The Rules of Attraction @ richardeward.com

The Rules of Attraction
by Bret Easton Ellis
from Vintage

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

• What a let down
  After reading American Psycho and Lunar Park I was keen to read this particular novel. I found it repetitive and meaningless - a series of anecdotes and empty characters. I guess that was what it meant to portray - the bankrupt youth living on alcohol and drugs. But what does it all mean ? Nothing.

• One of best fiction books I've read
  Rules of Attraction is a first-person narrative that alternates between a few egocentric, hedonistic college students as they become intertwined in a love triangle. There isn't a dull moment in the book in large part due to the story and Ellis' provocative style of writing. The characters are quite shallow and far from morally inclined, to the point where some will readers get sick to their stomaches. This is Ellis' intention though as the underlying message of his writing is a critique of the moral state... more info

• Did the Eighties Ever End?
  I bought this book almost exactly 20 years ago, back in 1988. The first time I read it, my reaction was: this is a real piece of trash. On the surface, it appeared that Ellis put almost no effort into this book, that it was just a stream of consciousness regurgitation with little or no cohesion or substance. What a difference 20 years makes! TROE is perhaps the most well worn book in my collection--one I've read over and over and over. Despite its relative thinness, TROE is a masterpiece in multiple... more info

• Both excessive and tepid
  If you were a WASPy, spoiled, vacuous student of a liberal-arts college in the mid-'80s and you jumped from one empty relationship to another and mulled obsessively over every mundane detail in your aimless life while thinking in run-on sentences, this book was written just for you. But I can't imagine possibly being interested, much less intrigued, by The Rules of Attraction. Ellis' second novel is only notable for being almost entirely unexceptional.
  Most of this story is recounted in a first-person... more info

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