Reviews with content warning for Violence - Míň než nula

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Míň než nula by Bret Easton Ellis

17 reviews

eliya95's review against another edition

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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kind_fiction's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad 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? It's complicated

3.0

the song 'Untrust Us' by Crystal Castles comes to mind

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barbaricyawp89's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-paced

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

2.75

i’m not sure what i was expecting from this book, but i was suprised by how bored i felt while reading it and i’m not really sure why. it did pick up towards the end with the more outrightly disturbing stuff, but otherwise i feel kinda “meh” about it. it wasn’t a bad book by any means, just somehow really boring despite the premise.

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adrireism's review against another edition

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dark relaxing sad tense medium-paced

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

2.75

I had high expectations but the book is boring. The writing is sarcastic and captivating, hence the positive score, but the whole book is just a sequence of utterly boring events filled with hopelessness and personal decay that lead nowhere. Rich kids doing drugs and being awful to everyone around them. Every time you pick up the book you feel icky, but you can't stop reading because you feel a disaster is around the corner to break the stagnation. Turns out the book *is* the disaster.

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juliet331's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Il libro è scorrevole, e l'organizzazione dei paragrafi (brevi) ne invoglia la lettura. Tuttavia, non mi ha entusiasmato perché si ripete troppe volte in situazioni identiche con una leggera differenza appena accennata. Anche la noia palpabile , a volte risulta eccessiva nella narrazione e non fa apprezzare altro che passa più in profondità , ma che poi esce prepotentemente nelle ultime 30/40 pagine. I personaggi sono stereotipati e tutti uguali, fotocopie di sé stessi.

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