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A review by codexmendoza
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
1.5
overall this book has the same feeling as doom scrolling reddit for hours on end: male fashion fit pic, overly long and pedantic music review, violent fantasy about killing women, light sprinkling of racism, five hundred comments on what the best audio equipment is, some world news, made up relationship advice problems.
I feel like negatively rating this and saying the intense misogyny was repulsive opens one up to cries of “but you don’t get it! It’s a satire of violent male fantasies and the decay in society!” but the thing is, that’s very obvious as it is telegraphed incredibly unsubtly over and over. it’s just that the book is all shock and no awe, and in fact rather positions the “darkness” of Bateman in a very romantic light. man cornered by insane society, etc etc. although I will say that the one saving grace is how it becomes quite clear that outside of his fantasies of himself a sexy ice cold serial killer, Bateman is just a sweaty loser dork. but once again: reddit dot com
incredibly bad flow to the thing though; the extensive designer brand dropping gimmick feels like it exists to mask the fact that all the sentences go clunk. there are some attempts at stylistic flourishes (parodies of music reviews, a sudden change in point of view) but they’re empty and cynical gestures. I suppose like a GQ product recommendation article, the prose is designed to be skimmed.
I feel like negatively rating this and saying the intense misogyny was repulsive opens one up to cries of “but you don’t get it! It’s a satire of violent male fantasies and the decay in society!” but the thing is, that’s very obvious as it is telegraphed incredibly unsubtly over and over. it’s just that the book is all shock and no awe, and in fact rather positions the “darkness” of Bateman in a very romantic light. man cornered by insane society, etc etc. although I will say that the one saving grace is how it becomes quite clear that outside of his fantasies of himself a sexy ice cold serial killer, Bateman is just a sweaty loser dork. but once again: reddit dot com
incredibly bad flow to the thing though; the extensive designer brand dropping gimmick feels like it exists to mask the fact that all the sentences go clunk. there are some attempts at stylistic flourishes (parodies of music reviews, a sudden change in point of view) but they’re empty and cynical gestures. I suppose like a GQ product recommendation article, the prose is designed to be skimmed.