I’ve just finished another read through of American Psycho, and I feel sick. Like many people I’m disgusted by the gore and graphic violence and every time I read this book it puts me into a bad headspace and I just feel generally disgusted and depressed during and after. I spiral for about a week afterwards and I can’t get those chapters out of my head. I first read it about 2 years ago and I reread about every 2 months.
I think it’s well written and an excellent satire on 1980s consumerism culture, in the same way that I think Lolita or The Road is well written. But I don’t feel compelled to keep reading those. I can appreciate a writer’s ability to provoke an emotional reaction, but reading American Psycho is a visceral experience. I wouldn’t say AP is my favorite book but it’s the one I read most often. Whenever I’m feeling down I read it and make myself feel worse.
It’s not like I’m doing this to be edgy or for weird bragging rights. I’m not constantly trying to talk about it with my friends or fawning over the main character online or shock people by telling them about plot lines. I just don’t talk about it. My husband is the only one who knows how much I read it and that’s because we live together. He brought me books for our anniversary and joked that now I had something nicer to read.
I’ve been trying to be more introspective lately and I guess I realized I don’t actually like this book but I can’t stop reading it. I’ll read other books as well but I can’t stop picking this one up. It’s like craning my head to stare at a car crash. Or something.
I’ve also realized all my time I spend on Reddit is mostly drama subs. RelationshipAdvice, AITA, BestofRedditorUpdates, etc. Why am I feeling like I always have to be reading crazy dramatic unhappy stories? My real life relationship and life is normal. My husband and I love each other and treat each other with respect. My childhood was not the greatest, so am I trying to seek out chaos in a controlled way? I have no clue. I’m going to tape up my copy of American Psycho so I can stop reading it and keep it on my shelf.
by RealisticObjective95