The Rules of Attraction

Firstly, to all the people saying "the first 12 pages are missing, I got ripped off" don't understand that this is intentional and that the book is suppose to begin mid-sentance. So don't worry if you buy this book and it starts off like that, it was meant to be.

Secondly, incredible book. For anyone who enjoys painfully honest stories about life then you will love The Rules of Attraction. The novel exploits 'relationships' and their futility by showing the mixed opinions of three selfish college students in a love triangle.

Ellis narrates the characters dialogue and thoughts in an incredibly realistic way which made me individually feel as if the events were being acted out as if was reading them. The whole book is like a film playing out in your brain.

For anyone who liked 'American Psycho', this book plays out in a very similar fashion with a definite feel of nihilism and pointlessness that brings meaning.

Just read the novel, it's amazing, it's among my all time favorites.

Just received this book and a copy of Less than Zero. Discovered that "Rules" is missing several pages at the beginning....perhaps this is intentional?

First time, very first time, in hundreds of items ordered books , CDs and other stuff that I've received anything defective.

Looked over the return policy. LOL, for the ten bucks this cost I'm going to toss it in the paper recycling and buy a copy at a "bookstore".

I don't visit "bookstores" much anymore because I buy nearly all of my books from amazondotcom. Well,Isee there's an advantage after all. It's just not worth it to package this to return....and order another? Wull,, (as you younger people like to pronounce it ) Wull, da, it might be defective and missing pages too.

Note to Amazon. No, not gonna do it.....buy electronic book downloads.

The Rules of Attraction is told by many narrators: Sean, Paul, Lauren, and a few others (including Clay from Less than Zero, but mainly those first three. That alone makes this novel interesting, as you sometimes read the same event from two different perspectives, and wonder if someone is lying or hiding things; it also makes for devastatingly sad moments, as one character thinks very highly of his/her relation to someone, and that other person can't even name the former person correctly.

The novel is usually narrated in the present tense - as was Less than Zero - and all three (main) narrators have distinctive voices. Paul, passionate on the surface but pragmatic at bottom; Sean, he sleeps with just about everyone but is in love with Lauren (although you can put those in a different order: apparently in love with Lauren but sleeping with everyone...); and Lauren, still thinking of Victor, in Europe, whom she seems deeply in love with, yet also sleeps with a ton of other people.

Paul wants Sean, who wants Lauren, who wants Victor, who wants Paul. This is the tragic circle presented in this novel.

Plot-wise, it's a difficult novel to summarise, and I won't attempt to do so, because it doesn't matter much. What matters are the characters, their thoughts, their sad lives. The Rules of Attraction has a layer of humour that wasn't present in Ellis' previous novel, as well as a different style, but at heart, the novel is equally as sad as Less than Zero. Indeed, one can only feel broken-hearted at all these characters' lack of solid relationships and purpose in life. It's just sex and drugs, and neither makes anyone happy. They're in college, and their majors sound like a joke, exchangeable and disposable.

Ellis, I hear/read often, considers himself a moralist. And the good thing with that is that he doesn't chew the moral for you: he gives you things as they are, and gives you enough credit to know what's morally bankrupt on your own - just as he did in Less than Zero - and if you can't see that it's morally bankrupt, then even an explicit moralisation wouldn't save you. I like that. Ellis gives you credit, and does away with that ever-annoying pat on the back given among well-intentioned, but condescending, people. None of that here.

Because of this, many readers think Ellis does the apology of the characters in his novels. He doesn't, he only presents them as they are, and leaves the judgement up to you; but more than judging, one feels like sympathising with these sad characters, and you finish the novel with a strong liking for real relationships.

Overall, this book is very good. The quote at the beginning makes perfect sense, and gives the right angle to approach this novel; the structure (with many different points of view) is brilliant and creates a lot of fun and sad moments; the characters are endearing even though you dislike their actions very much (which isn't an easy thing to achieve, for an author); and it's a good read.

Recommended! But make sure you read this with the right angle.

PS: There is some French in the novel, very little, but it has a ton of grammatical mistakes. The character is a native French, and shouldn't have made those mistakes, and Ellis should have had it corrected by a native French speaker (although it's not horrible French, it's obviously second-language French). But that's just a detail.

Bret Easton Ellis certainly captures the essence of the 80's, 90's and our recent decade. Like me, those who grew up in these eras can identify with the characters, music and themes of his novels. I don't think that remakes of his novels (Less than Zero, The Laws of Attraction, American Psyco) can really do justice. His writing to me is like Stephen King, where most of the action is created inside of the heads of the characters. That said it is interesting to see Hollywood's take on his stories. More interesting to me is the way the characters are connected with each other from novel to novel and the way he reinvents them.

The characters give a different perspective on the story, which is what keeps me engaged. It can be uncomfortable and perhaps unsettling at times but definitely an avenue into the human psyche and how complicating it is to grow up and live in these unsettling times.

I look at Ellis' work, like many have, as a reflection on our generation. It does make sense if you read and then reread. His analogies and irony may take awhile to understand. But, he is a gifted talent and anyone growing up in the 80's, 90's and beyond should definitely put this on their reading list.

We all know the masterpiece of that author, viz. American Psycho (please watch the uncut unrated video version: the extra five minutes make a real difference), and I was curious to see what he had become with time and age. This novel is situated in the same period as the one that made his fame, the mid 80s, under Ronald Reagan, the time of the emergence of financial capitalism, or shouldn't I say the emergence of speculative stock exchange financial greedy deregulated adventure. We are dealing here with the children of the first generation of these speculators who were inventing that golden boy and yippy/yuppy age that was just being born under our eyes. The children are all in college doing anything you may think of from drama to poetry, from art to just nothing. They do not plan on getting any real competence or skill in the social field of productivity and the economy. They are just expressing, satisfying and even trying to satiate their unfathomable hunger and thirst for anything that is not advised by moral and ethical authorities in the American world or what's more that is heavily not recommended and harshly rejected, i.e. drugs from cocaine to mushroom and all kinds of other grass, substance or concoction that could get you high or just wasted; then alcohol for the very purpose of being drunk as long as possible, forever if possible (And there they are creative like champagne on the rocks or rum diet coke, and some other barbaric mixtures); and of course sex, sex and sex. The book is in fact detailed only at that level and explores all kinds of possible orientations from plain gay to plain straight and all the variations, nuances, hues and other shades in-between for both girls and boys. In fact the book is becoming obsessive about male homosexuality with a few characters. Paul who is all gay but has some non-gay adventures on the side. Sean who starts very, very, very gay and turns straight later on and anti-gay at the same time. And you have those here and there who condescend to have a gay episode provided it is not made public, and at times even take a second helping of that liquor. There even is a pregnancy that is terminated in a clinic of some kind, a revealed, accepted, celebrated, resented, rejected, hated and finally gotten rid of pregnancy. All that is pathetic if not even miserable. The future leaders and profiteers of this society of ours in the 1980s were just corrugated and totally spaced-out and learning nothing because they did not need anything, except poker and bridge: their daddies and their mummies were able to provide them with the means and the positions they needed to make money, and the only objective was to make money in society, and to sexually milk the cow in college and of course not beyond graduation, if ever reached. It is well written, and maybe even funny, though it is essentially sad and dramatic, essentially when we know it is these people who were the central actors and engineers of the 2008-2009 crisis. They live in a bubble, their mind is a bubble, and they managed what they were supposed to manage in our society as if it had to be a bubble. Bubble after bubble we have a comic book that is not comical or funny at all. Gadoosh! And our dear traders are starting again, and will always start again because for them life is a party when they get high and drunk, then a hangover, then another party when they get high and drunk, then another hangover, and so on till the end of time, till some kind of God tells them: "That will do!" and throws the Tables of the Law to the ground and breaks the covenant to give it back anyway just one fit of anger later.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Vincennes Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Val de Marne Créteil, CEGID Boulogne Billancourt