This book has left me feeling slightly confused. The reason for this is that I am conflicted about how I have reacted to this story. This story is a character study of Patrick Bateman who is a psychopath but lives a life of complete privilege in New York in the late eighties early nineties.
It follows his deterioration as he becomes increasingly violent and cruel. The novel is narrated from his perspective and this narration is very cleverly done giving you the opportunity to see how his obsessive behaviour effects every other part of his life. I can see why this book has received such praise since its publication. The pervading theme of the story for me is the idea of wealth, how it can be used, manipulated and how we make certain assumptions about people due to their privilege.
However, be warned that due to the content there is some incredibly graphic violent scenes. Also, I felt that the book was too long and I began to find it repetitive. One hundred pages less and American Psycho would have been the perfect novel. I would have raved about it, instead I found myself looking at the page numbers by the end wondering when it was going to stop. In addition to this, I didn't find the ending particularly satisfying. I felt it just tailed away. So you see my confusion. It could have been perfect, but it just fell short. Either way, I feel its worth a read because it made me care enough to be disappointed.
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