Reviews

The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis

ryan_pc's review against another edition

2.0

I normally love B.E.E for his style but this was at times dull. That's not to say his writing style is drastically different in "The Informers", if anything it's a low-rent mirror of "Less than Zero", but I just don't dig on low-rent versions of talented writers. I think he just didn't have much to say with this. A collection of interwoven stories that have no huge effect on each other meander through his typically nihilistic image of Los Angeles. Pointless is the word that comes to mind. I will admit though, I am a big fan of his so I still enjoyed the read, I just don't think I took much away from it that he hadn't already offered me in his other novels.

supreeth's review against another edition

3.0

Definitely not a place to start with Bret Easton Ellis.

rosievox's review against another edition

5.0

A friend gave me this for Christmas and initially I was like, really? The American Psycho guy? (A very silly take on my part, to be sure.) Anyway, within a page I was in and swept away by the dark, narcotized, slightly woozy feel of this book that vibrates and trembles through every short story, nightmare-rumbling just beneath the voice of every new narrator. It was *so* good and actually exactly the kind of thing I love to read - short, snap-shot moments that nevertheless feel leisurely and nuanced, about rich, highly privileged people who are nevertheless totally miserable and empty. Only knowing Ellis as 'The American Psycho guy' I was surprised by actually how sedate and tender a lot of this book felt. Even though the characters and their actions are all pretty grim, and there's an avoidance in his writing of probing too deeply into the characters' interiors, he does such a great job of communicating the dwindling, but, like, precious, humanity of these people. At first I was a little thrown by all the repetition in the dialogue, and how superficial a lot of them seem, but as the book went on I was kind of amazed by the cumulative effect of it: how disconnected these people were from each other and themselves and the world. And I think actually what could be interpreted as disinterested writing, or writing that's a little standoffish or detached or whatever, is actually just total lack of judgement, and in that space alongside each other are empathy and some kind of void. There's a matter-of-factness to the writing while describing all these people drifting in and out of each other's lives with no real purpose or meaning that reminded me a lot of the kind of writing that's become synonymous with young, female millennial writers now. Some of the stories were stronger than others, but I just enjoyed the heck out of reading them all, not knowing where Ellis was going to take me next. After about 80 pages I put the book down for 5 months because Life Stuff and when I picked it back up again, I tore through it, under the searing, inescapable heat of July 2021, and I didn't bother trying to juggle all the characters and timelines in my head as they made cameos in other stories. For me, thinking that the timelines might be purposefully misaligned really added to the overall feeling of this being about a group of people in a city tumbling towards hell, or perhaps already in it. Loved this. Definitely one to reread.

daveinyourface's review against another edition

4.0

I cant put my thumb on my feelings on this one. I hate it and absolutely love it at the same time. I keep thinking this is absolute garbage yet I couldn't stop reading it. As much as I thought it was trash, I was enamored with the style and pace of BEE's writing. In short it seems I have a love hate relationship with this particular collection of short stories.

laurenelliza's review against another edition

2.0

Loved the beginning and loved the ending but it took a lot of willpower to get through the middle… I’m a huge fan of Ellis’s writing but these short stories felt unsatisfying to me, I wanted each story to be novel length. There are surreal elements in a lot of Ellis’s work but I liked how much he leaned into it in these short stories

reneetorade's review against another edition

3.0

Easy pulp-y prose, but with no discernible plot or point. A good rebound book since it didn't require much heart and only took three days to read.

msjoanna's review against another edition

3.0

I would classify this as a collection of interlinked short stories more than a novel. That said, the pieces fit together quite neatly it made the collection greater than a sum of its parts to have the links.

The narrators for the audiobook were average. They read the stories competently but weren't especially compelling and occasionally slipped into voices too whiney even for the insipid valley-girl characters that populate the stories. They did manage to convey the general apathy of the characters.

Overall, I'm just not a huge Bret Easton Ellis fan. I understand that he's capturing a slice of moral decline and narcissistic wandering overprivileged drugged out characters. But I find it hard to care at all what happens to any of them. When one of them turns serial killer (American Psycho) or vampire (this book), I end up yawning.

hunterjleech's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

yoana_misirkova's review against another edition

3.0

Before I started this book - a collection of short stories I was a little alarmed by the bad reviews. I must admit that I was not that impressed and it came nowhere near the level of "American Psycho" but overall for what it claims to express, the book is good. Throughout the book we get a whole bunch of brutal metaphors, which really get under the skin. Also a whole spectre of moral decay is depicted - from cheating and lying to rape and murder. Ans there are some stories in which the "storytellers" are adults and parents, so we really get the sense that this decay is all-consuming and that everybody suffers from it.
I particularly liked "Letters from L.A." because it showed the whole process of turning into a brainless, heartless creature, which lives on booze and drugs.
And "Discovering Japan" "At the still point" made a particular impression on me. I think they both were brilliant, as the first one showed the bad side to rockstar glam, and they both depicted how these soulless protagonists react when one of theie own dies - which is either they don't feel anything or everybody else doesn't feel anything.
Overall I would give this book 3 stars, as I think it wasn't bad but it definitely wasn't Ellis at his best.

adangr0ss's review against another edition

4.0

I love loosely connected collections of stories. People enter and leave other people's lives all the times and are part of more than one story at a time--fiction should reflect that.

I always feel motivated to write after finishing a BEE book b/c I realize your characters don't have to be heroes or villains or even conflicted to be completely interesting.