A review by porgyreads
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

2.75

It should not have taken me so long to read a book this short but it lacked intrigue even as I pushed to create it myself. I tried hard to give it the benefit of the doubt and finish it because that’s what qualifies its mastery for some people but… not for me. Numb dissociative prose to evoke a numb dissociating main character I get it!. Through clays drug infused haze you hear terrible things and then see terrible things. This escalation doesn’t induce any tension just sadness - if that. The disarming recreation of upper class LA teen coked out nonchalance made me feel nothing and so when things did happen I didn’t feel more than a light shock. I see this is what is to be praised about the novel but that would require an investment in any character described. I couldn’t keep track of the names of clays friends because neither could he. I felt nothing about his girlfriend because neither did he. I was not mesmerised by clays blank slate personality or his repetitive days of driving and eating and sniffing and drinking. I can’t say this doesn’t represent a certain person in a certain time because it does, it’s a period piece (again, I get it!) and I guess the preoccupation with death in Beverly Hills makes sense considering it was at that time one of the safest places to live is interesting. But for all the drugs and horror and haunting echos of desert it wasn’t captivating. Finishing a book as a apathetic as I began is an insult!