American Psycho (Vintage Contemporaries)
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this modern classic, the acclaimed author of The Shards explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other.
"A seminal book.” —The Washington Post
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing.... An important book.” —Katherine Dunn, bestselling author of Geek Love
"A seminal book.” —The Washington Post
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing.... An important book.” —Katherine Dunn, bestselling author of Geek Love
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Readers say *American Psycho* is a disturbing, intense dive into a psychopath’s mind, known for its gut-wrenching prose and critique of consumerism. M...
Having never read this before, I find it interesting to read in 2025 given our current situation. For instance, Bateman loves Trump, since the publication there was the great recession in 08 (thanks wall street), Epstein, wild socio-economic inequity, and everyone (mostly women) seem to be fascinated with serial killers and true crime.
Anyhow, this book is unhinged. If you've Jim Thompson, welcome to The Killer Inside Me on steroids. I found it very hard to read at times through the gore and violence, but the sex scenes are on par with some fan fic I've read. So maybe you need a trigger warning?
I really enjoyed the writing and choices the author made like ending a thought or scene in the middle of a sentence (no punctuation) only to pick it up (sans punctuation again) pages later when Bateman is doing something entirely different. He definitely drew from known crime scene details of Ted Bundy and other notorious killers. If the book was written in the 3rd person I don't think it would be as successful because there would be a filter. Instead you are in the mind of a seriously unwell individual and are complicit to his actual or fantasized crimes. It does take talent to write a book that evokes so much emotion.
Bateman is a character at best to pity, and at worst to loathe.
Anyone who finds him the least empathetic should speak with a professional, there's something
This book drove me insane.
Not in the sense of its intense gory material, but in its repetition of the same thing over and over and over and over and over. In fact, I had been looking for a gory/macabre book to read for a while, and this book definitely did not disappoint in this aspect. However, I would still like a book with a good plot (or some sort of plot at all for that matter). While reading this my "to-read" just kept growing and growing, since it took me so long to finish this book. Honestly I couldn't even read it for more than 30min intervals. The book would have done the exact same effect, if it was only have the size of what it is. There is so much repetition in the life of Patrick Bateman mostly all of the chapters are typically the same. It makes me want to go on the streets and kill someone (maybe the authors intention)! I gave it two stars, however, since I must admit the book gets a bit interesting after reading about 3/4 of it. If, like me, you are one of those people who can't just leave a book they've read a couple of chapters of, then I suggest you don't start this book at all.
Not in the sense of its intense gory material, but in its repetition of the same thing over and over and over and over and over. In fact, I had been looking for a gory/macabre book to read for a while, and this book definitely did not disappoint in this aspect. However, I would still like a book with a good plot (or some sort of plot at all for that matter). While reading this my "to-read" just kept growing and growing, since it took me so long to finish this book. Honestly I couldn't even read it for more than 30min intervals. The book would have done the exact same effect, if it was only have the size of what it is. There is so much repetition in the life of Patrick Bateman mostly all of the chapters are typically the same. It makes me want to go on the streets and kill someone (maybe the authors intention)! I gave it two stars, however, since I must admit the book gets a bit interesting after reading about 3/4 of it. If, like me, you are one of those people who can't just leave a book they've read a couple of chapters of, then I suggest you don't start this book at all.
absolutely the worst horror book I've ever read. If I could go back and keep myself from reading it, I would.
I really love the movie so I wanted to read the book. I think it was really good but I got tired of reading about the clothes every single character was wearing.
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