I truly never thought I would not finish a book due to the fact that I despised it as much as I do this one. First some facts, the story is told in 1st person by the alleged psycho. The narrative is presented in a rambling style akin to stream of consciousness. The author is very skilled at portraying this character’s thoughts as the story teller with a subtle twisted logic that encompasses extreme privilege and egotism. The narrator’s skewed, insular view of reality throws him into a world of fantasy where he can get away with literal murder. The idea of a rich guy who thinks the world belongs to him as a main character isn’t new. But Ellis’ really deep dive into the psyche of a deeply disturbed person may be a fresh take on it (at least to me). The problem is, I just don’t care.
This is the first book I’ve not bothered to finish since I can remember reading for fun or school. I’ve powered through some boring stuff; Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, Philosophy books, Science books, The Koran, 4th edition Dungeon Master’s Guide, to name just a few. But not since getting half way through the Bible have I been so agitated that I had to throw the book down and say, “enough! I’m done!” And that was a looooonnngg time ago.
So I made it as far as page 260 out of 399, then I read the last couple of chapters just to see if there was something that I missed out on, or something that didn’t make sense. Nope. I’m good. Don’t really care. The constant listing of expensive clothing, fancy dinners, state of the art gadgets, et cetera, was consistently annoying and became the points of speed reading. For all I cared it could have been a list of garbage or chores. The barrage of misogyny became tiresome. It was displayed as a status symbol of sorts. As if the worse you treated women, the more they wanted you. This was portrayed as normal. The pedantic name dropping was yawn inducing.
Is there a twist to this book? Maybe. I’m not going to give anything away in case this is something you’d like. But I can tell you one thing: I didn’t care.
There were a couple of “essay” chapters on different musical acts during this time period. The two that stood out to me were on Genesis and Whitney Houston. These were in depth analyses of their respective body of works out at that time and were really well done. They seemed jarring to the rest of the shallowness of the main character and felt as if it were just Ellis writing these instead of the main character’s thoughts. I didn’t 100% agree with them, but they were very well thought out. I would have preferred a book on musical acts of the 1980’s in this manner.
If this were my book, I’d throw it in the trash, not wanting anyone else to happen upon it by accident. Unfortunately, I borrowed it from the library and have to give it back. I’ve never been so glad to. I apologize to those who are watching/reading this and enjoyed the book. Some of you may even be telling me I just didn’t get it. I think I did. Really. I think Ellis very much succeeded at what he was trying to do. He is a very skilled writer and I may even check out something else he has written that isn’t so volatile. So, I’m pretty sure I got it. I just don’t care.
