A review by kuataapixi
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

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.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings