American Psycho

by Bret Easton Ellis

book data

10,699 ratings, 3.72 average rating, 1,360 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		29%
4		33%
3		22%
2		8%
1		5%

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published

March 1st 1991 (first published 1000) by Vintage

binding

Paperback, 416 pages

isbn

0679735771 (isbn13: 9780679735779)

description

Patrick Bateman is handsome, well-educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His...more

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01/27/08

Lauryl rated it:

bookshelves: simultaneously-fascinating-and-horr

Read in January, 2005

recommends it for: strong stomached feminist scholars

I actually read this book a few years ago, but I stumbled across the Goodreads reviews of it, and felt I needed to add my voice, because it is such a difficult piece of lit in a lot of ways,and honestly, it probably is more deserving of a thesis paper than of a measly little review on Goodreads.
American Psycho is a brilliant book. Genius. It will no doubt deservingly be remembered as Bret Easton Ellis's masterpiece, his tour-de-force of sadist misanthropy.

I effing HATED it....more I actually read this book a few years ago, but I stumbled across the Goodreads reviews of it, and felt I needed to add my voice, because it is such a difficult piece of lit in a lot of ways,and honestly, it probably is more deserving of a thesis paper than of a measly little review on Goodreads.
American Psycho is a brilliant book. Genius. It will no doubt deservingly be remembered as Bret Easton Ellis's masterpiece, his tour-de-force of sadist misanthropy.

I effing HATED it.

American Psycho is a brutal satire of the American upper middle class, set amongst the yuppies of New York during the boom era of the 1980's. Patrick Bateman is the main character and narrator, a bland upwardly mobile business man whose personality is a terrifyingly blank slate. He defines himself solely by the products he uses, the clothes he wears, the places he is seen eating or partying. He is also a murderer. In the course of the book, he murders a homeless man, a colleague, and numerous prostitutes, all with less emotion than he bestows upon his hair gel.
Ellis slyly balances the relative passion with which Bateman might discuss Huey Lewis in one chapter with a dispassionate yet detailed and horrific play-by-play of rape and dismemberment in the next.
The banality and sly humor (Bateman's analysis of Whitney Huston is both disturbingly off-kilter and hilarious) of the early non-violent passages of the book make the murders all the more jarring to the senses when they start coming thick and fast at the end, and black humor gives way to an out-and-out brutality the likes of which have not been touched in any other book I've ever read.
At first glance, it seems as though it is the juxtaposition of the banal and the brutal that make American Psycho shocking. In fact, however, what wrenches the gut is the sameness of detail and emotion with which both torture and nouvelle cuisine are treated. Ellis's muse is at once a monster and a metaphor, not just for the Reagan era, but for the potential darkness of post-modernity in toto. He is a camera. His world is reduced to an inventory of details, equally weighted; a chair, a suit, an arm, a head.

Reading American Psycho is a much less enjoyable experience than you might think, based on its titillating reviews or even Guinevere Turner's smart film adaptation (which was my original impetus for reading the book). The book is many times darker, nastier, uglier, grosser, crueler than I was prepared for, and I am a pretty die hard fan of horror and true crime lit.
Like many other women who read this book, I found myself getting faint and queasy, and ended up hurling it across the room in disgust. I couldn't make it to the end. As a female and a feminist, I found the book problematic.
Of course, the character of Bateman is supposed to be vile, but his misogyny is so pronounced that I find it hard to simply glom it on with the rest of his misanthropic tics. Sure, he kills his a*hole co-worker, and a few other dudes here and there, but mostly, he kills women. And unlike the asexual murder of his colleague, these womens' deaths are hyper-sexualized. They are all committed post-coitally, they are almost all prostitutes. While I don't think that Bret Easton Ellis is unaware of the misogynist content of A.P., I nevertheless find it more disturbing because of the narrator's lack of analysis, and because of a dearth of the clever commentary Ellis sneaks in during so many other moments in the novel. It is heady territory, just waiting to be mined by some iron-willed feminist scholar with the eggs for it, but I am not that woman, and if you don't think you're that woman either, then I would STRONGLY advise avoiding American Psycho.
Putting it bluntly: the scenes of women being raped, beaten, tortured and killed in this book are numerous, long, detailed, and presented with an absolute lack of empathy. For myself, this book made me feel as though I had been sexually assaulted. And while I appreciate the genius of such a book, that doesn't mean I have to like it.(less)

Like this review? yes (36 people liked it)

8 comments

02/06/08

jack rated it:

Read in January, 2002

okay, this is a good book. but it is also a gnarly book. ellis got a lot of flak from feminists after this came out because a lot of people believed it was a really sexist work. i don't necessarily agree. i think ellis was making more of a commentary on the behaviors of a certain class/race group of men in a certain time and geographical location. basically rich-as-god white stockbrokers in nyc in the 80s at the height of the greed is good times. how the power they were given (a lot of it imagin...more okay, this is a good book. but it is also a gnarly book. ellis got a lot of flak from feminists after this came out because a lot of people believed it was a really sexist work. i don't necessarily agree. i think ellis was making more of a commentary on the behaviors of a certain class/race group of men in a certain time and geographical location. basically rich-as-god white stockbrokers in nyc in the 80s at the height of the greed is good times. how the power they were given (a lot of it imaginary, think SF in the late 90s during the internet boom and the subsequent crash in 2000 after the nasdaq fell. ah, good times!) corrupted them. basically they were the golden boys in a playground designed to fulfill their every whim because they carried hope for an economic upturn that was supposed to "trickle down" to the rest of us. and they became demicelebrities du jour. unsurprisingly they acted like spoiled children and insanely debaucherous roman emperors. ultimately revealing their immaturity and hollow souls.

blah blah. whatever. if you've seen the movie (which i highly highly recommend) you know what this book is really about. blood and guts. slice and dice. and one tightly wound serial killer with innards of ice.

i've seen the movie dozens of times (and this may reveal more about me than i'd like) and it's always good for a laugh. i know it's a gorefest, but hey, i love horror movies. what really kills me about it is how the excess of the times is taken to insane heights in the movie. not just the clothes and food and apartments and money, but the giddy excess of the murder scenes. the violence is gratituitous in order to be gratituitous. it illustrates its main point with itself. also, the scene of patrick bateman running bucknaked (except for a pair of expensive running shoes) down a luxury apartment building hallway phallicly wielding a chainsaw while chasing after his half-cousin who he's spent the evening slipping drugs to and fucking with abandon is high comedy in my opinion.

but back to the book. this book will entertain you. it will bore you. it will overwhelm you. it will chill and horrify you. and one word of warning: that which is seen cannot be un-seen. or i guess, in the case of a book, that which is read and visualized cannot...well, my point is: if you don't want nightmares or if you perhaps at some point in your life would like to pass by a habitrail in a petstore without full body chills stop around page 600 or so.

ellis himself said that much of the book is boring, pointless and repetitive (conversely i devoured this motherfucker like a jumbo pack of marshmallows after five bong rips) and that you could get the general gist by just reading about 200 pages. there were also parts that he said he wished that he had never written. as in, he wished he had never imagined their full horror and committed them to paper where others would have to experience them.

i know i'm not selling this book really well. it's actually amazing and you should read it. let me just say this: like many important journeys you will take it may not necessarily be pleasant, but it will be worthwhile. and perhaps you can take pleasure in that. in between feeling like barfing and wanting to bleach your brain.(less)

Like this review? yes (11 people liked it)

2 comments

10/01/07

Dan Martin rated it:

bookshelves: fiction

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: people with open minds

This book blew me away. First of all, you have to be prepared to be let into the mind of a psychopath. That entails more than murder, which a lot of people reviewing this book completely miss. Watch out for these two types of brainless reviews. "Its worth the boring stuff for the violence". or "It's misogynistic! And about murdering people. You like that?". I know it's not standard people, but a protagonist CAN be a villian. If you think experiencing or creating something ...more

Like this review? yes (9 people liked it)

2 comments

10/13/07

Paul rated it:

(review of isbn 0330319922)

bookshelves: this-book-hates-women

recommends it for: men who really hate women

People think the pages and pages of descriptions of hacking and chopping up women are ironic.
Well, in one sense they are, but in another sense they aren't.
People who like this book should ask themselves why they want to read pages and pages of descriptions of hacking and chopping up women (with the occasional man thrown in, but all the lavish descriptions with rats and nail guns and so on are just for the ladies).
I don't think people can tell what's mysogynistic and wh...more

Like this review? yes (9 people liked it)

73 comments

03/25/08

Brad rated it:

bookshelves: faves, notorious, to-read-again

When a book sticks with you, you know it is powerful. It may not be entertaining, and it may be downright disturbing, but if you can't get it out of your head it is most certainly great, and that is my experience with American Psycho.

For me, it's about the music.

Bret Easton Ellis did something miraculous within Patrick Bateman's killings: he destroyed the music of Huey Lewis and the News, Genesis and Whitney Houston. Before every nasty killing, Bateman goes on a diatribe ...more

Like this review? yes (10 people liked it)

14 comments

05/13/07

Holly added it

bookshelves: bannedfrommybookshelf

recommends it for: probably no one

I could not finish this book. In fact, when I finally (and gratefully) decided to stop reading it, I could not even bring myself to return it to my bookshelf. I actually threw it in the garbage, which I have never done to another book.

It's a shame, too, because up until about 3/4 of the way through, I LOVED this book. The writing is simply brilliant, and Ellis presents a fascinating and thought-provoking view of 1980's American society, made especially poignant by the fact that it ...more

Like this review? yes (7 people liked it)

7 comments

04/12/07

Gavin rated it:

(review of isbn 0330319922)

Although often described as a meditation on the vacuity of the 1980s, it's probably important to realise that an era cannot by itself create a state of vacuity, but only acts as a trapping. In this case, the 80s represents a sticky glut of technology, fashion, and media (does it sound very different to today?) that ultimately confuses and paralyses, eliminating feeling - and thereby the possibility of redemption - through sheer saturation. But psychotic behaviour is not new; it exists in everyon...more Although often described as a meditation on the vacuity of the 1980s, it's probably important to realise that an era cannot by itself create a state of vacuity, but only acts as a trapping. In this case, the 80s represents a sticky glut of technology, fashion, and media (does it sound very different to today?) that ultimately confuses and paralyses, eliminating feeling - and thereby the possibility of redemption - through sheer saturation. But psychotic behaviour is not new; it exists in everyone (in general), or at the very least in every man. It's more a question of those who indulge in it and those who suppress it.

The reader should therefore not be surprised at the ease with which Patrick Bateman (the villain and narrator) seduces us. He is as classical a gothic figure as any that Poe created, and has all the darkness and all the comedy, without quite the campiness and more wit, of a young Vincent Price. He is so beau that he is often asked if he is a model or an actor. This makes him more of an act of a gothic character than the real thing, but the artificiality here is appropriate. We abhor him, yet he resonates nonetheless. More secretly American Psycho probably also raises the occasional hard-on, which as the delineation between sex then rape then murder dissolves - and really, murder is just another form of pornography - makes us question whether not being consciously shameful of this, at least until after the chapter is over, is a natural reaction or not.

Patrick's hatred is born of a surprisingly touching fear of everything that is not a part of his own construction; anything with the possibility of gentle or joyous emotion by its nature cannot exist for him, and must be destroyed. Tossing a handful of coins into a seal pool in an attempt to choke them, he tells us that "[i]t's not the seals I hate - it's the audience's enjoyment of them that bothers me". Shortly after he stabs a five-year-old child in the throat and is not satisfied; the child had "no real history, no worthwhile past" and the killing leaves him empty. By conflating the extreme opposites we see not only the boundaries of human abbhorence - apparently limitless, there is little that Patrick would not do in the mutilation and annihilation of a human - but also, in our own sympathy to him, the extreme lengths humans are willing to go to to forgive one of their own, to abstract the blame into something larger and ambiguous. Or perhaps we should be more cynical, and suggest that our sympathy for him is merely of our own inclinations towards such darkness - again, classical gothic.

There is more to pick up here, much more, that distinguishes it in many ways as a product of the modern era, but I feel the main lesson here is not in the story but in our reactions to it, of our own following self-analysis. That's what I got anyway. For some it may simply result in a deadening of certain senses, disgust or paranoia; for me it was all good for self-awareness.

Damn, out of space - I'll have to try to post the rest of the review in comments!(less)

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

2 comments

09/24/07

Ivy added it

bookshelves: 1001-books, banned-books

recommends it for: no one

When this book was first published I could not wait to read it. I was already a BEE fan and I thought it completely horrible that the book was being censored and protested by people who had probably never read it. The day of its release I ran to my local bookseller for a copy. Nothing attracts me like a controversial book!

I think Daniel's review on this board captures my feelings like none other. I too wish I could unread it. The images of rape, murder and torture have stayed wi...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

1 comment

07/25/08

Evil_Dead_Junkie rated it:

bookshelves: literature

Because sometimes life is shit.

This is the way Satire should be, no mercy no quarter. I love the construction of the novel, the way Bateman's madness is revealed gradually just dropped phrases, and idle thoughts which are given no more or less weight then the descriptions of conspicuous consumption that fill the book. How nothing actually happens for the first hundred and fifty pages or so, so by that time you're almost wanting some insanity to drop. And when it does it's just like ...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

1 comment

03/30/08

Kris rated it:

bookshelves: bookblog

Read in March, 2008

Thank God that somebody stopped me from putting this on the required reading list for my Gothic Monsters class before I had actually read it. Actually, that would be my aforementioned fiancee again. Given my typical pattern of assigning reading to the students that I haven't yet read myself... this could have been disastrous. I was expecting some fairly graphic violence, given its a book about a serial killing maniac, but Ellis also uses his expert skills in rendering sex scenes that are p...more
Thank God that somebody stopped me from putting this on the required reading list for my Gothic Monsters class before I had actually read it. Actually, that would be my aforementioned fiancee again. Given my typical pattern of assigning reading to the students that I haven't yet read myself... this could have been disastrous. I was expecting some fairly graphic violence, given its a book about a serial killing maniac, but Ellis also uses his expert skills in rendering sex scenes that are probably too graphic for your less reputable pornographic magazines. Still, all this I could have taken for what it was - I'm not as big on sex in my literature as some (see previous entry on Nicholson Baker) but I'm no prude either. The whole thing reminded me quite unpleasantly of all the Ellis/Palahniuk imitators I shared workshops with in my MFA program. Still, I figured I'd skim past whatever was too gruesome. But I couldn't finish it. And oddly, my issues with the book are prompted by my latest discussion in my Introduction to Creative Writing class. Namely, our day on Plot.

But first. The book is about Christian Bale... er, Patrick Bateman, sorry, yuppie schmuck extraordinare, who, in addition to murdering people, also obsesses over designer labels, morning talk shows, keeping up with his smug, rich friends, sleeping around and renting porn, and getting the perfect dinner reservations. I admit, for the first 100 pages or so, I was enjoying it quite a bit. After all, who wouldn't love a well-written glimpse into the mind of a wall street psychopath? For a 100 pages or so, Bateman's tendency to describe the clothing of everyone he sees like something out of the J. Peterman Catalogue is funny and off-beat. I enjoyed his shallow bantering with his even shallower friends about how one wears tie-clips and whether or not vests can be worn with suits and if one can wear gray socks with black shoes. Ellis keeps the writing crisp and the details rich, and for that it comes across as fine satire. I didn't even mind that Bateman, while seemingly more intelligent than his companions, is by far the worse human being (due to all the murdering).

So that's 100 pages. Then the next 100 pages go about the same way. Patrick commits a few murders while we read on, which we can tell are not his first. He has some more lude sex, buys a tanning bed for personal use... etc. There's one surprising scene where he thinks about killing his mistress's husband in a bathroom and the husband misinterprets the near-strangling for a come-on... But then it's more craziness and another murder and some more sex. And more designers and more fashion advice with his friends. And so on. At page 200 I stopped reading, realizing I was now halfway through the book and had not really any sort of interest in continuing. I wondered why and realized that there simply wasn't anything I wanted to know anymore. I didn't care if he got caught or got away with it. I didn't care if he killed his co-worker with the better account than he has (though a plot summary tells me he will (maybe)). I didn't care if he killed his mistress's husband or himself, for that matter. It wasn't that I wasn't enjoying the actual reading... I just didn't particularly care how it ended.

In my Plot class we talked about some pretty standard formulas for structuring a story - some of which are downright mechanical - but going all the way back to Aristotle, there were some pretty clear guidelines. For one thing, your protagonist, even if we dislike him immensely, has to want something and we have to care whether or not he gets it. Bateman's desires seem pretty simple: he wants everything he hasn't got already. He's not killing people and torturing animals to any particular end - he doesn't even really seem to enjoy doing it. So we don't particularly care if it all works out for him or not. I respect Ellis for maybe wanting to just avoid the typical plot of "Let's all see if the bad guy gets what's coming to him!" But you ought to give us something? He doesn't want to change. He doesn't want more money or better sex (except maybe the money and sex that everyone else seems to have). He doesn't want to stop killing people or to kill anyone in particular. I'm sure people will tell me that Bateman's shiftless desireless life is somehow endemic of the corrupt soul of America...*yawn* ... or that characters in our glorious post-modern world don't need to want anything in particular (other than everything and anything)... but then fine. It makes no difference then if I read 200 pages or 400 or 50. Without a plot the only thing I'm missing is more of the same.

Aristotle, in "Poetics" writes that "Of all plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a plot 'episodic' in which the episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence. Bad poets compose such pieces by their own fault, good poets, to please the players; for, as they write show pieces for competition, they stretch the plot beyond its capacity, and are often forced to break the natural continuity."

This little passage has been of great concern to me lately, because I've been working on a new book that is fairly episodic. During my class on Plot I began to realize the importance of some sort of unifying thread between the episodes - something that keeps you reading, something so it will matter if you decide to skip over whole chapters or not. My plot summary tells me that Bateman will kill his co-worker (who, frankly, at page 200 is still barely distinguishable from the others in my mind) and then hear that this co-worked is actually still alive - leading both the reader and the psycho himself to wonder if he's really killed the man or just is so insane that he can't tell his imagination from reality. Not a bad hook - that almost even sounds like a plot. Too bad he didn't open with that instead of closing with it.
(less)

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11/21/07

Kelsey rated it:

This book is really amazing. It takes place in the "greed is good" era of 1980's America and is a picture of the flashy, monied life of wall street bankers. The main character - Patrick Bateman - is depicted in such a memorable way that I think he's really one of the all time stand out characters in literature.

This isn't pleasure reading - the book is sometimes hard to get through due to the long, long desciptions of either 80's music and culture or else the graphic descrip...more

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06/27/08

John rated it:

bookshelves: summer-reading--2008

Read in July, 2008

recommends it for: readers with guts of iron, psychopaths, yuppie scum, Jared Leto

When I walked up to the counter of my local bookstore (Denver's famous Tattered Cover) with American Psycho in my hand, the attendant behind the counter offered me a warning. "Ah yes," he said, mind reeling back to the bestsellers of seventeen years ago, "I remember reading this one when it came out. Not for the faint of heart, I'm afraid..."

"...more like the strong of stomach."

Although I had seen the motion picture adaptation of the novel an...more When I walked up to the counter of my local bookstore (Denver's famous Tattered Cover) with American Psycho in my hand, the attendant behind the counter offered me a warning. "Ah yes," he said, mind reeling back to the bestsellers of seventeen years ago, "I remember reading this one when it came out. Not for the faint of heart, I'm afraid..."

"...more like the strong of stomach."

Although I had seen the motion picture adaptation of the novel and was vaguely aware of the violence the book contained, at the time of purchase, I had no idea how apt that warning would be. And now, 400 grueling pages later, I can think of no better way to begin a review of this startling, but certainly worthwhile, novel.

Some experts on serial killers will repeatedly insist that this class of psychopath is not necessarily bad (at least not irredeemably so), but simply misunderstood. After taking a look at the amount of negative, hamfisted reviews of American Psycho on this very website, I'm inclined to give the same benefit of the doubt to Bret Easton Ellis' novel. Although its content is undeniably gruesome, writing off the novel as 'bad' or even 'unreadable' due to graphic content is like saying you can't stand to watch a hockey game when the gloves come off. Because while the shock and awe factor is certainly present, there is much more to this story than that.

However, even though I was fascinated by the book, I don't want to defend it to the point of downplaying its graphic content. Although the first 100 pages are relatively tame, building the yuppie side of protagonist Patrick Bateman and the utterly stupefying wealth he's surrounded by, the remaining three-quarters of the book is chock full of the most disgusting violence I've ever read. This is the kind of graphic stuff that would make Stephen King blush. Rape, disfigurement, torture and bloody murder quickly become recurring scenes in the book, as Bateman's sadistic side gets the better of him, and if you're still reading at this point, it's time to make a decision: set it down and miss out on a terrifying examination of the yuppie lifestyle at its worst, or press on and keep squirming for a few hundred more pages.

For me, the choice was an easy one to make on: suck it up and keep reading.

Ellis' fantastic writing style is what made it possible to stomach these graphic scenes. In the hands of a less-dedicated author, these torturous descriptions would have been either completely depraved or humorously amateurish, but Easton always handles it with this idea gently throbbing in the background: this is satire at its finest (and most grim). Which is to say that American Psycho is one of the most unusual books I've ever read. As numerous reviewers have already pointed out, the book spends a lot of time developing setting, but with great attention to (superficial) detail. None of Bateman's business associates are introduced without an explicit description of the brand-name duds they're wearing, but all of Pateman's victims are provided with the most crude physical descriptions possible (especially the women). Yuppie businessmen are all attractive, faceless entities; the names 'Ralph Lauren' and 'Giorgio Armani' appear more often--and are more telling details--than the names or actions of Bateman's colleagues on Wall Street.

There is a also an understated comedic element to American Psycho, although it is often merely a tense laugh, an uncomfortable pause between grizzly violent episodes. Take the three chapters spread throughout the book where Bateman discusses his love for popular 1980s musical artists (Whitney Houston, Genesis, and Huey Lewis and the News) ad nauseum. Incidentally, I loved these chapters as much as any other part of the book, and thought they provided a welcome comedic break in the monotony of Bateman's daily rituals of working out, booking reservations at five-star restaurants, and dismembering prostitutes in his upscale Manhattan apartment. I say again, the novel is not without its humorous flirtations, although it's usually a comedy as dark as Patrick's own twisted desires.

My main problem with the book is in the last 100 pages or so, the continuity to disintegrate (don't worry, no big spoilers here). At a time where the story could have been elevated above all the violent depravity and yuppie greed embodied by Patrick's character (somehow), Ellis lets Bateman's final descent into insanity pass by without much of a climax. Maybe this is a reflection of the protagonist's mental stability losing all footing, but I found the ending sort-of disappointing. Readers that need a story with a definitive, concrete ending will probably be even more confused or let down by the end of the book. There are some occurrences that bring into question Bateman's entire perception of the acts he's committed ('was it a dream or wasn't it?'), but no certain answer is given. Although this is a far more interesting ending than some grim grand finale would have been, it's also less exciting, and for readers who have spent devoted this much time to reading about this sicko's twisted fantasies--or reality--I think it's natural to want to see some justice done to him. In a tangible way, this doesn't really happen. But in a more abstract sense, the fact that Bateman never receives the punishment he deserves for what he's done--but is still the victim of his own crazed fantasies--is one of the most interesting twists in the novel. I think the ending is the most contentious part of the novel, even more so than the adult content contained beforehand, and without giving away what transpires, I'll just say a lot of it is left open to interpretation: very little is spelled out for the reader.

Overall, it didn't take long for me to realize that the warning the book store clerk had given me when I bought American Psycho was dead-on. This is not a book that I would recommend to anyone casually, nor one I would just pick up and read again on a whim. The adjectives used to describe American Psycho--disturbing, grim, violent--are enough to make this an unforgettable read, but also just cause for many people to be offended by the book's content, or (hopefully) avoid it altogether. But I feel anyone who gave this novel an honest chance and still came away feeling like it was nothing more than 'pornography' might be missing a big part of the story. While reading American Psycho, I didn't feel like Ellis' intent was to subject his readers to the kind of blunt, repetitive violence reminiscent of a prison beating--although I could see how someone else might, I guess. Instead, I felt that his novel required this sort of demented protagonist, these scenes of horrific behavior, to give a startling glimpse into a possible by-product of an American lifestyle built on the worst human emotions. As Bateman describes himself early on in the novel, "I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust." By the end of the book, the protagonist is an impossible character to like, but an even more difficult one to understand. For my money, Ellis' mere attempt to make a monster like Patrick Bateman come to life on the page is reason enough to give American Psycho an earnest try. Just make sure you don't read it while eating.(less)

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

5 comments

03/25/08

E rated it:

Read in March, 2008

I've been reading books that were technically "too old" for me for a long time-- I'd hit the Adult Fiction section of my local library by age 1o-- but it rarely happens that upon finish/reading a book, I think, "Uh-oh. This was a bad idea."

I'm not saying that looking back on my ten year-old self reading Lord of the Flies and 1984, I think there wasn't any minor scarring from that, but I have a steady head and a strong stomach. Aside from American Psycho, the only...more

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01/03/08

Ashley rated it:

Read in January, 2008

recommended to Ashley by: Drunken Book Group

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Surprisingly good!

I didn't want to read this and after about 3 pages I was a hair away from putting it down (if there's one thing I can't stand to read, it's about fashion)... But I kept on and really took a liking to it. Yes, it is obscene (for lack of a better word), with a nearly relentless barrage of misanthropic, misogynistic violence. The brutally explicit detail of sex and murders (apart and combined) are almost ridiculous in their excessiveness (the Rat scene was even a bit ...more Surprisingly good!

I didn't want to read this and after about 3 pages I was a hair away from putting it down (if there's one thing I can't stand to read, it's about fashion)... But I kept on and really took a liking to it. Yes, it is obscene (for lack of a better word), with a nearly relentless barrage of misanthropic, misogynistic violence. The brutally explicit detail of sex and murders (apart and combined) are almost ridiculous in their excessiveness (the Rat scene was even a bit hard to get through). As is the name-brand by name-brand description of everyones outfits! What makes it work is its message. Though certainly a bit heavy handed in the delivery, this book is a biting criticism of the banality of success and wealth and conformity and consumerism. And how trying to fit in with that drove a young man past the brink of sanity.

Pat Bateman is a young, handsome and quite rather successful Wall Street fellow. Harvard, condo, wealth, "taste", beautiful friends (and women), arrogant and confident yet... There is something amiss. Somewhere deep inside it is apparent that these elitist snotty friends and their lives that they lead are so hollow, insubstantial and fake that there is a part of him that needs to break out, to break free of this reality of theirs in which the only things that they value are things that are really of no value (the brand of suit you wear, how hip your lunch spot is, having the right friends...). Under the stress of maintaining his facade and dealing with these people and his life, his mind starts to unravel. Pat hits a point where he starts killing people, reacting to the terribleness of his own shallow existence, in an attempt to find something that makes him feel alive amidst such a dead life.

Soon it becomes apparent that he's not so much becoming a homicidal maniac as that he is losing his mind. Inside his insanity, he can concoct a superhuman ability for violence and as it fails to satisfy him, it grows as he imagines himself to be an unstoppable and uncatchable madman. As he is generally unable to separate his fantasies from reality, his life becomes a mess. And as his mind falters more and more, his delusions get more and more violent, passing the believability mark and continuing down from there. By the end of the book, the scenes he has concocted are almost cartoonish in nature.

The tricky thing is the heavy-handedness of the delivery. For 380 pages, the banality of these people and the violence and frustration in his mind is all just thrown at you over and over. While it is hard to take (in oh so many ways), I think that this is necessary to the point of the book. To really express his inner terror at the superficial person he has made himself and the "tasteful" life that he leads on the outside, we have to come face to face with the boring barrage of idiocy and shallowness that is his environment.

As he says, he is just trying to fit in, but fit in with something that is much less than he. (less)

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11/08/07

Emily rated it:

(review of isbn 0330319922)

Read in January, 2004

recommends it for: people not offended by really offensive things

I enjoyed this book immensely, although I was reading it on a plane and feeling very self conscious because the main character was having extremely graphic sex with a prostitute and then very graphically slaughtered her.
I was reading a lot of reviews of this book and there are a lot of very strong reactions. Reading this book is a very disturbing experience and maybe part of the reason I liked this book is because I've never really read a book like this before. Sometimes it is easy to fe...more I enjoyed this book immensely, although I was reading it on a plane and feeling very self conscious because the main character was having extremely graphic sex with a prostitute and then very graphically slaughtered her.
I was reading a lot of reviews of this book and there are a lot of very strong reactions. Reading this book is a very disturbing experience and maybe part of the reason I liked this book is because I've never really read a book like this before. Sometimes it is easy to feel desensitized towards violence, but this book brings it to a new level. I personally find serial killers and psychopaths very interesting because I don't understand at all how people can do things like that. I am extremely sensitive and queasy, so getting to a point where you can not only kill people, but torture them and wear their genitals as a hat is totally confounding to me. And part of what I liked about this book is this aspect of seeing into the mind of someone who is so unaffected and even aroused by violence (whether the portrayal is accurate or not, I guess we don't know). As to the misogyny, I think that it's obvious, and the reason that the violence is so disturbing is because the violence is very interlaced with sex. I personally like my sex very separate from my violence and even a tinge of violence in sex makes me very uncomfortable. I really don't understand the appeal at all, and the fact that it is so rampant in pornography and our society at large is very unsettling for me. Like a lot. I feel like I pretty much can't watch porn because someone is bound to get held down and sprayed with cum. I do think there are a lot of men who either are born being aroused by violence against women or have been raised to be. Even thinking about it makes my stomach upset and makes me feel very depressed. Still, I think most boys who might have some sex/violence thing are still going to be repulsed by this book. If anything, I would think that this book would really de-glamourizes violence and sex. But I'm sure there are still some fucked up people who think it sould be awesome to have sex with someone and then disembowel her through her vagina. Just like there are probably some people who can really relate to Humbert Humbert. (less)

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09/29/07

Nicole rated it:

bookshelves: bookclubread

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: people with strong stomachs

What i learned form this book???? That rich wall street people are psychotic pricks!! No, I am sure not all of them are but in this book, you really wanted pat bateman to kill them all.

This book was an excellently written satire of the 80's and the me me me mentality of the young wall street, banker, investors and just how surface people can be. It was written in a way that almost makes you feel sorry for our culture. During our meeting a very intersting point made by C. still rings ...more

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09/01/07

Malissa Medina rated it:

I think my first comment is - Holy Crap! This is simultaneously the book that I wish I'd never heard about and a book that I'm so glad I've read. Most of the ideas and imagery presented in this book are incredibly disturbing and haunting and I wish I'd never been exposed to them. At the same time, the creativity and the way these ideas are presented are phenomenal. I will never ever read this book again, and I don't know that I'd necessarily recommend it - it's certainly not for the faint of hea...more

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07/25/07

Bilgewater rated it:

recommends it for: fearless readers

If you're sufficiently "up" on American culture, this book will blow you away. So amazingly subtle and brazenly powerful at the same time you won't be able to put it down. Easily a required read for anyone who loves to be shocked by deep writing and multiple, overlaying, and twisting plots.

Do not approach this book as you would a King or a Koontz though; this one is not for the weak, timid, recreational reader. Like an intense roller coaster, if you're strong enough to...more

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04/24/08

Pat rated it:

"Hey, I'd sure like money. Maybe I'll write a book about cutting off a woman's jaw and facefucking her! Yea! People'll kick up a fuss and buy it based on controversy alone! But books are long, and I can honestly only come up with like four ways to kill people, and three different types of helpless people to kill! Maybe I'll pile it with 300 pages of repetitive filler about what Yuppies wore ten years ago, French cuisine, blow, and record reviews of ironically shitty bands I've plagiariz...more

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12/09/07

Laura rated it:

Read in December, 2007

recommends it for: those with strong stomachs

I know this is supposed to be a brilliant satire of American consumerist culture blah-de-blah-blah-blah...and I'll acknowledge that (probably) it is. At first, it's even enjoyable. The writing is snappy and the characters are funny and bizarre. The female characters, however, are as vapid as they come. Hard to tell if Pat Bateman is the sexist or Ellis. There is no gore (or hardly any) until page 100 or a little after, which is where I stopped reading. It was the most graphic and cruel murder sc...more

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quotes from this book

"…there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there. It is hard for me to make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever did exist. There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing…." More quotes...