Reviews with content warning for Body shaming - American Psycho

The book itself is so long and I’ve have listened to hours upon hours of it on audible and it’s just not getting anywhere in the story - I don’t actually mind the content warning I’ve listed when there’s an actual story that goes along with it… the characters seem so two-dimensional and it’s boring as fuck

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solspringsreads's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

I get why this book is like this, I just don’t care. (I even get how my “not caring” relates to the themes of desensitization to violence!) I can see why people have been so inspired creatively by this narrative and why people find value amidst the repeated violence and listing of brands; but I feel like it topples over the line between social commentary and reveling in the societal aspects on which it’s supposedly commenting, perhaps moreso than other interpretations/adaptations of this work, like the 2000 film. Even so, I can understand the value in reading this book and why its impact has lasted for so long.

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emadisonc's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A curtain of stars, miles of them, are scattered, glowing, across the sky and their multitude humbles me, which I have a hard time tolerating. She shrugs and nods after I say something about forms of anxiety. It’s as if her mind is having a hard time communicating with her mouth, as if she is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility: there… is… no… key.

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zoemaeboonz's review

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book was a hard one to get through; by page 80 I was already considering whether this would be too gory for me to finish reading. I am glad I got through this book though and whilst I would not recommend it to anyone or read it again I do think that it is a good work of fiction. The way in which Ellis portrays a character with such realistic psychopathic qualities and depersonalisation - a very manic sense of mind is really well written. I don’t think I will ever read a novel where such mental illness is portrayed with such unapologetic truth. It is clear that Ellis got his inspiration for most of the very graphic murders from psychopaths such as Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. I found myself actually skimming through some parts or even having to put the book down at points because of how intense these scenes were (most notably the rat one because wtaf). Bateman is not being romanticised in this novel nor is he being portrayed as a likeable character by the author. The way it is written is through this very manic first point of view and in times when Bateman depersonalised from himself we saw the passages being written in third point of view. This book will probably sit with me for a bit and I find myself having to write about it because of this - most notably the amount of Xenophobia and slurs that were in this book was definitely hard to read and the fact that the term ‘yuppie’ was the least derogatory term put in the book says it all. The quote that probably sums up this book for the reader in a way that can make you understand the bigger picture in this novel is probably this: “…and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I am simply not there.”. This is not an easy read because it is not meant to be an easy read; Bateman is a psychopath and a horrible person and all the things written affirm this about the character and who he is. Though I disagree with the back of my book saying it’s ‘one of the greatest novels of our time’ I can agree that it is a good work of literature that I will gracefully never lay eyes on again.

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authorannafaundez's review against another edition

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Too much for me once the gore started. Literally felt sick. I was uncomfortable before in a few spots, but just...nope. I'm out.

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kuataapixi's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

before anything, this book is a satirical work aimed towards upper class american society; most of the characters are literally written to be bad people.
also, while not on every page, the gore is very graphic and detailed, but technically skippable. (i think this is pretty well known, but it was literally nauseating at one point)

anyways, bret easton ellis’s style of writing for this book is so fascinating. written from the perspective of patrick bateman, a highly unreliable narrator, he makes significant use of stylistic punctuation, and even lack thereof to mimic real thought and speech patterns. individual syllables being italicized, missing spaces, missing end quotes, seemingly endless stream-of-consciousness paragraphs, the form alone is quite enthralling. additionally, the fact that patrick’s violent episodes

rely heavily upon the quantity of violence, not just the quality of violence, is really interesting; though it sounds sarcastic, it almost adds more to the story since it shows how patrick becomes more and more interested in the emotional weight of murder/violence than murder/violence itself. it doesn’t truly matter that, for example, patrick tied up and maced a woman; it matters more that he spent so long describing the torture, showing how violence took up such a massive part of his headspace

.

patrick is, in spite of his high amount of wealth and attractiveness, deeply insecure. patrick attempts to keep a cool, hip persona, attempting to fit in as much as possible. he obsesses over clothing, grooming, music, etc., often going on long winded tangents that make him sound like a walking advertisement. he even almost has a panic attack when

his brother, sean, tells him that all the restaurants patrick is planning on going to aren’t hip anymore

. he even just blatantly lies about his political beliefs to an entire dinner table to seem more socially and politically aware, even though most everyone at that table probably knows that he doesn’t really hold those beliefs.

however, patrick’s wealth and attractiveness are essentially meaningless in a world where everyone is wealthy and attractive. he often confuses various high ranking executives with others, and they talk without either of them being sure of the other one’s identity. in fact,

patrick can’t even confess to his lawyer, carnes, because when patrick finally sees carnes in person, carnes thinks patrick isn’t patrick at all

. there’s no sense of personal identity; everyone is one amorphous figure of money and sex.

in spite of ellis’s amazing dissection of upper class american consumer society, i do think it could be improved by having a person of color as one of the high ranking officials around him. for all the reader knows, all of the people around him are just white; while it further reinforces ellis’s point about the demographics of the richest people in america, that is, most of them are privileged white men with nothing standing in their way, it would have been interesting to see patrick’s reactions and feelings towards seeing a person of color (he hates literally all of them) with the same economic status as him.

though the japanese businessmen are briefly mentioned, they aren’t really given any literary significance. patrick makes racist remarks in his head, but that’s pretty much it.

all in all, i think american psycho is a fascinating book to read. horror? absolutely. but definitely also an amazing piece of satire on how american consumerism has destroyed american society.

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imnotmillied's review

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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