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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Is this worth reading?

my cockroach Gonzalez

22:23 / 04.04.03

all week i've been searching for something worth buying at the wh smiths in paddington, and heck, y'know its a real reading disaster those station book shops.

i'm gonna get my arse to a decent book shop this weekend, and here's what i'm thinking of reading

"the rules of atraction" by brett easton ellis.

now i've not read his stuff before but heard a lot of good stuff about him.

has anyone read this and without spoilers pls, is this any good?

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:57 / 05.04.03

Yes. It's probably Ellis' least 'cold' book, and one of the few to feature a likeable character, but it's still a brutal disection of mindless student hedonism and sexual amorality. Not his best work, but recommended. It may depress or upset you, but it might also make you laugh.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:00 / 05.04.03

His best book, by the way, is The Informers. Collection of short stories which are bleed into each other in various odd ways - completely essential. Very minimal prose style - sort of Ellis unplugged - quite strongly reminiscent of Raymond Carver in places but with added sarcasm and sick surrealism.

ill tonic

01:21 / 06.04.03

Hmmmm, kinda liked GLAMARAMA the best ... can't remember if I made it all the way through RULES and for a fact, didn't finish INFORMER. AMERICAN PSYCHO still stands as great eighties satire.

ill tonic

01:25 / 06.04.03

Didn't really answer the question tho', did I? Sorry. Have you ever read STORY OF MY LIFE by the bloke who did BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY ... same genre, more laughs.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:15 / 06.04.03

No, God no, no Jay McInerney. People are always lumping him in with Ellis but I think they're very different - there's not enough hate in McInerney. Not enough righteous anger.

Whisky Priestess

15:02 / 11.04.03

I did like the Informers and it might serve as a good introduction to Ellis's style, but as far as I'm concerned it is merely the amuse-gueule before the bloody main course of American Psycho, which is by far the best thing he's written and probably the best novel of the 80s. Like Lolita, impact-wise, but with serial killing

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