AMERICAN PSYCHOMi chiesi se ci fosse un collegamento tra il richiamo del libro e il fatto che non fossi più interessato a scrivere per Hollywood.Eppure, caro Brett, anche se non hai più voglia di scrivere per Hollywood, questa tua ultima fatica, il libro che ho appena finito di leggere, The Shards – Le schegge, cos’è se non un grande omaggio a Hollywood? A quei film, tipo il recente magnifico Babylon di Damien Chazelle. A quel cinema che sa trasformare in epica la storia anche più ordinaria. Che...

In generale Ellis mi fa paura per motivi scontati, perché chissà che cazzo ha nella testa. Ma nello specifico mi fa paura nella sua forma lunga, perché American Psycho è un fiume in piena dal quale anni fa ero riemersa spossata, perché la violenza non era dosata e ti travolgeva e ti dissanguava, ed era tutto troppo pesante. La brevità di Meno di zero e Le regole dell'attenzione mi aveva folgorata, American Psycho mi aveva spompata. E non sapevo come sarebbe andata con Le schegge. Ma ho trovato u...

Hahah! Hell YEAH! This was fun

(3/17/2024 reread) listen i loooove marinating in a long ass book told from the perspective of someone who irl would be Absolutely Insufferable. the second time around this is just as good. there’s so much you pick up on that makes it just as gripping and exciting even though you know how it’s going to pan out… or do you!!! year of the cat i will never listen to you the same but i have yet to meet a fat ass ambiguous book i didnt like(3/3/2024) eerie… tense… gripping… had so much of what i love ...

Did I just read this nearly 750 page book in two days? Tell me you’re crazy without telling me you’re crazy. In my defense, I didn’t realize how long this was before I requested it from the library. I simply saw B.E.E. had a new release and Mitchell said he would hurt me if I didn’t get it immediately. I think I was like a billion and a half down the wait list too, but ended up getting this within a week of asking for it so I think it’s safe to say others either were intimidated by the sheer vol...

The author opens up with a section telling how it’s taken him some forty years to write this book. It is, he says, based on events he witnessed; acts of violence perpetrated on people he knew, friends. He says that he’d tried to write the book years ago but at that time the act of recalling events he’d lived through had freaked him out so much he’d ended up in hospital, suffering from the mother of all panic attacks. When he was a high school senior, at seventeen years of age, a new boy had arri...

3.75* rounded-up. Not sure what prompted me to buy this book… I was never a big fan of BEE; his transgressive novels didn’t quite resonate with me (my vote goes to JG Ballard); but then again this was some time ago (almost 20 years!), so I said lets give it another go. Familiar themes: L.A. setting in the 1980s > loss of innocence & alienation > over-privileged, spoiled, entitled rich kids playing hardball (or they think so) > boring days and hedonistic nights full of sex, drugs and...

bret: i've connected the two dots me: you din't connect shitdisclaimer : i did not like this book and my review reflects of that. if you loved this book or if you are a diehard ellis fan, skip this review, don't @ me telling me i’m wrong for disagreeing with you or that everything that i didn't like was intentional: you are right, i didn't get it.still, i was able to form opinions that i will express in the entirely subjective review below which is less a review than a long-winded cathartic rant...

This utterly absorbing pseudo-autofictional variation on Less Than Zero with thriller and un-true crime elements as well as an abundance of sex scenes reads like an over-the-top historical novel about the 80's - it's an eccentric pageturner and great, smart fun! Our protagonist and narrator is one Bret Ellis, a man who penned bestsellers like, you know, American Psycho. The fictional Ellis looks back at the year 1981 and the events that made him who he is: We learn about a psychopathic killer ca...

Bret Easton Ellis, most famous for his books American Psycho and Less than Zero, has penned a wicked tale, one that is at once bewildering, terrifying, and completely absorbing. "We were teenagers distracted by sex and pop music, movies and celebrity, lust and ephemera and our own neutral innocence." We go back to the days when Bret himself was a senior at the private Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, CA. The year is 1981. He and his uber wealthy friends plan to spend their final year in high s...