Books : Less Than Zero

Buy Now!

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780679781493
ISBN: 0679781498
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: June 30, 1998
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: June 30, 1998
Sales Rank: 16952
Studio: Vintage

Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980's, this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait
of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age, in a
world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money a place devoid of feeling or
hope.

Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of
limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago,
and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his
best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday
turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy
mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs and also into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.

Average Rating:

Rating: - Disturbing/Interesting
"Less than Zero" explains life as a college eged person according to Clay. He is on his Christmas break and pretty much talks about all of his social encounters, going over every deatial no matter how disturbing it may be. For example the way him and his friends did drugs, got drunk, had sex and used F*** a lot. It even describes the disgusting details fo the sexual assult of a young boy and what they did to him. They have these huge parties and dont have a care in the world other then getting ... Read More

Rating: - Ennui.
"Less Than Zero" is a semi-autobiographical novel of youthful disaffection and depravity among wealthy Los Angelinos, written when author Bret Easton Ellis was 19 years old. Clay is a college freshman who has returned to his native L.A. for Christmas break after his first semester in New Hampshire. He has vague plans to see his old friends and a half-hearted intention of rekindling a relationship with his high school girlfriend Blaire. Clay recounts, in a droning first person narration, the month he ... Read More

---

Rating: - Catcher in the Rye in 1985 L.A.
On the back of my book, USA Today quips, "Catcher in the Rye for the MTV generation." I couldn't agree with that statement more (although I really didn't care for Catcher). Less Than Zero's Clay has the cynicism and adolescent boredom of Holden Caulfield, only on a more depraved level. He surrounds himself with degenerates who lead decadent, shallow lives full of drugs, booze, sex, and money. When one character is asked, "...What don't you have," he replies, "I don't have anything to lose." That ... Read More

---

Rating: - This book was a little too graphic for my tastes
Um, this is pretty much like every other Bret Easton Ellis book, except it was the first, so I guess they are all like this one. It's about a bunch of rich kids who became jaded about life too early on. They do a bunch of drugs. Have a bunch of sex and commit crimes that don't really disturb them, including raping a 12-year-old girl. It's pretty good up until the end, where the 12-year-old girl came in. That was a bit too much for me.

The thing I found interesting about this book is that ... Read More

---

Rating: - Ignore the movie version, read the book, it's (unfortunately) pitch-perfect
Ellis is an expert at chronicling the callow consumerism and nihilism of a particular breed of American wealth. He hits it here. These characters aren't at all overblown. They are incredibly shallow. They are exactly as shallow as they would be if they were actually alive. If you don't know people who are exactly like this then you've never known anyone from Sherman Oaks or Beverly Hills.

And then, as he always does, once he's created these completely plausible characters, Ellis starts dragging ... Read More