Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3021 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-03
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Synopsis
Patrick Bateman is twenty-six and works on Wall Street; he is handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent. He is also a psychopath. Taking us to a head-on collision with America's greatest dream - and its worst nightmare - "American Psycho" is a bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to confront. "Serious, clever and shatteringly effective." - "Sunday Times." ""American Psycho" is a beautifully controlled, careful, important novel...The novelist's function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he's done it brilliantly...A seminal book." - Fay Weldon, "Washington Post." "For its savagely coherent picture of a society lethally addicted to blandness, it should be judged by the highest standards." - John Walsh, "Sunday Times." "That the book's contents are shocking is downright undeniable, but just as Bonfire of the Vanities exposed the corruption and greed engendered in eighties politics and high living, "American Psycho" examines the mindless preoccupations of the nineties preppy generation." - "Time Out."

Customer Reviews

I love this book
I only read this book after I seen the film, which is portrayed wonderfully by Christian Bale. The book itself is the blackest of comedies with a hint of sarcasm about it. The violence in American Psycho, which is described down to the closest of details, is only a small part of the book as a whole. The rest of it is about the day-to-day life of an American businessman who is rich, good-looking but rarely happy and those are the most entertaining parts for me.

You may find it heavy going having to read the over-described details on everything from fashion to electrical products, but trust me, it gets easier. As I write this I struggle to pinpoint exactly why this book is entertaining, it just is. It's funny, quirky, sarcastic and plain sick all at once and it can play tricks with your mind. The interaction between characters is comical, as everyone is so self absorbed that half the time they don't know who one another are. But that doesn't really matter: having the right suit, business card and restaurant reservations are important. It's the 80's and image is everything to yuppies living in New York city.

one of my favourite books
bret easton ellis writes beautifully crafted sentences - of that there is no doubt. even in the more unsavoury parts of this novel (e.g. when the character of patrick bateman is being sarcastic, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, as he kills and tortures, during his innermost thought, and even in his detailed descriptions of situations and objects, the words used by bret easton ellis are chosen just right).

a highly entertaining gluttony of wholesale slaughter, unbridled paranoia, complete and utter self-loving and self-loathing and vacuousness. read it for yourself.

Very well written
This book is superbly written and had me laughing out load in places but also I found it very disturbing with the levels of violence. Also, a little dated by todays standards, but shows the yuppie obsession with money and designer clothing/goods. Overall a must read - recommended but not for the faint hearted