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American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellis Book Review

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Plot Summary of American Psycho
"Ellis's savage satire on the Me Decade mentality features a young, handsome, and wealthy Wall Street operator who tortures and murders women for the hell of it. Patrick Bateman obsesses about restaurants, suits, business cards and wristwatches as well as filming his grisly exploits and festooning NY apartments with body parts. Interspersed with Bateman's accounts of his serial murders are straight-faced essays about such "great artists" as Whitney Houston, Phil Collins, and Huey Lewis. A fascinating but very cold piece of storytelling."
David Loftus, Resident Scholar

"Patrick Bateman is wallstreet stock trader with issues. In a mutually loveless relationship and surrounded by phony friends who care as little about him as he cares about them, Bateman believes that life is pointless because he can do whatever he wants with no consequences. All the characters in Ellis' book only concern themselves with clothes, status, work, drugs and sex and they all remain hollow in any descriptions given. Gradually, minor acts of violence and sex fail to arouse Bateman so his habits turn increasingly severe.

American Psycho is a critique of the 1980's yuppie lifestyle which he lived through. This book is not for those with a weak stomach or those who are impatient as much of the text is spent of describing superficial aspects of the characters and the surroundings such as clothes, hair styles, interior decors, etc. "

NIck Matthews, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of American Psycho
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book? - depressed
Time/era of story - 1980's-1999
Romance/Romance Problems Yes
Kind of romance: - boatload of casual sex without love
Internal struggle/realization? Yes
Struggle over - nature of existence (heavy philosophy)
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Main char. serviced by prostitute? Yes
Druggie/Wino problems? - drugs

Main Character
Gender - Male
Profession/status: - killer - business executive
Age: - 20's-30's
Eccentric/Mental Yes
Eccentric: - obsessed - mentally ill - emotionally unstable - wild
Ethnicity/Nationality - White (American)
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings - mean, arrogant
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - very athletic

Main Adversary
Identity: - society
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - throughout most of the book.

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 2 ()
United States Yes
The US: - Northeast
City? Yes
City: - New York - wealthy - rude people

Style
Person - mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death? - very explicit references to deaths and torture
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - vague references - descript of kissing - touching of anatomy - licking - use of artificial tools - orgies - lesbians! - actual description of hetero sex - descript. of female anat. (the big B's) - descript. of female anat. (the big V) - descript. of nude males (the big P) - rape/molest (yeech!)
Lot of foul language? Yes
Unusual Style: - a lot of play on words - a lot of stream of consciousness - written like a journal/diary/letters
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog - little dialog
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Bret Easton Ellis Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
NIck Matthews  

SCHOLARS:
Winston Lamb  


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