AMERICAN PSYCHO by Bret Easton Ellis ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I have an overwhelming urgency to tell you not to read this on an airplane, for many reasons.

Choosing this as a last minute spooky season read, I thought I knew what I was getting into after seeing the movie multiple times over the years. And for the most part, yep. This guys’ insane. And it’s pretty exciting to watch him tick, balancing his obsessive detailing of pop culture and dressware with decapitation. But Jesus does the book version get gnarly.

I read most of this on two different flights on two different trips. Each time, passages I’d be embarrassed to be seen reading at home popped up, and I highly questioned continuing in order to save my reputation none of these strangers in the sky have any interest in. Then, during one particularly bad patch of turbulence, I continually tried digging my eyes into the pages hoping for refuge just to shut them again after finding a more stomach-churning scene than the one I was living.

Then came other passages that I nearly stopped from due to overall squeamishness. Thinking, is this worth it? I already know how the story goes, I don’t need to expose myself to the longer, raunchier version just because it’s the original. But I did, because the prose is unique and fine-tuned, and because the thought of giving up is almost worse than anything else.

I felt the movie was better, more streamlined and probably fit for a wider audience. But I can’t knock the creativity of the story itself. I don’t know whether to be impressed by or scared of the mind that thought of it.