Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

3 reviews

jayvdw's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Gore, Violence, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexism, Vomit, Alcohol, Body horror, Infidelity, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Bullying, Cannibalism, Grief, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic friendship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Abortion, Child death, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Blood, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, and Sexual content

This book is gross and very very explicit with sex, murder, rape and torture. Not only to men and women, but also animals and children.

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective tense

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Sexual content, Torture, Classism, Murder, Racism, Sexual violence, Addiction, Cannibalism, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Antisemitism, Blood, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Car accident, Child abuse, Confinement, Xenophobia, Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Islamophobia, Lesbophobia, Medical content, Pedophilia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Suicide, Vomit, and War

Minor: Dementia, Genocide, and Death of parent

knmed's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Well I finished it. This is the definition of torture porn so be aware of that if you want to pick it up. It has very descriptive intense violence, sex, and sexual assault. It is also filled with bigotry towards all different kids of people, especially LGBTQ+ and POC.  This book has two sides of it. The first being endless lists of how to look good, luxury goods, and where everyone is going to go out to. The second is the detailed descriptions of violence and sex. Imagine being in the mind of Tom Buchanan in a cocaine fueled 80s New York, but he’s also a serial killer. At first I liked the satire of the super rich that was juxtaposed with a sick inner mind and a serial killer. But to be honest this book is a little over detailed and a little long. It started to feel like the author enjoyed writing the extreme violence and sex scenes to an extent that made me uncomfortable. I looked into the authors commentary on the book and it didn’t make me feel any better about him. It was worth reading once for me, but isn’t something I think I’ll return to. For me, I’m glad I listened to the audiobook. I don’t think I would have made it through reading through the mundane parts of Bateman’s mind. On the other side it may have made the violence worse though. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Emotional abuse, Drug abuse, Classism, Hate crime, Gore, Death, Death of parent, Ableism, Body horror, Body shaming, Murder, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Homophobia, Sexism, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Drug use, Addiction, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Xenophobia, Torture, Racism, Rape, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Child death and Body shaming