Submitted by maintrain_mcqueen t3_10120uv in books
For Christmas this year, my wife bought me two books at the bookstore that I picked out. I was in the horror section(big Stephen King fan) and decided to go with something different. I had seen memes about the movie "American Psycho" but had never seen the movie and decided, what the heck, I'll give it a shot. I finished it today and I have two prevailing thoughts.
- What the f*ck did I just read
- I'm quite happy that I picked it out
Don't get me wrong, I'm just as appalled reading about rats eating.... Things along with rancid, brutal murder scenes as much as the next guy. But I think the book does the "leaving everything ambiguous so you can draw your own conclusions" thing (which I didn't expect) very, very well.
I'm lucky enough to have understood going into it that it's satire. The schtick that Patrick just accepts that people call him the wrong name and people get confused because they're all the same is hilarious. Some of the meals they have made me giggle out loud. The pompous relationships that they all have and how they never do any work and spend half the book talking about when pocket squares are acceptable was great. I think BEE did a fantastic job writing it.
The way that you can also track Patrick's psychological descent from the not-so-subtle statements in the book kept me entertained until the end. It felt like as you kept reading Patrick's stream of consciousness, you could almost feel him detaching completely from the things around him (you can especially feel this in the police-case scene where the book switches to third-person for a bit).
I thought the book, while being extremely provocative, was a read that I won't regret.
TL;DR - Picked "American Psycho" at random, liked the thought-provoking nature of it but, MAN, it's a brutal read.
P.s. the other book that I chose was 11/22/63. There's less murder in that one, right? :)