What a weird experience this read was. 13 short stories of acquainted people living in LA, some stories make sense together some don't. A slice-of-life novel of these different lives all connected by the emptiness that being rich and living in LA apparently instils upon people. Why would you leave the vampires to the last third of the book and why did we only get one short-story on them?

PS. Reading a book obsessed with Wayfarers while wearing Wayfearers seems pretty meta to me.

#30

Well, this is it. The first book so bad and uninteresting that I actually put it down before I finished it. Oddly enough, I got almost 2/3 through it! But last night I was just DONE. Started skimming so much and then downright paging through to other chapters, then to the end, then said "enough!"

It start off THAT bad which is why I got so far in. But the supposedly connected series of short stories were just too damn confusing. I sent most of each chapter trying to remember how each person was connected to previous stories and then I realized it just should not be that hard. Ever story was told in the first person & it seemed like it took until 2-3 pages in to figure out who it was talking. I realize this was supposed to BE highlighting the uglier side of the bored wealthy families in LA in the 80s, but still - the dialogue was too shallow even for that. There was not one single character (if I could figure out who they were) who was interesting or compelling or someone I wanted to learn more about. Pffffffffffffft!

Money. Cocaine. Designer labeled clothes. Expensive cars. Meaningless sex with various partners. Things that belong to the world of elite of which many have written, but none writes of shallow characters inhabiting it the way Bret Easton Ellis does. At least the one of LA elite.
Coming off the American Psycho fame, Ellis went with something a bit different from his previous works, short story collection set in the same shared universe of all of his novels. World of Clay, Patrick Bateman, Paul, Sean and Lauren. His trademark first person narrative filled with nihilism is there, used to confuse reader as it takes you time to understand which character is which. Characters are crossing from story to story, in one they're the narrator, in the other they're someone mentioned in the conversation. Even though it's not highlighted, there is a time gap between, even geographic. Yet, that is Ellis' trademark, the way it was written, it might be all the same character as it just shows how all characters of his world are alike.
One of the strengths of Ellis' writing is that it all plays like a movie scene, and you can't shake the feeling you're watching '80's LA elite scene passing before your eyes. Maybe not as strong as Less Than Zero or American Psycho, which are more personal novels of his, but it certainly has its charms.

Sure, it looks entertaining. But, I promise you, by the time you get to the thirtieth page you'll start flipping through the pages, just to see if the 'might as well kill ourselves now' tone dies down a little as the book goes on. Surprise! It doesn't. An endless, painful, LONG look at the lives of some very spoiled, very addicted teenagers and their over medicated, surgically altered parents. It's LA at it's worst: and I'm having trouble believing that people this heartless even exist, but that's just my naiive sensitivity kicking in. There's only so many 'lets smoke a joint and shoot up and have meaningless, stoned sex' scenes a person can take and throughout the book your bombarded with them, page after page. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to have gotten from this experience. We live in a materialistic age, drug use is a serious problem, today's teens have no substance - what exactly is the message here? Go ahead, read it, and see if you can find any sort of meaning behind all of this because I sure as hell can't.

YIKES. It’s been ages since I read this collection of stories. I’ve immensely enjoyed being in Bret’s worlds these past months but man the last stories made me want to RUN. Screaming into the overbearing sunlight, out of the marine layer of the deep void and joyless atmosphere his ghosts inhabit.

BUT let’s make it crystal clear while disturbing as this set of stories may be, they are still sheer perfection.

Bret’s voice is so specific and haunted and undeniable. He is like no other and that is a BLESSED thing.

Genuinely such a fun read after getting used to the narrative style. Love the way each character deals with their meaningless existence with drugs or cheap thrills. Definitely think the book has a lot to say, especially when comparing these characters to our current generation. Probably now one of my all time favourite books.

Interesting style. Some of the stories were really enveloping and some were not as intriguing to me. Maybe it’s because I didn’t really feel pity for any of the characters

Every character is on so much Valium and i should have taken notes while reading this. You should too if you want to have any semblance of what the fuck is happening and who everyone is. That dinner scene in Hawaii might be one of my favorite things i’ve ever read though

this is a bunch of interconnected short stories about people in LA and then there’s just a random chapter about a guy who thinks he’s a vampire and ya know what, why not. at least it’s not a random chapter completely in french (which he has fine before)

https://mikatchu.substack.com/p/youre...

this book. this book guided me through one of the most
depressed weeks of my life and made it all worse. love it

This is the fifth book I've read by Bret Easton Ellis and I count him amongst my list of favourite authors, even though I don't love everything he's written. The Informers is a series of short stories featuring different narrators and overlapping storylines which all focus on a circle of spoilt and ultimately ruined, young adults living in LA. The characters are all people who are easy to despise as they're painfully shallow and consumed by their own needs and desires with little or no regard for anyone else. Their stories are as humourless and as hollow as their personalities, yet I found myself easily getting sucked into their downward spiralling world. Like someone rubbernecking at a horrific car crash on the motorway, I couldn't stop reading, no matter how depraved the stories became.

If you're already familiar with Ellis' work, this may seem like one of his weaker books, but if you can appreciate the art of short-story telling and are used to reading that format, you may just enjoy it. This isn't one I'd recommend as an introduction to Ellis though; try American Psycho or Less Than Zero first.