What book have you read that wasn’t subjectively “bad” but you regrets reading all the same?
For me, Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter. The book was engaging and it kept me on my toes, but I just with I hadn’t “poisoned my head” with all the graphic gore that was in there. I years later i still think about this and how I really wish I had never read it.
Question inspired by a comment /u/PrincessOfWales made in another thread :)
You definitely wouldn’t be a fan of American Psycho.
That being said, despite the gore it is a brilliantly written satire. And if you “get it”…the book is hilarious.
That and Snuff are the only 2 books I’ve ever had to stop reading at points. Literally wanted to put them in time out.
American Psycho was excellent! My kind of unhinged humor, although I admit I prefer the movie to the book.
There must be something wrong with me, because I found Pretty Girls to be fairly tame. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but everyone said it was deeply disturbing.
I agree to preferring the movie over the book! I feel that it does a better job of making you question if Bateman is actually committing brutal murders or if it’s all in his head. I do love the line in the book, “well it’s been a bad week. I started drinking my own piss.”
Yes, exactly! There are some good lines in the book, but the movie plays the ambiguity better. I also think the tone comes across better in the movie: the business card scene and the Hip to be Square scene are standouts.
Have you read Glamorama? It’s also by Bret Easton Ellis and is the unofficial book that Zoolander is based on. It’s not as good, in my opinion, but it has its moments.
Yeah, the tone and humor plays better in the movie. The business card scene is still funny in the book, but something about hearing the inner monolog as Bateman sweats over fonts takes it up a notch. And how they handled the Huey Lewis and The News scene was much better .
I have not read Glamorama, I’ll have to check it out!
But why male models?
Came here to say American Psycho. I’d seen the film first and loved it so assumed the same about the book… I did not. I definitely read it at too young an age (I’d guess about 15/16?) but many years later I am still freaked out by the violence
I was about that age too, and was on a small holiday with my family, reading this book in a small caravan, I felt gross lol
At one point I had to jump to read the end, my anxiety level was too high, and I thought, knowing the end would give me a bit of ease. It were things like (iirc, it was over 20y ago) >!the drilling machine, the grabbing of blood vessels from inside the throat and the vivid description of the smell from the head(s?) he stored in his refrigerator.!< Idk if I would’ve the same reaction, if I would read it now.
It’s so long ago that I don’t remember an awful lot of it, but for me the scene that stands out was where he, putting it mildly, chomps down on a lady where no person should chomp. Also the rats. I do also wonder though, how would I feel now if I read it? But the general dread of having to go through that scene and all the others that lurk slightly out of sight in my memory… no, thank you
One of my all time favorite books and I’m truly blown away by how many people missed the point completely.
And I say that as someone who doesn’t particularly like Bret Easton Ellis: every now and then he writes something brilliant like American Psycho but he also wrote Rules of Attraction which was such a chore to get through.
To me the movie did not accurately capture the theme nearly as well as the book. Christian Bale was amazing in it but the movie stripped a bit too much out of what made the book really work.
One the most well written books I read but damn did it hinge on the dangers of social perfection and predatory encounters in between.
I got bored with the gore (which I guess was the point) and just wanted him to get caught already.
You can skip the gore in this book and still get the satire and humor.