Reviews with content warning for Hate crime - American psycho

This book started off so well, I really enjoyed reading it - even the long descriptions of what hes wearing etc - bc to me it served a purpose: a life that’s beautiful but devoid of anything.
Slowly, the murders became too gruesome. It stopped serving a purpose in my eyes.

What annoyed me the most was the ending. It fell flat. There’s nothing to this end, no justice served - which is not necessary- but there’s just nothing. I know this was the authors intent, that Bateman is secretly fighting to be caught but no one cares, but it still left me annoyed. It lost its coherence

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jacobalenciaga's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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ihavealibrarycardandilluseit's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

LOOOOVE this book. although do heed the content warnings lol, it contains pretty much all of them.

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pendularium's review against another edition

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dark

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The satire is good! How much of a total loser obsessed with image and being 'hip' Patrick Bateman is is good! The deep existential despair he feels at how his perfect life is immensely unfulfilling, and even his stepping into the 'taboo' world doesn't stave off that emptiness. However, the levels of extreme sexual violence against women are uh. deeply unnecessary?
It makes sense within the context of who Patrick is, but it truly doesn't feel like any point is being made(1); the violence against women is immensely gratuitous, especially compared to the few few times that any men are murdered; the actual meat of the satire in this book comes from the parts that people seem to deride as being dull; his obsession with designer clothes, fancy restaurants, gatherings with his 'friends', and the way that his violent acts contrast with that is, yes, a key part of the satire, but it's really hard not to notice how much more detail and emphasis Bret Easton Ellis puts on what Patrick does to the women.
Ellis' prose carries the book along well, and the satire and emotion at the core of the story is genuinely good, but despite his claim that "it [the book] wasn't four hundred pages of torture and mutilation and advocating the death of women. It's just some boring novel." American Psycho kinda is a whole lot of torture and mutilation and advocating the death of women, and for all that the rest of it is genuinely good, I can't really get past that and give it the rating I think the rest of the book deserves.

(1) yes, yes, its about how women, as an 'inferior' social group can be targeted in this way; Patrick murders and otherwise abuses a whole series of people who he deems lesser than him on the basis of race, religion, sexuality - it is only Paul Owens' murder that results in a detective being sent out - the book was conveying this fine and effectively in the earlier chapters where there was considerably less incredible violence specifically against women going on.

If anyone who is thinking about reading the book is reading this review, trust me it is almost certainly significantly more graphic than you are thinking - the film is incredibly sanitised in this area.

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bookshelfghost's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Very interesting book, it's easily the most vile I've ever read. Although I by no means enjoyed all the graphic descriptions of the murders, I found the whole throught process interesting. Definitely worth a read if you can power through the long descriptions of designer fashion.

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