A review by art_books_chemistry
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

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

3.5

Holy moly this freaking book. I won't put all the notes I took on my phone into this review but I can tell you there are BOATLOAD of them. I'm also a bit mad. My favorite part of thrillers/mysteries etc is guessing the whodunnit or twist as early as possible. This is why bonus points go to authors that throw me off and actually surprise me at the end. Ellis here (in my opinion) took the lazy way out and didn't actually throw a twist; it's a twist by omission (sort of). -_-  I'll refrain from going into more detail since it would give spoilers. With that being said, I sort of did guess what was going on very very early on though I second guessed myself for most of the rest of the book. Hence the pages of notes, I was throwing out all sorts of crazy theories. 

This was my second attempt at reading this book and I almost DNF'd it again (though that thought came after chapter 2 instead of halfway through chapter 1 this time). But I knew my husband liked the movie and I do my best to read books beforehand when I know a book exists. He had a fun time reading my notes as I went through the book since he knew the whole story already. Which by the way; I will admit that the movie adaptation was one of the best I've ever seen. I believe with maybe a few exceptions the entire dialogue script were quotes from the book. I actually liked some of the edits they made for the movie; like overlapping some of Bateman's monologues into other scenes. I also knew beforehand that Christian Bale was Bateman and visualized him the whole time. Absolutely perfect casting. 

Which brings me to THE MONOLOGUES. These are half the reason I almost DNF'd the book again. We have entire chapters on random subjects. Don't get me wrong, you get me started on a subject I love like beer, whiskey, toxicology, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, tea, baking, whatever I can go on forever but why would you do that in a book? In an interview at the end of my audible version, Ellis talked about how he considers American Psycho a sort of  autobiography (also concerning if you have read or watched it...) so my guess is a decent chunk of this book is straight stream of consciousness writing. If you've never read stream of consciousness it gets weird and very hard to read. I did some back in high school English and psychology classes; it's a great tool for finding ideas or for therapy but not very publishable. 

This also deserves a major content warning: it gets extremely more graphic, gore-y, and sexual the further you get into the book. So definitely don't pick this up if you are in any way squeamish! **Mild spoiler**
Like a rat being inserted into vaginal cavity stuffed with cheese and then cut in half with the woman with a chainsaw to see how far into her it ate.
 

Overall, I do like the social commentary about sociopathy and drug abuse in white collar NYC in the 80s/90s. But so much of the dialogue was repetitive, boring, or tangential which made it hard to keep focus. There really was not major plot either; the book just keeps going as basically a diary for Bateman until it just...ends. I'm also not a huge fan of this lack of closure. Feel free to message me to gripe about this fact if you agree. xD Honestly, I don't recommend this book but I could see it appealing to some audiences. 
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