You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was insane. Which is just how I like my books.
I struggled so much to get through this book. The endless lists just made me gloss over almost everything I was reading, so I may have missed important details. It felt incoherent, but then again, Victor Ward wasn't exactly the most clear-headed guy around. Maybe I'm too far removed from the 90s fashion scene to understand the references, but I didn't enjoy this at all.
Meh… Good satirical period piece, it really captures the 90s in New York. A little long-winded, far-fetched, too much sex and gore- kind of like the 90s in New York… The name-dropping every two pages achieved the desired effect of making the reader extremely annoyed with Victor. It is kind of a precursor to Facebook and other social networks that make people believe that other people actually care what song they are currently listening to, what they just ate, or what they just saw that is supercool (Laura likes this!)- I’m not saying that I don’t do it too- I’m just saying that Glamorama predicted it…
Check out more of my reviews: http://bit.ly/1bNraCd
Check out more of my reviews: http://bit.ly/1bNraCd
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Well. This was interesting. I don't quite know how to describe what I just read. This is my first book I've read from Breat Easton Ellis. Previously I've seen both Rules of Attraction and American Psycho so I had a clue of what I was getting into. Except this book kind of blew my mind in the worst and best ways.
Victor Ward is a completely inept, male model living in New York City who gets mixed up with the wrong crowd and his whole world kind of caves in. That's what I KNOW the book was about. Everything else is pure speculation and there were so many elements that were unexplainable. Like the film crews and the confetti and the people who were who they seemed to be.
I read a couple of reviews that said everything resolves itself in the end. Well if that's the case I must be stupider than I realized because nothing seems resolved to me. Is Victor crazy? Was all of that cooked up by his drug addled mind? Who is that other Victor Ward masquerading as him? Is this some Fight Club nonsense where none of this has actually happened?
Either way, it was a great read. I'm satisfied with not knowing how anything I just read makes sense. It seems like I have some more Ellis books to read :)
Victor Ward is a completely inept, male model living in New York City who gets mixed up with the wrong crowd and his whole world kind of caves in. That's what I KNOW the book was about. Everything else is pure speculation and there were so many elements that were unexplainable. Like the film crews and the confetti and the people who were who they seemed to be.
I read a couple of reviews that said everything resolves itself in the end. Well if that's the case I must be stupider than I realized because nothing seems resolved to me. Is Victor crazy? Was all of that cooked up by his drug addled mind? Who is that other Victor Ward masquerading as him? Is this some Fight Club nonsense where none of this has actually happened?
Either way, it was a great read. I'm satisfied with not knowing how anything I just read makes sense. It seems like I have some more Ellis books to read :)
It took me longer than I care to admit to actually read this book, considering how much I loved American Psycho. Sadly, this was not the case with this book.
First of all, I was very confused about what this book was actually about? I see certain similar trends between this and American Psycho – the obsession with materialistic details, the way of talking about celebrities and pop culture. I also loved how Patrick Bateman and his little brother Sean both feature briefly in this novel. But for most of the first 250 pages or so of the novel I was very confused about what was actually happening.
And then it really kicked off.
Glamorama is about a young model named Victor Ward (his real name is Victor Johnson) who is trying to make it big in the world using his good looks and acting skills. Most of the first part of the novel is Victor having multiple affairs while trying to keep a relationship afloat, and opening a swanky new club in New York while avoiding the tabloid press and a certain story that could get him into a lot of trouble. It’s during this first part of the novel that we learn about F Palakon, a man who has reached out to Victor and wants to hire him to find someone; this someone happens to be an ex-classmate of Victor when he attended university, and has last been spotted in London. Victor obliges, happy to get away from the drama that his life is headed towards, only for his life to go all kinds of pear-shaped when he actually goes on this mission.
From the beginning of the novel there are hints that what Victor is experiencing is weird, or that he might not actually be the real Victor. Remember how in American Psycho there was this theme about how none of the characters remember what any of the other characters look like or who they are coz they’re too self-absorbed to care? There’s a hint of that in this novel, only here people keep telling victor that they last spoke to him in a certain city or at a certain club, but he insists that he was never at those events, even though nobody believes him. As the novel progresses, this part becomes more and more prominent.
Victor ends up embroiled in a terrorist cell that are planting bombs across many major European cities and landmarks and just causing chaos. There doesn’t seem to be an actual aim to the whole thing beyond just causing chaos – on trains, near museums, on airplanes, threatening major government officials from all over the world by killing their offspring. The whole thing is incredibly violent and Victor ends up in the middle of it, being constantly fed with drugs to keep him quiet and compliant and being coerced into situations he has no idea how to get out of. And try as he might, it seems that his tormentors and roommates (as they are one and the same) seem to be always one step ahead of him.
The last few hundred pages of the book speed by and are a really interesting character study as we see Victor slowly start to lose his grip on reality but also become more aware of the situation around him. He tries so hard to get out of it and to have a normal life, to right the wrongs that his new companions have done and to try and save as many people as possible, but deep down there’s not a lot that he can do and he knows it. It’s only towards the end of the novel that you start to truly question everything – was Victor Ward actually Victor Johnson? Are they one and the same person, or was this Victor Ward a different person made to believe he was Victor Johnson?
I loved the confusion of it, but only as the book came to a conclusion and I started to piece things together for myself. This book isn’t for the light hearted or those looking for something easy to read; you need to go into it with a mind that is ready to be confused and ready to have to piece things together and do some actual work while you’re reading. There are no answers or easily given solutions at the end, but Bret Easton Ellis gives you ample opportunity to theorize and speculate for yourself what was really happening all along.
I give this book a solid 3.5/5 as a final rating. Once I’ve digested it a bit more and figured out more of what it’s about, I’ll probably appreciate it a bit more. But for now, all I can say is that American Psycho was better.
First of all, I was very confused about what this book was actually about? I see certain similar trends between this and American Psycho – the obsession with materialistic details, the way of talking about celebrities and pop culture. I also loved how Patrick Bateman and his little brother Sean both feature briefly in this novel. But for most of the first 250 pages or so of the novel I was very confused about what was actually happening.
And then it really kicked off.
Glamorama is about a young model named Victor Ward (his real name is Victor Johnson) who is trying to make it big in the world using his good looks and acting skills. Most of the first part of the novel is Victor having multiple affairs while trying to keep a relationship afloat, and opening a swanky new club in New York while avoiding the tabloid press and a certain story that could get him into a lot of trouble. It’s during this first part of the novel that we learn about F Palakon, a man who has reached out to Victor and wants to hire him to find someone; this someone happens to be an ex-classmate of Victor when he attended university, and has last been spotted in London. Victor obliges, happy to get away from the drama that his life is headed towards, only for his life to go all kinds of pear-shaped when he actually goes on this mission.
From the beginning of the novel there are hints that what Victor is experiencing is weird, or that he might not actually be the real Victor. Remember how in American Psycho there was this theme about how none of the characters remember what any of the other characters look like or who they are coz they’re too self-absorbed to care? There’s a hint of that in this novel, only here people keep telling victor that they last spoke to him in a certain city or at a certain club, but he insists that he was never at those events, even though nobody believes him. As the novel progresses, this part becomes more and more prominent.
Victor ends up embroiled in a terrorist cell that are planting bombs across many major European cities and landmarks and just causing chaos. There doesn’t seem to be an actual aim to the whole thing beyond just causing chaos – on trains, near museums, on airplanes, threatening major government officials from all over the world by killing their offspring. The whole thing is incredibly violent and Victor ends up in the middle of it, being constantly fed with drugs to keep him quiet and compliant and being coerced into situations he has no idea how to get out of. And try as he might, it seems that his tormentors and roommates (as they are one and the same) seem to be always one step ahead of him.
The last few hundred pages of the book speed by and are a really interesting character study as we see Victor slowly start to lose his grip on reality but also become more aware of the situation around him. He tries so hard to get out of it and to have a normal life, to right the wrongs that his new companions have done and to try and save as many people as possible, but deep down there’s not a lot that he can do and he knows it. It’s only towards the end of the novel that you start to truly question everything – was Victor Ward actually Victor Johnson? Are they one and the same person, or was this Victor Ward a different person made to believe he was Victor Johnson?
I loved the confusion of it, but only as the book came to a conclusion and I started to piece things together for myself. This book isn’t for the light hearted or those looking for something easy to read; you need to go into it with a mind that is ready to be confused and ready to have to piece things together and do some actual work while you’re reading. There are no answers or easily given solutions at the end, but Bret Easton Ellis gives you ample opportunity to theorize and speculate for yourself what was really happening all along.
I give this book a solid 3.5/5 as a final rating. Once I’ve digested it a bit more and figured out more of what it’s about, I’ll probably appreciate it a bit more. But for now, all I can say is that American Psycho was better.
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Glamorama is a political thriller novel with a protagonist who is too dense and materialistic to realize what is happening around him. It is hysterical and very meticulously constructed, and you will laugh out loud guaranteed. It is also very dark and sometimes surprisingly emotive given what we're dealing with.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
One star just because it’s Bret Easton Ellis. One star because I finished it. One star for the action that FINALLY happens at the end of the book.