Bret Easton Ellis

With irony and compassion, the author of Less Than Zero chronicles the sexual affairs--heterosexual, homosexual, and orgiastic--of a group of students at a self-consciously bohemian New England college. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

The Rules of Attraction

hessensitive

Even after all these Pepsi rejects got on, there was still no one sitting next to me. I started feeling completely self-conscious and thought, god I must look pretentious, sitting in the back, Wayfarers on, black tweed coat ripped at the shoulder, chain-smoking, faded copy of The Fountainhead in my lap. I must scream 'Camden!' But I was still grateful that no one sat next to me. 

Most of them were girls dressed in pinks and blues, Esprit and Benetton sweatshirts, snapping sugarless gum, Walkmans on, holding cans of caffeine-free Diet Coke, clutching issues of Vogue and Glamour, looking like they stepped out of a Starburst commercial. 

I wondered suddenly if he was Catholic. My spirits rose: Catholic boys will usually do anything.  

Sarah Christine Gill

The party's still happening at McCullough, and Gerald's talking about old boyfriends, GQ models, members of some unnamed crew team, lying shamelessly. I kiss him to shut him up. Then turn my attention back to the TV screen. An especially loud New Order song comes from the open windows at McCullough, ‘Your Silent Face.' Sean liked this song, so did Mitchell in fact. Gerald says, 'Jesus, I really hate this song. I kiss him once more. It turns out to be the last song of the party. It fades out, nothing replaces it. 

Watching TV nothing makes sense. An Acutrim commercial is followed by a Snickers commercial followed by a Kinks video followed by In The News. My mom likes the new Kinks video. That depreses me even more than Gerald does. 

You bummed?' he asks. I look at him. ‘He likes him. He likes her. I think she likes someone else, probably me. That's all. No logic.’

‘Hmmmmm,’ Gerald says, checking his pockets. He brings out the napkin he had the mushroom in. There's nothing left, just mushroom crumbs. 

No one ever likes the right person, I say. 

‘That's not true,’ he says. ‘I like you.’

That's not exactly what I meant or wanted to hear, but I ask him earnestly, ‘Do you?’ There's a pause. 'Sure. Why not?’ he says. There's nothing worse than being drunk and disproven.

An enjoyable read with humour that added an appreciated lightness to the story. I don't think this book is meant to be taken seriously; rich college students take an excessive amount of drugs & have an excessive amount of sex because what else is there to do when you're rich & totally insane with nothing but spare time?

D D D 

3.5…. or 3.7…. idk it was good and i finished it in a day. made me lol frequently. Read most of it while drinking beer. Made me horny but that could have been the beer

eileen sheats

woo hoo cameo from patrick bateman! I can’t believe it took me until age 28 to discover bret easton ellis

Geoffrey Froggatt

** spoiler alert **
           I read this book in one sitting, and distinctly remember finishing it while the sun was coming up. Lauren changes boyfriends every time she changes majors and still pines for Victor who split for Europe months ago and she might or might not be writing anonymous love letter to ambivalent, hard-drinking Sean, a hopeless romantic who only has eyes for Lauren, even if he ends up in bed with half the campus, and Paul, Lauren's ex, forthrightly bisexual and whose passion masks a shrewd pragmatism. They waste time getting wasted, race from Thirsty Thursday Happy Hours to Dressed To Get Screwed parties to drinks at The Edge of the World or The Graveyard. The Rules of Attraction is a poignant, hilarious take on the death of romance. Content warning for rape and suicide. I loved the nihilistic view of romance that this book has. The choice to have a nameless female character (who is in love with one of the main characters) kill themselves and never effect the story on a greater scale, was bold and very controversial. Realizing that Sean Bateman is the brother of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman was a wild experience. This was my first Bret Easton Ellis novel and it has a special place in my heart. Thankfully, my college experience looked nothing like this book, but this story was still meaningful to me in other ways. The shifting viewpoints and perspectives are cleverly thought out and contrasted, showing exactly how differing perspectives can alter the 'truth' of a situation and turn it on its head. I loved how this story showed how each character was begging for human connection but finding it in all the wrong places; how these characters end up getting hurt and hurting each other, the way that they’re all connected to each other in ways none of them realize. I highly recommend this book for people who are fans of Bret Easton Ellis and his controversial storytelling. I highly recommend the movie adaptation of this book, as it really captures the essence of this novel.

Incisive, controversial and startlingly funny, The Rules of Attraction examines a group of affluent students at a small, self-consciously bohemian, liberal-arts college on America’s East Coast. Lauren, who changes the man in her bed even more often than she changes course, is dating Victor but sleeping with Sean. Sean – cool, ambivalent and deeply cynical – might be in love with Lauren, but he’s not going to let that stop him from bedding Paul. Paul, as shrewd as he is passionate, is Lauren’s ex-lover and the final point in this curious triangle. From the author of American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis's The Rules of Attraction is a breathtaking tale of sex, expectation, desire and frustration.

Kwan Ann Tan

this definitely reads like the inverse of The Secret History, even though at the heart of it, the message is the same: trying to find meaning in a world that seems devoid of it. But where the characters of TSH look backwards to the past to find new meanings and imitate what they have seen, the characters in this novel lose themselves in meaningless caricatures of intimacy and faux-academia which have lost any semblance of importance in their lives, in order to hide from the fact that they are lost, still searching for somewhere they can settle.

alisa 

ghost girl in satin

One of the best books I've read this year. Gosh, I love unreliable narrators so much!
 I loved the ending, it was awfully beautiful.

Rules of Attraction

Jade Flynn

Ellis tries to find a deeper more philosophical meaning in rich kids being stereotypical rich kids.

Silvia Morgantini

Not a single likeable character in sight.
Basically "Wuthering Heights" but with sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.

Witch

I have such a complicated relationship with Bret Easton Ellis and his novels. He was once my favourite author and my biggest inspiration. He also introduced me to so many artists and bands in my youth. Now I feel like he's grown into someone he once satirized in his novels, and that gets in the way of how I feel about his books. I've grown to hate him, but I can't quit his books. 

My favourite part of BEE's writing is that he's unflinching when it comes to his characters. He shows their ugliness without any restraint. No one is likeable, but they're also multi-faceted and interesting. I think that Rules of Attraction shows this better than any of his other books due to the unreliable narrators. 

This novel refreshes the idea of a love triangle. It's darker, and, in a way, more nihilistic--though the idea of Sean serenading Lauren was seriously hilarious. Was Paul/Sean ever real? I like to think so. 

Rules of Attraction has so many callbacks or references to his other novels which makes it even more delightful. Clay from Less Than Zero has a particularly fun segment, and it's nice to see a human Patrick Bateman. But don't even get me started on Victor (aka Zoolander) and his nonsense.

I understand that BEE's work isn't for everyone. It's not fun to dislike every character in a story--it can get exhausting! It's hard to separate the artist from the art. His satire can feel also feel insincere. Despite all of that I still love his novels--flaws and all.

The Rules of Attraction

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