this book is begging for AP english dialectical journals to be written about it. if you dont like books that require you to "why are the curtains blue" about nearly everything you read, i would not recommend this book. in general, i wouldnt recommend this book to most people.

all of that being said, this is probably one of my favorite books of all time. it took me three tries to finish, and i am glad i finally did. all it took was reading it alongside a good friend and being able to bounce ideas and thoughts off of each other to keep both of us engaged. bret easton ellis's writing captivated me very early on, and the final 50-75 pages enraptured me like no other book in recent memory. patrick bateman has become The Character to me and i cannot stop thinking about him.

on its surface, american psycho is a book about a well-off yuppie man navigating his life of lavish meals, assorted affairs, and fancy purchases during the day while committing atrocious acts of violence at night. this book, however, is not really about a serial killer, but about the ways in which a consumerist, capitalist lifestyle consumes your life and obliterates your soul. its about how the pursuit of social class only leaves you hollow and empty, leaving you only as performance and not as a person. none of this is written on the page. its absolutely gripping satire if you have the patience and will to sit with it and think deeply about it.

patrick bateman is a pathetic loser of a man, an empty husk dressed in expensive brand names and carefully curated opinions and interests. you will come to hate him deeply. just as quickly, you will be struck by his earnest, relatable desires to fit in and be loved. everything becomes re-contextualized as a cry for help, reaching out for something, anything to fill the void, first by consuming objects and then consuming people (eventually, literally). you will still hate him, you will never pity him, but you will grow to deeply understand him. despite these revelations, bateman never stops being a terrible person. he becomes someone you love to see flounder and suffer, even as he extends that suffering onto other people. i am shocked that THIS character has become the epitome of "sigma male" in the eyes of internet culture.

i docked some points on enjoyment because the later murders become really hard to read. im usually really good with written violence and gore, and i started feeling queasy by some of the descriptions. some parts cause your eyes to glaze over, like batemans long-winded critiques of 80s music and the 47594th time he describes what someone is wearing. i think regardless, this book is worth reading if you can see past that.

you, the reader of this review right now, probably shouldnt read american psycho. but if you dont mind stories where fucked up things happen constantly with little warning, you like books that you can conceive a world in which they are taught in high school literature classes, and you like deeply complex characters and can stomach how truly horrible patrick bateman can be, i would say you should seriously consider it.