***Updated***Dark and terrifying (American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis)

Member Name: LAH10

Product:	American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
Date:	21/04/01 (40 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Classy and witty

Disadvantages: dark and gruesome

American psycho is a brutal but brilliantly satirical insight into the eighties business class America, and shows sometimes all too accurately the dangerous power of money.
It is terrifying in its detail, but hugely witty and stunningly written.
Easton-Ellis has a unique style which is captivating and very easy to read.

For the few people who haven't heard what American Psycho is about....heres the plot in brief. Patrick Bateman (the main character and narrator) is 26 and works on Wall Street. He is good-looking, intelligent, and a serial killer. His hobbies include torturing animals to death and well killing people...mostly women in various horrible ways.
During the course of the book he kills a lot of people, goes to hundreds of expensive restaurants, works out at the gym every day, has facials and watchs the Patty Winters Show compulsively. (He also has to return many videos...read the book you'll understand). American Psycho is bleak, very dark and in places gruesome but these are not always bad points as Easton-Ellis succeeds in portraying the greed, corruption of a materialistic society which we all recognise.

I have just finished reading American Psycho and although I enjoyed it hugely, it has a number of down points. Many parts are simply unnecessary such as endless pages of Batemans christmas shopping list, every now and then interupted by the actual story. Although many 'rants' such as this are necessary to build up his character and show his obessive compulsivness, others simply bore.
For example his morning routines are fascinating and very witty, but the reader doesn't need to know Batemans exact gym routine or his christmas shopping list for that matter!

I also found that much of the gore and death (for which American Psycho is so controversial) was unnecessary and for me it spoiled the book which otherwise was very well written and constructed. It is almost as if Easton Ellis writes ma
ny of these parts as pure self indulgence rather than to add to the book.

In my humble opinion American Psycho would have been much more scary if these horrible deaths were casually mentioned (as many others are) instead of described in such stomach turning detail. I'm a big horror fan and fairly used to gory scenes but it took even me a while to finally pick the book up and start reading again after one particularly nasty murder.

Despite the gore and sometimes unnecessary vulgarity it is impossible to put down. American psycho raises many issues and goes into to them in much more depth than the film does. If you've seen the movie, then reading the book is a must!
I saw the movie first and it definitely didn't spoil the book. The movie sticks fairly closely to the book and Christian Bale is stunning as Bateman.

Its classy beyond belief and very stylish but beware of nightmares, there is a lot of gore so not for the squemish and also lots of sex. Easton-Ellis has a talent for the combining the funny and the serious in his portrayal of Bateman and the over all product is an astounding piece of writing.

But beware American Psycho is not a book for all tastes as what some see as dark and necessary to show Batemans total lack of humanity others see as tasteless, violent and bloodthirsty.

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