Reviews with content warning for Eating disorder - Míň než nula

Reviews tagging 'Eating disorder'

Míň než nula by Bret Easton Ellis

28 reviews

jay4bale's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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eliya95's review against another edition

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dark medium-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

2.75

I understand what BEE was going for here and feel like he almost got there, but not quite. This book is Play It As It Lays if it were written by a guy in college…literally. This is a male perspective with a younger cast and characters that are more shallowly written. At a point Clay mentions that he wants to see the worst of society, and I fear BEE didn’t do the best job to show that Clay himself, in his complacency, is the worst of society. He didn’t engage in the awful things his friends did, but didn’t do anything to stop them, and continued to be their friend after he knew they were the worst of society. His apathy at the end to the horrors of the world that he was complacent in should have been emphasized more. Clay was just as bad as his friends, if not worse, since he watched them do awful things, and awful things be done to them, and did nothing, and cared to do nothing about it. I understand why people hate this book. I didn’t hate it. I understand the vision. I just don’t think he totally got there with it and that his point was completely made. That seems to be a problem with other BEE writing as well. Honestly, I wouldn’t say don’t read this book, it’s short and moves quickly, but if you want to read a novel where the characters are in LA and completely unlikable…just read Play It As It Lays By Joan Didion instead. It was the OBVIOUS inspiration for this (some scenes were literally the ‘when someone asks to copy your homework and you say yeah just change it a little’ meme) but the writing is better and there are actual motives behind the bad behavior of the characters that are clear and understandable. Plus there isn’t a random act of sexual violence against a young girl at the end, which really could have been cut out.

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