Join Our Official Book Club! - March Discussion "Imperial Bedrooms" by Bret Easton Ellis
You know the drill, folks. Every month a new book is selected and a new moderator steps up to lead the discussion. This month, we will be reading and discussing Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis.
From the back cover:
Bret Easton Ellis’s debut, Less Than Zero, is one of the signal novels of the last thirty years, and he now follows those infamous teenagers into an even more desperate middle age.
Clay, a successful screenwriter, has returned from New York to Los Angeles to help cast his new movie, and he’s soon drifting through a long-familiar circle. Blair, his former girlfriend, is married to Trent, an influential manager who’s still a bisexual philanderer, and their Beverly Hills parties attract various levels of fame, fortune and power. Then there’s Clay’s childhood friend Julian, a recovering addict, and their old dealer, Rip, face-lifted beyond recognition and seemingly even more sinister than in his notorious past.
But Clay’s own demons emerge once he meets a gorgeous young actress determined to win a role in his movie. And when his life careens completely out of control, he has no choice but to plumb the darkest recesses of his character and come to terms with his proclivity for betrayal.
A genuine literary event.
Comments
honestly loved the book
I like how Ellis describes Rain throughout the book. It's almost like you love to hate her..
I thought this book was fine. I kept wondering what the point was, though. It seemed like Ellis could have done something much better than a rehash of old characters bitching about the movie not turning out well.
While I like Bret Easton Ellis alot I thought this book was pretty bad. I finished it in a few hours, but the real problem was the lack of meaning and characters. I first read Less than Zero and loved it, but the characters in this book seem to be cheap knock offs that go against the original characters. It seems like he wanted to shock people more than with Less than Zero so he made them do worse things but it didn't stay true to the original characters. Clay is passive, the exact opposite of his character is portrayed in Imperial Bedrooms.
+1 RoyalSwine
Overall, it was okay but I think it would have been better added to the end of an Anniversary Edition of LtZ as an Epilogue or something than as a separate book, especially with it being so short.
I happen to love the writing style of Bret Easton Ellis. Although, I'd have to say this is his poorest effort as a writer to date. The characters of the Less Than Zero novel display the blandness of old age. The book itself created an excitement when it first was published but after finishing it, it was a huge disapointment. Still, I am an avid reader of Ellis and look forward to any new literature he generates in the future.
Read Less than Zero again first to follow it up with Imperial Bedrooms. Loved them both, understated and clever. Makes you feel your are there and how pointlessly some people choose to live their lives.
I hear this is his last book, real shame have read and loved them all.
That would be a huge bummer if that was his last book. I mean I did like it but not in respect to the sequel to Less Than Zero, I feel LTZ is a beast of it's own and shouldn't have had a follow up book. Let us all hope that Imperial Bedrooms is not his last work. Keep your fingers crossed.
Hey didn't you guys run a review of this and an Ellis interview when it came out?