Reviews tagging 'Torture'

The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis

33 reviews

emiliaborsikova's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

2.5

Almost a dnf. The first half of this book is pretty much just buildup and an insight into the lives of the characters. Anything of specific significance happens in the last 70 pages. Which is terrible considering this book is 600 pages. Ultimately nothing happens except a bunch of privileged teenagers doing drugs, drinking and being rich. Except one day Bret, the narrator, randomly decides he thinks the new kid at school is a deranged psychopath murderer with very limited evidence (evidence being basically just delusion). For some reason Bret doesn’t actually believe his friendships are real and usually prefers to spend his time alone high on drugs. Half the book is basically him complaining about his supposedly perfect girlfriend who actually loves him but he’s gay and he is just using her, him doing drugs and drinking (everyone is so high all the time they apparently don’t care about girls being kidnapped and then them and animals/pets being  brutally mutilated), graphic gay content, tireless music references and Susan being called numb every 3 lines. Not to mention that the dialogue is bland and vague. The Trawler is randomly introduced and a bunch of information is dumped on you before it’s back to random scenes of the characters. The Trawler and the home attacks and the cult didn’t have a clear connection and the narrative felt blocky. Most of the time the plot of Robert and The Trawler seemed like a side plot. It’s about 80% filler and buildup (towards pretty much nothing actually) and 20% shocking graphic descriptions of gore (of both humans and animals). This book could have been 200 pages shorter and as my first Bret Easton Ellis book i’m a bit disappointed. Spoiler- Not to mention that there’s some vague reference that Bret, the narrator, may actually be the psychopath here (the arm bite mark scene) which had no effect other than to confuse me- The end tries to explain everything at once and I just think that the plot had so much potential but it was executed very badly - overwritten and vain. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Stalking, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Rape, Vomit, and Sexual harassment

giuliamrll's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, and Kidnapping

raeisreading's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Listening to the audiobook production of this book made it difficult to exist in my real life simultaneously because of how sucked into the tense madness of serial killer stalked 1980s LA. Provocative, intense, and truly gripping. Don’t stop once you start but don’t read before bed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Self harm, Sexual content, Torture, Blood, Murder, Outing, and Alcohol

annietaber's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared by a book before… but I also couldn’t bear to put it down. Completely intoxicating and sadistically captivating in the worst way. I’m going to be thinking about this one for a long time 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

beanwa's review

dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, Homophobia, Sexual violence, and Murder

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Drug abuse, Torture, and Stalking

frekdal's review against another edition

challenging mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Biphobia, Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

chromiumboron's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

First and foremost, JUSTICE FOR SHINGY.

"When you talk to me you're really talking to yourself, dude."

This book is fucking brilliant. I was content to never pick up another Bret Easton Ellis novel, having read American Psycho and Knowing BEE has a penchant for causing visceral reactions. Even though there is still descriptive language that instigates a slow burning anxiety with sprinkles of the very shocking, we have fictional Bret to be on the same page with us about how disgusting the events are. It's brilliant to have yourself be the good guy who is reacting to the horrible things the real Bret is writing! "When you're talking to me, you're talking to yourself."

Overall, the descriptive language and level of detail in this book is what makes it. It honestly reminds me a lot of David Chase's work on The Sopranos. Did we need the level of detail that we got? Did I need to know about Tommy Tutone playing at the Pirates of the Caribbean Blue Bayou restaurant in Disneyland for Grad Nite? Did I need to know that Bret's aunt's house's foyer light was a Sputnik chandelier? Did that add anything to the plot? No. But BEE is genius at painting such a vivid picture, and it makes the slow anxiety burn more real.

Here are some other notes I made throughout my time reading, most of them just appreciation for the descriptive imagery and level of detail:

• All the boys in our class were wearing Ralph Lauren Polo shirts in bold Easter-egg colors - pink and blue and green and purple . . .

  • Really enjoyed this because it was something I used to say when I worked in Baker Systems at Ohio State to my coworkers. "You look like an Easter egg today." Polos abound.
• The mention of Dominique Dunne's murder was a nice little add.

• Matt had never felt about me the way I'd felt about him, which would be a recurring theme for the rest of my life though, of course, I didn't know this yet on that September afternoon in 1981, when I was seventeen and still navigated on hope.

  • This got me good. It's so relatable. BEE does a great job at reminding us that these characters are in high school but, perhaps because it's narrated by older Bret, making sure we're still invested in them/aren't going to just brush them off because they're teenagers like maybe we normally would.

• "What do they do?" Terry asked, glancing up at me as he kept eating. I didn't know how to answer this because it didn't matter to me what the characters did. They existed, and I just wanted to convey a mood, immerse a reader into a particular atmosphere that was built from carefully selected details.

  • Man oh man, this is so meta! It's exactly what BEE is doing to us with this book. He's conveying a mood through a curated set of selected details.
• When Terry is trying to get Bret to admit he's gay: "Well I'm not limited," was how I answered with what I thought was the right touch of diplomacy. "I mean, it depends." I tried to appear casual, offered a little shurg, and then nervously sipped my ginger ale in the gayness of Trumps.
  • This got me good, too! I have also been in a situation where I'm trying to be chill about my queerness, and then felt EXTREMELY OBVIOUSLY GAY. This book is so queer and drops little hints about the queer experience, especially the beginning of reconciling with it, and I really appreciated that.
• BEE did lose me for a little bit when he said that Stevie Nicks looked hungover and puffy and then went on to talk about how hot Lindsay Buckingham is (several times!). I know he's gay, but in this house we are team Stevie.
• When Ryan says to Bret, "Dude, really? You were offended?" He sat up and looked at me, confused. "I'm sorry you're so sensitive." And then: "I'm just a guy." He smiled: dimples.
  • This makes me SO ANGRY but is so well-written! This is exactly the kind of line that I would let a man say to me when I was seventeen. If someone talked to me like this today, I'd punch them in the throat.

• This is the first moment that I can look back on in my life when I can locate the cluelessness of heterosexuals about gay men.

  • This is also painfully relatable. Straight men don't know shit about shit, and it often makes them homophobic, even if they don't actually mean to be.

  • And none of this had anything to do with Robert Mallory because, according to Thom, maybe Robert was gay, without realizing you had to be gay to understand that Robert Mallory most definitely wasn't gay . . .

    • Hilarious and relatable in a very similar way.

• But then, I thought, as the fear started overriding my sadness: Who deserved anything? We get what we get.

  • I don't really have a lot to say about this one. I was a little high when I read this book, and this stuck with me because I've been thinking a lot about the next steps for my life and what should I do etc etc etc, and who really does deserve anything?

Lastly - and this was something I enjoyed about American Psycho, as well - BEE is clearly a huge pop culture fan: Music, movies, books, essays. Again, the level of detail and helping to paint a more vivid picture for the reader. (Note to self: I made a playlist for the book here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0qzH120HnidiyGrTgrcJ7J?si=6768432d542c4ba5 ) The setting of this book - the time period, SoCal, the canyons, the music - is EXTREMELY my shit. I have been on a real Joni Mitchell/Crosby, Stills, & Nash/Roman Polanski/Mulholland Drive/Jack Nicholson & Angelica Huston/quaalude-era LA kick for the past year or so, and this fed right into that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Homophobia, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Murder, Outing, Toxic friendship, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Suicide and Antisemitism

corruptednatz's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Throughout this book all I thought was “Stop it, get help” 😂 this book has a crazy ending but the build up to it was slow and sometimes pointless. The slow parts were the main character Bret doing drugs, falling into a drug induced sleep and fantasizing about various men he can’t have. But I do see how it plays into his mental state. The really pointless points were when the author when go into tangents about movies or music from the 80s. He would go into great detail about these things but I didn’t see the point. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Drug use, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, and Suicide

there is an adult and minor relationship and it’s graphic

dearbookshelves's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

If you've read BEE before, you know what you're getting into. Interesting writing and a distinct voice. Fascinating narrative choices with a twist that makes you question everything.

He never wants you to know what's real and what isnt and that is buzzing throughout the whole book.

Also in true Ellis fashion, it's repetitive at times and a but too long.

Bold

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Suicide, and Torture

seanamcphie's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail