Have you enjoyed any Brett Easton Ellis novels?

Question

Which ones? Why/why not?

Answer 1

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I loved Less than Zero when I was about 20 - it really hit a nerve. So shockingly empty and somehow manages to accurately describe the sensual angst experienced by people around that age.
Rules of A was more of the same I thought - not so good.
I avoided American P because I'm very susceptible to violent imagery and did not want that stuff in my brain, having already lost a lot of sleep after flicking through 120 days of sodom. I have read some of it though and it does look darkly, horribly funny.
Didn't bother about any of his other stuff. I think he more or less said it all in his first book.

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Asker's Comment:

Interesting opinions. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Answer 2

Read Less Than Zero years ago and enjoyed it. I was a teenager and related in some angsty kinda way

Few years later I read American Psycho and loved it. Especially since so many people didn't get it and went off on one about the graphic parts (satire anyone?)

Read Rules of Attraction at college and wasn't disappointed with the disturbing disaffection and disillusionment

Haven't read any since but one of mates just finished reading Glamorama and said it was good...


...but he's a sh!t judge of literature though...

Answer 3

I have read American Psycho and loved it. There's a lot of very dry humour in there, made all the better once you realise the murder scenes are Bateman's fantasies.

Answer 4

I read a couple of chapters of "American Psycho" whilst standing in the aisle of a used bookstore. It pretty much turned my bowels to liquid and made me dizzy, so I didn't spend the US $1 to buy it. Wasn't appealing for the same reason that I don't see the "Saw" and "Hostel" movies.

I read "Less Than Zero," but damned if I remember any of it. I remember the movie from the 80s (Andrew McCarthy, Jamie Gertz, Robert Downey Jr.) much more vividly.

Answer 5

Yes, but when I went back to him later I found his work to be shallow.

Answer 6

American Psycho,was one of the most tedious books I've ever read!

Answer 7

American Psycho is one of the funniest books of the last 100 years, but you need a strong stomach for it.

I enjoyed Less Than Zero when I was 18, but it seems a bit superficial and teenage now: not bad, just not as good as I thought.

Lunar Park is pretty funny, if self-indulgent: you really need to have read some of his other stuff to get the in-jokes, and it helps if you know a bit of the gossip about his life and the rest of the literary Brat Pack of the 80s (McInerney, Janowitz, etc etc).

If you like BEE's wit and style, but find him a bit heartless, maybe try Douglas Coupland for a change.