Welcome to Litsy!

I love podcasts with author interviews. I found one of my favorite books, Pachinko, after listening to the amazing Min Jin Lee on a podcast. And today I heard one with Bret Easton Ellis, whom I have never read. He was lovely. Relatable, down to earth, and when asked about his favorite recent reads, he named only female authors. 😍 Also, he has 30 novels on his nightstand.

Has anyone else had this kind of experience?

My ugly ducklings...if I had to name the covers, I'd go with Ridiculous, Offensive, and Boring.
#badcovers #riotgrams @bookriot

This happens too often and I've lowered my expectations to film adaptations to the minimum. 😬😬😬

I love Bret Easton Ellis. His brain makes me happy when I get to peak inside. This is the rare case when a sequel is better than the original. I love how meta it is and how it deconstructs the first novel by constantly referring to things that are false. It feels fresh, modern. I loved revisiting the relationship of Clay and Julian, seeing what Clay has become. He's a much more depraved character not a clear monster like Rip but on his way.

Despise. If you ignore BEE's somewhat worrying media personality (celebrating the death of loved authors, on women and rape) it still does not save this book. It feels incredibly hastily thrown together with a lazy prose that belongs in a A Level - if that - English class. Endless shock violence to distract from a real lack of substance. I thought Less Than Zero was a good book whilst unpleasant but this sequel is just unpleasant.

This book is a poorly written mess where very few things make sense and violence is seemingly thrown in to make us forget this fact.

Best quote so far. Why are all the women in Bret Easton Ellis's books so stupid and empty? Why are all the characters always exactly the same?

The return of summer coincides well with my Sunday reading! Reading about spoiled rich people isn't my favorite though, but this is my boyfriend's favorite author, so...