Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - American Psycho

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American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

30 reviews

aliclare'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

3.0

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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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michaelion's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious 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

Maybe the real Psychos were the Americans we made along the way...

A book is bad when I have to question what purpose it served humanity. I am a person who fundamentally believes that all art can be made with no reason or goal in mind; art for art's sake; art because the person who made it felt something, felt they had to get it out, felt they had something to share with the world. I read this book because I wanted to watch the movie, yes I'm that kind of person, and I wish I could unread it. What purpose did this book serve to the greater good of humanity? Fuck the greater good, what contribution to humanity does this book give? It has no analysis, no deeper introspection into the era, the mindset of the people. There's no meat on the bone that is this book.

It has its moments and its beauty, for sure. I love the stream of consciousness and unreliable narration, I love the speaking to the audience, the break rom reality and seeing things in the perspective of a movie, sure. Those elements are great. But as a whole? I never question why art is made. There's art I like and art I don't like. It's easy for me to spot art I like, It's easy for me to spot art I don't like, and there are definitely things that lie in a middle grey area, but for all three of those things I almost never question why it was made. It's an inherently fascist idea to say art should have a purpose else it is a waste of time or attention but this is one of the few exceptions I've encountered. The movie better be good after the shit I just read.

And to be clear, I'm not just mad at the content of the book. It was very upsetting sure, but

about a quarter in is when you get to the first kill and it's mentioned nonchalant. So you read almost 100 pages and finally get to the part you came for.

Most of this book is a whole lot of nothing. It works, only because that's the style of this particular type of writing, but once the kills start to ramp up it's like Oh, you wasted my time, and now this is TOO intense. And I'm sure the whiplash was also purposeful, and I'm starting to get a little too nitpicky, but there are things that are more important / could have been more central to the plot that were not given any spotlight.

I tried to find it in my heart to give it a higher rating, I really did, but I can't lie to my future self who will reread this review and go "damn, the book was that bad?" Hi, future self. To answer your question: No. The book was much worse.

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zoehakim's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

what?

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caitdanger's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-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

3.0

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lizzardbreath's review against another edition

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challenging 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

2.5

I understand that this book is satire; however, the content of the book was extremely upsetting and disturbing that I would not recommend anyone to take it upon themselves to read it. This is one of the first books I have ever read where I had to take active breaks away from it for the sake of my mental health. A short video essay explaining the satire was much better than actually putting yourself through the torture of reading this novel. Nonetheless, Ellis portrayed great horror on the white American man, so if you can stomach the gory details, I won’t stop you.

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