Reviews

Lunar Park, by Bret Easton Ellis

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togata's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

jacobrollins's review against another edition

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5.0

Unsurprisingly Bret Easton Ellis has wowed me again. Lunar Park, a “mock” memoir, took me through a plethora of emotions: scared by its story to sad by its overall themes, indifference and even dislike for the main character to eventually sympathizing with him. I believe Lunar Park represents Ellis’ final awakening from his drug and alcohol induced career into adulthood, and that the pain and abuse inflicted upon him by his father is what caused him to start spiraling at such a young age in the start of his career. I loved the facets of horror Ellis included in the novel, specifically the indirect (and at one point, plainly direct) nod to The Shining, which also portrays a man who loses his mind following his father’s abuse. Also, Ellis’ overall acknowledgement that he’s a flawed human puts him in a whole new light for me. Powerful story! Well written.

erinbarton's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

5.0

a reflection of bret easton ellis’s strained relationship with his late father, wrapped inside a classic haunted house ghost story, with some serial killer, stalker, and child abduction sub plots. packed full of references to ellis’s previous novels in a very meta way. big themes of outrunning your past selves, the lingering effects of childhood, fatherhood, family, guilt, etc with the usual confusion and unreliable narrator of his other works ie american psycho and glamorama. absolutely loved this!!

Content Warnings

momotz's review against another edition

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5.0

Absolutely amazing especially if you are a Bret Easton ellis fan. Visually poignant and many of those images still linger in my head.

annm1121's review against another edition

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4.0

I'm giving this book a second read after I've read all of Bret's books. The first time I read this was when it first came out and I had only read American Psycho.

sbaunsgard's review against another edition

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It seems like at least 40% of the book is about how you just can't trust Bret Easton Ellis. The horrific story of an untrustworthy narrator is a good trick if you can pull it off, but I'm not feeling like Lunar Park pulls it off as Will Self's My Idea of Fun, Jim Thompson's After Dark My Sweet, or The Usual Suspects. Though the book is creepy in places, I never found it scary. Though the book is intended to be a parody of suburban life, I do not find that part of the book compelling, funny, or particularly pointed. The use of brand names pushed me into anachronism fact check territory, which I did not enjoy. There were interesting story elements here. They did not come together for me. I did really want to like this. But I just didn't. I only read about 60% of this before I got really really sick of hearing about fictional Bret Easton Ellis.