A review by jayvdw
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

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

2.5

This book is gross, slow, dark and twisted. 

First off, the book is very slow, especially in the beginning. It fits the theme and sets the book's tone, but it doesn't read nicely. The book has some big themes and criticisms about 1980s America, which is very interesting and insightful. Patricks focus on clothing, brand, music and materialism really sets a mood whilst reading and depth to the characters. BUT IT'S FUCKING BORING.  Personally, I skipped most of these, the long lists, I understand why they are there and that Bret intentionally puts them in the book to be boring and bore the reader. 

The book is super super gross and not at all for the faint of heart. The book goes into detail about the murders and sex. It is very unsettling and I sometimes strayed away from reading for a few hours after certain chapters.

My favorite part of the book is clearly a few chapters near the end.
In these chapters we start the get clear indications that Patrick and thus the narration can't be trusted. I loved Chase, Manhatten chapter. The sudden switch from first person to third person in this chapter really showed me how psychotic Patrick is. This combined with the absurdity of the chapter really made me realize that Patrick is untrustworthy and made me question a lot of the things that happened in the book. This was supported by the idea that Patrick often says things about murder or rape, that the people around him just ignore. His trustworthiness is confirmed when his lawyer says to has had lunch with one of Patrick's victims.


Overall, I think this book is very interesting and learnful. Even in the modern day a lot of the themes are still present or even worse.  The book is however a very boring read or very gross most of the time, due to this I gave it a low rating, simply because I did not enjoy reading it for most of the book, I also feel like the book could have been half the size. The ending was a let down in my opinion and a bit too vague. It would have been better if the ending focussed more on the trustworthiness of Patrick.

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