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27 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ellis is the voice of the 80s, 14 May 2002
By A Customer
I went into a bookshop looking for American Psycho, but ended up being attracted to Bret Easton Ellis' first novel instead, not least because it said he wrote it when he was my age.I consider myself a writer's worst reader, because it takes a lot to keep me turning the page. I get lost in endless poetic prose, tune off and then put down. I have to say, though, that Less Than Zero is the first book I've read in about seven years which I considered 'unputdownable' (even if I had to, it reaching 2am on several occasions). It's a difficult book to sum up. There's very little in the way of narrative that I can pin down. Teenager Clay comes back from college after a term away and slides back into his old, banal, repetitive lifestyle, except now, having escaped it for a while, he begins to see it for what it is. Ellis' crisp, frugal prose reminds me of Hemingway, but Hemingway not afraid to hide what he's saying behind politically correct metaphors. At times it was moving, and others shocking, but it was never less than absorbing, even if much of what Ellis writes about here is a representation of boredom. By the end, I was almost feeling sympathetic toward Clay. Ellis could have made it more of a clear cut tragedy, but I don't think it would have been as half as realistic (and therefore, effective) as it is. Since reading this I've gone out and bought the rest of Ellis' books.
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by Bret Easton Ellis
by Bret Easton Ellis
by Bret Easton Ellis
by Bret Easton Ellis
by Bret Easton Ellis
