A review by chloeburton
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

challenging dark

2.75

I’ve never felt more torn about a book in my entire life. I was not ready for how graphic this is, but there’s also some incredibly impressive writing execution here even though it’s really not enjoyable at all. Reading this book is really putting yourself into Patrick Bateman’s head, and it’s a genuinely miserable place to be. A good amount of this is really tightly written, Ellis has a way of writing the violence in sparse blunt language that offsets the famous over detail of everything else around it. The effect really works, it makes the violence all that more startling and brutal while also showing us Patrick’s disjointed mental state. All in all though I’m not sure the book earns it’s truly extreme violence, I don’t think Ellis spends enough time and care with any themes aside from consumerism and dehumanization. Those ideas were incredibly clear far before the book spiraled into it’s most disturbing scenes, which are truly stomach turning. I’ll take the depravity, just give me a reason I have to have this disturbing image in my mind for the rest of my life. I think in the end there isn’t a real purpose to the level of gratuity it reaches. I would say the movie and the musical pluck out the more interesting themes this book has to offer and spotlights them better without applying the less enjoyable (even if impressive) aspects to not much lesser effect if any. I pretty much finished this book out of spite, but still I’m glad I did just because I appreciate having a lot to think about it.