Book post: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

[catness]

Title: American Psycho
Author: Bret Easton Ellis
Number of pages: 416
Genre: thriller
Book Number/Goal: 26/50
My Rating: 2.5/5

Review: A young and successful investment banker leads a double life as a serial killer, raping and/or torturing all kinds of victims (mostly young women) because he can't resist the bloodlust.

Great premise, lousy implementation. Most of the book consists of excruciatingly tedious descriptions of everyone's clothes, meals, furniture, gadgets, fitness procedures, music reviews etc, which are about as entertaining to read as shopping catalogues. The endless mundane conversations between the main character and his friends are not any better, though there are a few touching moments (such as Patrick's despair over losing a "contest" of business cards). The murder scenes, described in the same amount of detail, are the only bright spot in comparison, even though they feel dry and uninspiring because the character doesn't perceive them emotionally.

I believe the writing style is a device meant to show Patrick's obsessive-compulsive streak and the shallowness of his inner world (as well as his peers), but it becomes almost unreadable after the first few pages (but improves a little towards the end). It is not even educational because of the subject matter, though I learned some new words.

Don't waste time with it, watch the screen version - it's still partly tedious, but overall it's much more fun.