might not be able to grasp the concepts in the book completely, which demand a cosmopolitan knowledge of society to do so.

I do not think I will be reading it again, but might give as a gift.