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Less Than Zero

3.56 of 5 stars 3.56 · rating details · 26,317 ratings · 1,518 reviews

Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980's, this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age, in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money a place devoid of feeling or hope.

Paperback, 195 pages

Published by Picador USA (first published 1985)

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Apr 26, 2008 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of today's mtv reality shows about overprivileged, lobotomized so-cal youth

Recommended to Jessica by: marshall

Shelves: leetle-boys, groups-of-people, california-über-alles, substance-related-disorders

This book seems boring and shallow, and reading it gives me an anesthetized, hollow, detached feeling that I would not describe as entirely pleasant.

And yet I cannot seem to stop, and whenever I have to, I become very anxious to return to it as quickly as I can. Its appeal is no less powerful for being difficult to pinpoint or explain.

This experience reminds me of something, but I'm not sure what.... Oh yeah, I know: Bright Lights, Big City. Way better, though, so far. I love all the characters'...more

64 likes · like · see review

Apr 21, 2011 mark monday rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: time-to-come-of-age

some books are like the face of Justin Long:

this is a highly punchable face. don't you just want to punch that smug look right off of his corny face? it is a face born for being stomped into the ground. ugh, i hate justin long. although i loved him in the last few seconds of Jeepers Creepers, he was perfect for the role of Gutted Horror Victim.

i also hate Less Than Zero. i blame this book for all of the ennui-laden, masturbatory nonsense that was foisted upon the world in the 80s. shouldn't Bre...more

28 likes · like · see review

Jul 18, 2008 RatsRGods rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: assholes

Recommended to RatsRGods by: an asshole

Rich kids doing drugs. Ugh.
Actually, my view of this book was kind of distorted by this man I used to work with at this coffee shop.
He was a huge fan if this author. And he was also a writer himself (published in Hustler!). He was in his 40's and still trying to break out. He had a son that was autistic and had tons of medical bills but because he still wanted to be a struggling artist his family had to suffer.
So, he gives me the manuscript of one of his books (that was rejected by several publi...more

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Aug 04, 2010 Krok Zero rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: summer-2010

Last year I spent a few months as an intern for a major national arts publication, which shall remain nameless because that makes me look cooler than if I just blurted it out. I had a few regular duties at this (unpaid) gig, the primary one being transcription of interviews. You might think that transcribing is drudgery, and in a sense it is. But if the interview subject was interesting—and, given this publication's bent and cachet, most of the subjects were interesting—it provided a rare glimps...more

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Jan 13, 2011 Kathryn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: drugs, family-drama

Books of this nature age well with me. I keep thinking about what happened, what Ellis might have meant. I find it fascinating what people walk away with from this and American Psycho. It seems rather obvious to me that this book is not just about spoiled rich drug addicts wasting away while taking some of their world with them. The characters' actions, more specifically their lack of action, says so much for the state of the times in this book, for LA, for American culture, all of which I find...more Books of this nature age well with me. I keep thinking about what happened, what Ellis might have meant. I find it fascinating what people walk away with from this and American Psycho. It seems rather obvious to me that this book is not just about spoiled rich drug addicts wasting away while taking some of their world with them. The characters' actions, more specifically their lack of action, says so much for the state of the times in this book, for LA, for American culture, all of which I find maybe even more relevant today.

The fact that people can walk away from this book thinking it is only about drugs, that they "did not get it", or they thought it pointless, just makes me sad. Ellis is an extremely talented writer. His writing is deceptive and layered. The best way for me to convey why I so far love his books is to relate what I think when I read them. I wonder what his characters say about me, why I am able to relate and what my reactions to what happens reflect about me. About LA (a place I hope never to return to) and other such cities, with sterile environments and filthy underbellies, places where people come together to consume and waste. About the indifference of youth and American culture. About relationships and detatchment, self abuse and self worth, vanity and denial. What Ellis writes feels real, no matter how awful or horrific. That is truly frightening.

This book is especially disturbing to me because the youth protrayed are now everywhere, no longer only the rich or confined to the cities. Indifference spreads with each generation.

The main character has zero emotional attachments to his world, his family and friends. He has desensitized himself into acceptance. When he faces things in the book that shock or bother him, his true self shines through.

Three scenes really shocked me and that is all I will say about that since I did not see them coming at all.

Some of the most disturbing parts of this book are simple comments made by Clay's family. Family should protect and it is little wonder how Clay started on his current path. Clay and his friends are at that age when they are becoming adults and are now responsible for their actions more than ever before. I am a firm believer that people instinctively know basic rights from wrongs and when a youth becomes an adult and chooses a knowing wrong, then they may be close to evil. Ellis' characters choose evil and let the guilt run off instead of settling in.

I think the book tried a little too hard towards the end but it worked so I bumped 4 stars to 5 stars. The typical use of brand names, music, and posh scenes, cities and clubs and film and music, all shine through as in American Psycho, though maybe not as strong here . This is an incredibly sad book about, as one character describes, a beautiful boy who makes no effort, and though I am having problems writing coherently, summing up my thoughts and reactions in an organized manner, I know I could ramble all night about this book and still be slightly confused as to why I like it so much.
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Sep 20, 2007 Derek rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Why should I care about Bret Easton Ellis' characters if he doesn't care about them? The aptly titled Less Than Zero didn't bother to go into the character's inner-dialogue any more than it bothered to show a character that anyone might care about. Sure, the things they do (random sex, drug abuse, etc) make great fodder for fiction, but if there's no counterweight of compassion, what do I care if they fuck up their lives?

I get it: they're emotionally vacant and aimless because of the environment...more

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Dina Hey wait, I just realized that this is the American Psycho guy, which you wouldn't read because you already read some other book of his and didn't lik...more
Sep 25, 2007 06:19am

Cory Dina wrote: "Hey wait, I just realized that this is the American Psycho guy, which you wouldn't read because you already read some other book of his a...more
Nov 14, 2009 05:48pm

Derek I'm not quite sure I understand this comment. Are you suggesting we cut Ellis a bit more slack because it's only his first book and hadn't yet found a...more
Nov 15, 2009 06:55am

Jun 09, 2007 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One question before we start, "Anthracite?"

Less than Zero is a meditation on the soul-less, physically obsessed world that was born in the 1980s. Yes, perhaps the pedulum has swung to and fro since the publication, but I find the relevance striking to today's pop-culture aesthetic. If Easton Ellis was writing this story today, which his website says he is working on a sequel!?! TECHNOLOGY would or will seperate the characters even more. The Internet is the most convenient place at this time to "...more

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Apr 30, 2008 Ricky rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: nihilists, dummies

Shelves: saw-the-film

Okay, so I was willing to accept this book as a criticism of the emptiness of modern culture. I was willing to overlook the dullness and amateurishness. But it just got duller and duller and duller. And yes, we know American culture is a wasteland. But there has to be a more interesting way to get this across. And if I am to accept this book as metaphor, I'm going to have to disagree with its premise because I think it's cynical to the point of inaccuracy. It was like a Wes Anderson movie: I can...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Mari rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After reading a lot of reviews of this book it appears that you either like the book or hate it. Yes there are a lot of kids with more money than they know what to do with but you can find more to the story.

This book is about a guy named Clay. He's become emotionally numb in order to accepted in his society.

He is surrounded by his peers (I don't use the word friends since it would mean he has some feelings towards them) who have no moral bounds and act only on their own selfishness. There are t...more

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Oct 19, 2011 Shadazz rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, bookcrossing

When I read the story of Clay Whats-his-last-name and his L.A. buddies I think of The Great Gatsby. No surprise because they are both a sort of satirical, depiction of lifestyles decades apart; yet somehow similar. This would be a very general likeness, I could go on talking about the common elemets the two books have for me: the importance of billboards and their text or images (Elvis billboard and Dr. Don't-remember-his-name with the big eyes billboard); the detachment of the narrator; Running...more

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Mar 28, 2009 Evan rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009-reads, none-too-good, tami-tomes, __in-my-collection, pop-culture-misc, tinseltown-decadence, _less-than-200-pages, drugs-n-shit

So far I don't think I'm learning very much about the privileged youth class of LA in the 1980s, but it reads like a breeze. Clay, I'm sure, has been compared to Holden Caufield, and the book's blase ironic tone matches. No great shakes maybe, despite its fame, but I can only say I wish I could write something as good.

So drugs and casual sex and ennui---always with the image industry of Hollywood touching all---lit in the bright So-Cal noir sun.

Not much changed essentially from the days of Nath...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Clare rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: recommended-by-michael, cant-get-you-off-my-mind, dark-bones, debaucherous

A large part of this book is boring and the characters are all just horrible people but the overall effect is amazing. It races along full of boring details and you feel like sticking pins in your eyes and shouting at the characters but then it drops in anvil heavy, horrific statements so subtly it just merges into the text. It's so subtle it makes it all the more shocking.
Bret Easton Ellis is amzing at writing dialogue. This was a point that kept me going. All his "and then I did this, and then...more A large part of this book is boring and the characters are all just horrible people but the overall effect is amazing. It races along full of boring details and you feel like sticking pins in your eyes and shouting at the characters but then it drops in anvil heavy, horrific statements so subtly it just merges into the text. It's so subtle it makes it all the more shocking.
Bret Easton Ellis is amzing at writing dialogue. This was a point that kept me going. All his "and then I did this, and then I did this, blah blah blah" is punctuated by perfect and real dialogue. Also I like the reminiscing parts.
The last paragraph makes you think "wow!" and it all comes together in string of horrible, boring and growing ideas. A little book that makes lots of big points about lots of everyday things.

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Updated - Full Review as on Citizen's Eye Website

I read Less Than Zero in one night, about four and a half hours and for most of it I was bored senseless. Every twenty pages or so I’d dramatically let the book fall to my knee; finger still holding my place, and roll my eyes thinking “When will something happen?!”

But then things start to happen and you quieten down. And then you reach the end and you think “Wow.” And all the boring stuff doesn’t seem quite so boring, it all had a place and wrote its place so well.

Anyhow, Less Than Zero is the story of Clay and his friends being bored in Los Angeles with too much money and no real direction. They are generally all hateful people which makes the boringness even harder to bear. You do start to feel like sticking pins in your eyes as Clay describes his days lying about, his nights pushing drugs in his face and cruising around in expensive cars and going to dull sounding parties. These people aren’t real friends, they’re bored scene people who have rich and famous parents and can’t be bothered to pick up their own lives in a constructive way.

But this is how it feels, to be a character in the book I mean and that’s why it is so effective. You become desperate for something to happen and then when it does, dropping anvil like statements subtly into the story, you are a little relieved but mainly repelled and you just want to turn away from this whole world.

The dialogue keeps you going really. Bret Easton Ellis is just so good at writing dialogue, it crackles into life like an old record player, the more you read their voices the clearer they become and more real.

The text is interspersed with passages of reminiscence from Clay. These are filled with some truly terrific writing; contrasted with the dull but effective narration and the sparkling dialogue we get a full picture of the extent of this writer’s talent. Now we have a built up portrait of what this book achieves and really it is great. You think it is boring but it’s not, it’s great and when you can see the whole thing you see what I mean and the last sentence really hammers home the true visionary nature of this book.

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Jul 12, 2010 Jasmine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american

azooooooom!

Okay I am giving this book five stars for the exact opposite reason I gave amphibian five stars. This book is everything that I want from a book. Moral bankruptcy, intense boredom, and of course a good dose of spoiled rich kids. Although I have to say that Clay is clearly a device being used to stop you from becoming too angry with the books inherent moral bankruptcy, after all the main character is disgusted too, not that he intends to do anything about it but hell at least he isn't...more azooooooom!

Okay I am giving this book five stars for the exact opposite reason I gave amphibian five stars. This book is everything that I want from a book. Moral bankruptcy, intense boredom, and of course a good dose of spoiled rich kids. Although I have to say that Clay is clearly a device being used to stop you from becoming too angry with the books inherent moral bankruptcy, after all the main character is disgusted too, not that he intends to do anything about it but hell at least he isn't jumping in to help Sade and Bataille. Well there is probably some legal repercussion to driving the rapist home, but I mean right, whatever.

This book is fluid, sexuality is fluid, plot is amorphous, people are fluid I mean which one was Alana again? Who is the drug dealer today? I have no idea. Even morality seems to be a reasonably fluid construct when it decides to exist, which is only when the immoral act is occurring in Clay's line of vision from what I can tell. Weirdly this is all foiled by inflexibility. Apparently "people are afraid to merge". This among a few other statements come back several times unchanged in the text. These reflect Clay's inability to truly belong in the LA society. I believe he has clearly been poisoned by the East Coast. I mean I grew up on the east coast, reasonably close to new hampshire and to be honest no matter how nihilistic and postmodern you manage to become you still have this weird subconscious, "people don't act like that" thing in the back of your head. It is not unlike being catholic and you can only understand it if you grew up in a place where it exists. I can't explain my actions to people who didn't grow up with me when I refuse to call multiple times and instead will sit on a stoop and wait for them to notice that I called once. I feel like Clay got infected with this in New Hampshire and when he goes home he just can't remember how to be a part of what he once was, poor Clay. I really feel for him.

This is exactly the kind of book that I like and people like Greg tend not to because it is about rich spoiled brats and how messed up their various lives are, and I love it. I feel like I am missing something in this review, I may or may not remember later and add it so no one can read it.

Also Karen, Courtney may want to borrow this book next.
Now I read Imperial Bedrooms. (less)

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Mar 22, 2012 Drian Nash rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

This is hovering between two and three stars for me.
I know this is kind of the point in a way but I find it really hard to feel any sympathy for a bunch of rich kids in LA. I find it hard to relate to how much their parents dont care and just leave them to sniff coke around their pools while the maids who are stoned do a half assed job.

This book doesnt reflect a reality I know or understand, however it very well may exist. Parts were good, specificly the end. but alot of the books characters blu...more

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Sep 22, 2008 Ailsa Lillywhite rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: No one I currently care for.

Recommended to Ailsa by: Tatum

This book probably deserved more than three stars. But I just can't give it any more than that. I HATE this book. I hate it with my whole soul. It's so true and I am massively depressed after reading it. It perfectly illustrates the life of a completely useless waste of a human being and all his useless friends and their useless lives. It's awful. They should all be put out of their (and our) misery. The best thing I can say is that this book serves as a glorious example of how not to be. The sc...more

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Nov 03, 2008 Maya Panika rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bret Easton Ellis documents the life of Clay, eighteen years old, back home in LA for the holidays from his New England college. Clay does little. He moves in a daze, from bedroom to pool to parties and tense family dinners, watching the lives of his family and friends – mostly fellow teens with no direction, too much money and too much freedom – their parents all divorced and mostly absent.

The style is choppy- deliberately so – as Clay’s thoughts and feelings grasshopper through observations a...more

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Jul 10, 2008 Jonathan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who like to be depressed

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

This was a very bleak novel about a group of morally bankrupt people living in L.A. during the eighties. The protagonist, Clay, comes back to California from his New Hampshire college for summer break. The novel focuses on his interaction with his old friends and his family.

There seems to be no limit to the emptiness and depravity of the characters in this novel. Ellis seems to keep you just on the verge of feeling compassion for Clay, but Clay's behavior and the choices he makes keep you from r...more

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Apr 02, 2008 Bryce Wilson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

Read when I first moved to LA, and it more or less summed up my feelings about the place in other words a stripmall that got cancer where your soul gets a general anesthetic while it rots.

Reread a year and a half later, it no longer has quite the same effect which either means I've become my soul is rotting right on schedule, or that well I don't know what the second option would be.

The fact is that while Bret's minimalist prose is still very impressive, the story of a bunch of "cocksucking co...more

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Mar 08, 2009 Jeff rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I was pretty disappointed in this book. It comes across as a little dated. One of the reviews on the back cover referred to it as a modern-day Catcher in the Rye. Now granted, my copy is the original 1985 paperback printing, and at the time, that may have been an accurate assessment. I can see how someone might see this novel as a cross between Salinger and Henry Miller, but when it comes down to brass tacks, Less than Zero really is just a bunch of spoiled LA teens running around, snorting coke...more

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Jan 19, 2008 Thomas rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: foundation-texts

I re-read this while in L.A. late summer 2007, and I was surprised how much power it still possesses. It was such a comforting hollow to crawl into when I found it in 1986, and I suppose I liked it for many of the same reasons that made it a classic, at least for the unfortunately tagged Generation X.

Revisiting the novel, though, was a blast, largely because it was nothing like I remembered. That God-awful film of it, starring Robert Downey Jr. and my then-heartthrob Andrew McCarthy, has tainted...more I re-read this while in L.A. late summer 2007, and I was surprised how much power it still possesses. It was such a comforting hollow to crawl into when I found it in 1986, and I suppose I liked it for many of the same reasons that made it a classic, at least for the unfortunately tagged Generation X.

Revisiting the novel, though, was a blast, largely because it was nothing like I remembered. That God-awful film of it, starring Robert Downey Jr. and my then-heartthrob Andrew McCarthy, has tainted the narrative’s impression. The text drifts much more than I recalled, and is deliciously paranoid. But there’s a pining at its core, an almost sentimentality that jumped out at me.

These kids are all stuck in these ruts, plowing ahead on these self-destructive, neglected courses, and deep down they all keep wishing for the simplicity of their former pre-collegiate lives. Late in the book, Clay gets out and wanders through his old elementary school, tries to remember how to play the song from his second-grade Christmas recital, sees kids playing handball, “a game I forgot existed,” then takes off “without looking back.” The effort of looking back causes every character immense personal discomfort and regret. They miss the friends they had, the relationships lost. During a party, Clay asks a film student yammering about a recent hit sci-fi film, “Didn’t it bother you the way they just kept dropping characters out of the film for no reason at all?” The film student replies, “Kind of, but that happens in real life. I mean, doesn’t it?” Yes, and that’s why Clay gives Blair a forlorn, or possibly just empty, glance. They’re dropping out of each other’s lives, and Clay just ... can’t deal. He keeps reminiscing about the good ol’ days in italics. And his friend Daniel sums it all up at yet another party:

“I want to go back,” Daniel says, quietly, with effort.
“Where?” I ask, unsure.
There’s a long pause that kind of freaks me out and Daniel finishes his drink and fingers the sunglasses he’s still wearing and says, “I don’t know. Just back.”

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Dec 22, 2007 Saxon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: art kids...

This book is empty. Void of characters who are really distinguishable. Void of any lengthy sentences or description. Void of much emotion. And it works really well for this story.
Taking place in the early 80's in LA, Ellis employs a simplicity that lacks of depth and heavy description which perfectly coincides with the emptiness of the characters, the setting and the lifestyles they lead. The end result is a novel that is subtely errie and grostesque and makes you really glad you aren't rich.
I...more

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Aug 21, 2007 Sean rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i've only read this and "The Rules of Attraction" - way back in the late '80s, when they first came out. lurid, pulpy and fun, fast reading indeed. but ultimately i walked away feeling like they were disposable, empty calorie novels. and have never been compelled to read more. for the most part. i struggled with the (atavistic?) notion that having no point is the point. (drugs, sex, vanity, shame = rinse, repeat.) other authors have done it better.

funny though. he does seem to be the zeitgeist o...more

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Dec 18, 2008 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

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Sep 11, 2007 Cheri rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People Trapped on an Island with only this to read.

Shelves: ick

I remember reading this book when it came out and trying to figure out who the characters were. I am younger than Ellis by quite a bit, but there was a certain girl who was the older sister of a friend, who was supposed to be the template for one of the characters in the novel. That was probably the most interesting part of reading the book.

Knowing that several passages in the book are actually rip offs of Joan Didion's work, really gives you a whole other reason to loathe it outside of the artl...more

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Nov 16, 2007 Ryan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bret Easton Ellis is one of my favorite authors of all time.

"Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980's this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait of a lost generation".

This book contains my favorite exchange between any two characters in any book I have read.

"Where are we going?" I asked
"I don't know," he said. "Just driving."
"But this road doesn't go anywhere," I told him.
"That doesn't matter."
"What does?" I asked, after a little while.
"Just that we're on it, dude," he said.

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Nov 25, 2011 Sergei_kalinin rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Наткнулся на эту книгу в подборке под названием "Интеллектуальная литература"... мда... интеллектом в ней и не пахнет :((((

Начал читать, еле-еле осилил страниц 50. Зарисовки из жизни американской "золотой молодежи" изложенные в "документальном стиле": "я, одетый в (название бренда), пошел на тусовку к ней/нему (очень схематичное описание внешности и вновь одёжного бренда; характеры героев не отображены вовсе никак), послушал музыку (название группы), принял (название наркотика / спиртного /сигар...more Наткнулся на эту книгу в подборке под названием "Интеллектуальная литература"... мда... интеллектом в ней и не пахнет :((((

Начал читать, еле-еле осилил страниц 50. Зарисовки из жизни американской "золотой молодежи" изложенные в "документальном стиле": "я, одетый в (название бренда), пошел на тусовку к ней/нему (очень схематичное описание внешности и вновь одёжного бренда; характеры героев не отображены вовсе никак), послушал музыку (название группы), принял (название наркотика / спиртного /сигарет), после чего переспал с ней/ с ним.

Бегло пролистал книгу дальше - а вдруг какая-то интрига появится? Не появляется :((( от эпизода к эпизоду - одно и то же. Очень достаёт ПОСТОЯННЫЙ мат в речи героев, и из главы в главу - гомосячья и наркоманская темы :(

Возможно, некая "фишка" книги в том, что в ней фактически нет никаких эмоций, отношений и "морали". Текст напоминает некий формальный протокол: встретились, выпили/вмазались, трахнулись, утром было плохо, снова встретились (и так много раз по кругу). И к чему это всё написано???

То, что нынешняя / золотая / и т.п. молодежь "ужасна" - это мы и так знаем :) Сами когда-то были "нынешней молодёжью" :)))

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May 12, 2013 Amanda rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, dirty-dirty-dirty-dirty-dirty, recommended-by-others

Ok, so I read this book because it's sitting around my house, waiting for my roommate to read and I knew it would take no time at all, so I read it. I'm fluctuating between 2 and 3 stars. Here's the thing about it, though--my opinion is colored by the context in which I read the book. Let me tell you why my roommate has it sitting around the house.

She teaches high school.
At her high school, she's on the book selection committee. (I didn't know there were such things!)
One of the other teachers su...more

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May 04, 2013 Elisha Singer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is a lot people can say about Bret Easton Ellis and his persona as a "celebrity" author. Despite all the controversies that surround him in the media, at the end of the day he is simply an amazing author. He has cornered the market on angst and nihilism in the 1980's. He seamlessly blends the tragic and terrible into a tapestry you cannot loom away from.

Considering "Less Than Zero" was a debut novel, I expected to find the book uneven, or that of a fledgling author looking for his way. It...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Leo Olmos rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013

"Years ago people could have read some of your books and said, "Oh, this is just nihilism. These people don't exist! There's nobody that rich and stupid and narcissistic!"

Well, Surprise, Ellis remarks in a recent interview. Back in the 80s, the bunch of assholes portrayed here might have looked like an exaggeration of youth. Now, in the emerging trend of reality shows, now, where wealthy people get wealthier and famous for doing nothing, they have their perfumes, their TV time, their records, an...more "Years ago people could have read some of your books and said, "Oh, this is just nihilism. These people don't exist! There's nobody that rich and stupid and narcissistic!"

Well, Surprise, Ellis remarks in a recent interview. Back in the 80s, the bunch of assholes portrayed here might have looked like an exaggeration of youth. Now, in the emerging trend of reality shows, now, where wealthy people get wealthier and famous for doing nothing, they have their perfumes, their TV time, their records, and people watch them, and loved them, and cry for them, and want to be them, now is the time to revisit this book to really prove its relevancy.
Also, in 2013, with films like The Bling Ring and Spring Breakers, where nihilism is used to portray adolescence's obsession with celebrities and social status, it seems like a good time to read this little book, by this little author, that is nothing but rather brilliant.
It's a shame it's now cool to hate on Bret Easton Ellis, because people is missing what's really important here: He's a great writer. And this, being his first novel, written when he was 19, published at the age of 21, is a true proof of his genius.
Less Than Zero isn't a pleasant experience. Fascinating, yes, but deeply disturbing. Ellis' portrayal of a narcissistic, consumerist society, that is indifferent to extreme violence the way they are indifferent to their own lives, it's horrifying because, well, it's nothing but the truth. Combined with the writer's cold, energetic prose, the book works almost like magic. A disgusting trick. All the characters are disgusting human beings; they are awful and not even ashamed for that. And this, not being a moralistic novel, doesn't make a judgment on them, which makes it even more horrifying because, like I said, it's the truth.
But I won't lie to you: It's definitely not for everyone. If you don't feel immersed by its 20 first pages, you'd probably not like it at all.
For me, it's one of the best books on modern literature. Its possible many flaws are overshadowed by an immense sense of satisfaction at the end.
(less)

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Apr 24, 2013 Bjorn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I first read Breat Easton Ellis' 1985 debut Less Than Zero years and years ago, after reading and falling in love with American Psycho. So now that Elllis has published a sequel to it, I thought I'd start by re-reading the first book, since much like John Self notes in his review of Imperial Bedrooms - and I'll get back to this - I honestly couldn't remember much about it.

It's a different novel now than it was when I read it at 19 or 20. While it's certainly not as pornographic as its scandalous...more I first read Breat Easton Ellis' 1985 debut Less Than Zero years and years ago, after reading and falling in love with American Psycho. So now that Elllis has published a sequel to it, I thought I'd start by re-reading the first book, since much like John Self notes in his review of Imperial Bedrooms - and I'll get back to this - I honestly couldn't remember much about it.

It's a different novel now than it was when I read it at 19 or 20. While it's certainly not as pornographic as its scandalous big brother, LTZ is a novel that can be read for shock value alone, a seemingly nihilist tale of sex and drugs and MTV. No wonder I couldn't remember the story; there really isn't much of one. Clay, an 18-year-old from California and from money, has finished his first semester at college in New Hampshire and is now coming home to spend Christmas with his friends and family. For four weeks before heading back to college, he does little but go to a never-ending series of parties, do copious amounts of drugs, tan, sleep with acquaintances of both sexes, try to avoid conversations that always end up petering out or spinning off into a never-ending who's-dating-who's-dealing-who's-dead. It's all surface - but as always with Ellis, it's the kind of surface that invites you to punch (or stab) holes in it and see what's (lacking) underneath.

"But you don't need anything. You have everything," I tell him.
Rip looks at me. "No. I don't."
"What?"
"No. I don't."
There's a pause and then I ask, "Oh, shit, Rip, what don't you have?"
"I don't have anything to lose.

...which, admittedly, is not one of the novel's subtler moments. Ellis wrote this when he was 19, and at times it definitely shows that it's a first work: the prose falls apart now and then, and for all their empty-headed hedonism, some of the characters are a little too fond of stating the theme of the novel.

Typical Hollywood crowd. All the kids are on drugs and all the adults are on rollerskates.

These are kids who've always had it all. Who lack for nothing. They get Porsches for christmas, they've done it all at 18, they'll never have to work a day in their life. And yeah yeah yeah, you know where this is going, the emptiness of success and materialism in the glitzy 80s, we've heard it already. But there are few stories we haven't heard before, and what makes LTZ so fascinating is the narrative, the way it feels like a free fall through it with nothing to break the fall. Clay speaks to us in short, frantic chapters, a modern noir detective except tan and successful, searching for a plot that got lost. Sure, there's a missing friend mixed up in bad company whom he's trying to find and possibly rescue, there's a sometime girlfriend, etc, but he's frequently too cynical and too stoned to care. (One could probably make a good case that Pynchon's Inherent Vice, written 25 years later but set 15 years earlier, is a mirror image of this). Clay is 18 in 1985, he was born in the summer of love, the culmination of America's push to the west, and once it got there everything just piled up against the Pacific and got stoned and commodicized. This is as far as the idea got. Now it's all horrorshow - literally. As in Pynchon, there's a horror movie between the lines, werewolves, zombies and ghosts stalk the stifling Christmas heat of LA. They're just rumours, not real. Probably. But then, what is?

And before I left, I read an article in Los Angeles Magazine about a street called Sierra Bonita in Hollywood. A street I'd driven along many times. The article said that there were people who drove on the streets and saw ghosts; apparitions of the Wild West. I read that Indians dressed in nothing but loincloths and on horseback were spotted, and that one man had a tomahawk, which disappeared seconds later, thrown through his open window. One elderly couple said that an Indian appeared in their living room on Santa Bonita, moaning incantations. A man had crashed into a palm tree because he had seen a covered wagon in his path and it forced him to swerve.

That's more like it. Young Bret could write. Clay isn't a perfect narrator, and that's probably deliberate; he's grown up on the shallowest of lifestyles and ideas, his parents and his grandparents have nothing to pass on to him but money, and now he has no words, no concepts for why everything slips. The clues don't form a whole picture. For all of Ellis' supposed "refusal to condone or chastise [his characters'] behavior", to quote the blurb on the back, the howling emptiness under the glitzy surface is the question of the book. The emptiness that leads people to look for depth in Huey Lewis lyrics (or, if you're feeling mean, Ellis novels). How do you wake up from a nightmare when it contains everything you know?

Some of them would mouth the words to the song that was being played. But I'd concentrate on the teenagers who didn't mouth the words; the teenagers who had forgotten them; the teenagers who maybe never knew them.

Less Than Zero was shocking in 1985. Today, we have Paris Hilton. And the cosmic dance continues. (less)

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About Bret Easton Ellis

Bret Easton Ellis is an American author. He is considered to be one of the major Generation X authors and was regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack, which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney. He has called himself a moralist, although he has often been pegged as a nihilist. His characters are young, generally vacuous people, who are aware of their depravity but choose to en...more

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“But this road doesn't go anywhere," I told him.
That doesn't matter."
What does?" I asked, after a little while.
Just that we're on it, dude," he said.” — 97 people liked it

“People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles. This is the first thing I hear when I come back to the city. Blair picks me up from LAX and mutters this under her breath as she drives up the onramp. She says, "People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles." Though that sentence shouldn't bother me, it stays in my mind for an uncomfortably long time. Nothing else seems to matter. Not the fact that I'm eighteen and it's December and the ride on the plane had been rough and the couple from Santa Barbara, who were sitting across from me in first class, had gotten pretty drunk. Not the mud that had splattered on the legs of my jeans, which felt kind of cold and loose, earlier that day at an airport in New Hampshire. Not the stain on the arm of the wrinkled, damp shirt I wear, a shirt which looked fresh and clean this morning. Not the tear on the neck of my gray argyle vest, which seems vaguely more eastern than before, especially next to Blair's clean tight jeans and her pale-blue shirt. All of this seems irrelevant next to that one sentence. It seems easier to hear that people are afraid to merge than "I'm pretty sure Muriel is anorexic" or the singer on the radio crying out about magnetic waves. Nothing else seems to matter to me but those ten words. Not the warm winds, which seem to propel the car down the empty asphalt freeway, or the faded smell of marijuana which still faintly permeates Blaire's car. All it comes down to is the fact that I'm a boy coming home for a month and meeting someone whom I haven't seen for four months and people are afraid to merge.” — 94 people liked it

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