Reviews
Doesn’t get much darker than this, but earns its awfulness completely. As with Less Than Zero, a sort of existential grief looms, but this follow up is propulsive, sleek, taut - word for word his most technically accomplished book I reckon.
Not the best but not the worst. Liked hearing from my buddy Clay again.
I was curious to see what a sequel to a Bret Easton Ellis novel would even look like, and I was intrigued to see that this felt like a novel that stands on its own rather than a book written as a traditional sequel. The action of the novel takes place twenty-five years after Less Than Zero. Its story follows Clay, a New York-based screenwriter, after he returns to Los Angeles to cast his new film. There he becomes embroiled in the sinister world of his former friends and confronts the darker aspects of his own personality. The novel opens with a literary device which suggests the possibility that the narrator of Imperial Bedrooms may not be the same as the narrator of Less Than Zero although both are ostensibly narrated by Clay. In doing this, Ellis is able to comment on the earlier novel's style and on the development of its moralistic film adaptation. I haven’t seen the movie adaptation of the first book at the time of writing this review, but I loved how this book’s format allows this version of Clay to comment on the events of the first novel while acknowledging what was real and what was exaggerated. I loved how this choice reveals how this version of Clay used his fictionalized version of real events to profit off of his own dark past. This meta element made me wonder how much of Bret Easton Ellis’s own life is written in his novels and how many dark events are true to his own life. Reading this after only recently finishing the first novel was an interesting experience. While this novel also feels like senseless vignettes of these characters lives, it does feel more established and easier to jump into as we are familiar with the characters and have the framing device of the first novel being a book written by the “real” Clay. So much time has passed for these characters, and we are meeting the “real” version of who they are rather than following the characters from Clay’s fictionalized perspective. I always loved the trope of characters in fiction who write a book that reveals things about people from their own life, and seeing the fallout and aftermath that comes afterwards. It was interesting seeing how Clay’s book and subsequent movie adaption garnered fame and changed his life. I loved seeing the protagonist reminisce on the fiction and reality of previous events and finding the truth years later. I loved seeing the reaction the characters had to the movie adaptation of the fictionalized version of their lives and how it differed from their lives. It was interesting catching up with these characters in “real life” after a time jump. Julian and Rain’s final fates were dark and brutal, and how bleak and senseless it all was seemed to fit the original tone of the first book, but this book also didn’t pack as much of a punch tonally overall for me. I liked how short this was, but it wasn’t as succinct or effective as the first book. The first book was bleak and nihilistic and very effective, and while this book was a different kind of nihilistic, I didn’t feel like it was as effective. This book didn’t resonate with me the same way as the first one did. Tonally, this felt like a much different book. I would have rather seen a greater exploration of the characters from the previous book and a deeper look into how much has changed for them and what has stayed the same, but this book focused more on the real Clay and where his life is years later following the first book. The anonymous and ominous texts from a blocked number was the most interesting aspect of this story, and I felt like it wasn’t featured or focused on as much as it should have been. The ending was interesting and I liked the way it all fit together in theory, I just felt like it wasn’t as impactful as it should have been and left me feeling as if I wanted more. The execution wasn’t great in my opinion, despite how I liked the initial idea of it all. I liked the storyline involving the snuff films and the blackmail, and how Clay grew corrupted, but the reveal with Blair towards the end didn’t bring everything together story wise the way that it should have in my opinion. This is definitely the inferior novel to the original, and I fear that I missed the main message and intention that this book was trying to send and portray, but it was still miles ahead of most books I’ve read this year despite not being my favourite.
while the plot of this novel is much more linear, i somehow found Imperial Bedrooms less interesting than its predecessor. the plot winds around itself, backtracking constantly and feeding the reader tidbits and details that are perhaps deceptively didactic. of course, Ellis still impresses with his visceral, gory observations of LA told through the sickeningly nonchalant lens of Clay and there were definitely a few beautifully jarring lines, but i still found the story a bit difficult to follow and overly transparent. but maybe that’s the point?
