American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

I had heard a lot about this one. I had even seen the movie, although I could not remember much about it. And then a review on Stripped Cover Lit reminded me that I had American Psycho and that I should probably clear it off my TBR.

Patrick Bateman is successful. He works on Wall Street (a place I no longer think one should aspire to work for). He also happens to be a psychopath. Enqueue grossness.

What can I say? At least it is over. I need a HUGE bucket of brain bleach.

This was too disturbing. I cannot even comment on the writing - with the exception of one thing, but I'll get to that in a bit. I suppose the book was effective, achieved its goal. I am completely grossed out, and I suspect that was Ellis's intention. But... I am a bit too disturbed to actually spend time figuring out what he was trying to say. He created really real characters too. I think that is what added to the disturbing experience. I found these characters extremely annoying (well, besides the Psycho - who managed to reach a category I haven't named yet), but I felt that was accurate.

The thing that really annoyed me was the constant reference to fashion designers. Every person in this book has their attire described by designer: Armani, and every other name (most that I don't even recognise). I get that this is done because that was what the shallow people in this damned book were interested in, adding to their shallow characters, and their extensive bank accounts. But by the third chapter I was irritated. Thirty chapters and I was thoroughly frustrated. Although - hearing about the fashion choices was a dang side safer that reading all the other stuff - which was not fun. Not fun at all.

While I suspect that a reread would get more out of this (what is up with the time; is it non-linear, or does it jump a lot?) I am not up for that - EVER. I was also not sure whether he had imagined all the killings. Those scenes sounded more like the porn videos he had been watching. The sex was explicit, yet the violence was either a description of the aftermath, or just the beginning. The thing with time that got me wondering if it was non-linear was that chapter on a random Thursday where he was running around the city like a complete lunatic. I found it hard to believe that he would have been able to pull off incidents like that while still being a successful bloke on Wall Street. As I said, I think I would get more out with a reread. Confession time: I ended up skim reading this.

I do think this was well done. I felt like I had been in the head of one super sick psycho. But after reading this, I really did feel like I could do with washing my head out.

This left me in the mood for light and fluffy. REALLY fluffy. BUT! Don't take my word for this. I have friends who have this listed as one of their favourite books. As to me: I gave it 1 star. It is fair to penalise a book for being too well done?

PS: The cover for this book is stunning!