Less than zero

208 pages

English language

Published July 10, 1985 by Simon and Schuster.

ISBN:
978-0-671-54329-7
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
11650489

View on OpenLibrary

3 stars (37 reviews)

Returning to Los Angeles from his Eastern college for a Christmas vacation in the early 1980s, Clay "reenters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porsches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine ... A raw, powerful portrait of a lost generation."--Back cover, Vintage Contemporaries ed. (1998).

30 editions

Disappear Here.

4 stars

I read Less Than Zero after reading American Psycho about a year ago. This is an incredibly powerful book with solid motifs and themes - it almost feels like a prototype of Ellis's future work. Clay's lifestyle, as described, is completely alien to me, personally. Still, Ellis is so effective at conveying the emptiness and the disconnect at the core of these youths' psyche that I cannot help but feel for them despite their overwhelming privilege. The plot isn't exactly linear, but Ellis manages to gets his point across nonetheless. Overall, Less Than Zero is an impressive endeavour for such a young author that I greatly enjoyed reading.

Review of 'Less Than Zero (Picador Books)' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This I reread, after being swept by The Shards. It’s been a ling time.

What I remembered and experienced again: the desolation of the insanely rich narcist brats. The substance abuse. The emptiness, the pervasive, stiffling sense of boredom of those free to pursuit anything, no limits. Also: the glimpse of humanity.

I did not recall the viscersl cruelty that much. Even so, the language is mesmerizing, powerful.

This is not a happy book. Many books are not.

Review of 'Less Than Zero' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

25 years ago Less Than Zero was published by a 21 year old Bret Easton Ellis with reviews like "Oh, this is just nihilism. These people don't exist! There's nobody that rich and stupid and narcissistic!" (The New Yorker, June 1985). Reading it now, we all probably know self-destructive people like these. Less than Zero has developed a cult following and feels like you are reading a diary of a lost and unsure rich 18 year-old who come back to the destructive neighbourhood of his past. Though out the book you are unsure if Clay will even grow or learn from all this and it almost feels like he doesn’t.

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Subjects

  • Young men -- Fiction.
  • Drug addiction -- Fiction.
  • Friendship -- Fiction.
  • Generation X -- Fiction.
  • Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Fiction.