You’ve possibly seen the 2000 movie American Psycho starring Christian Bale, which was dubbed by critics misogynistic, to which fans retorted a woman directed it — Mary Harron.

However, it’s not often I’ve run across someone who has read the book by Bret Easton Ellis on which the movie was based. Reviews across Goodreads cite the absolute worst part each reader experienced, and they are varied. If a content warning exists for it, it’s in American Psycho. So, what makes Ellis’s novel so popular? And who should read it?

My concern is less about the kind of reader and more about reading in isolation. I think American Psycho is best read with a book club or in a college classroom, someplace people can discuss what’s on the page, their reactions, and what it means in the bigger picture, especially given the violent, graphic content.

Patrick Batemen is twenty-six and works on Wall Street in the 1980s during the height of the yuppies. We don’t know if he’s successful, per se, because he’s the narrator, and his focus is elsewhere. He’s white and able-bodied, obsessed with intense exercise and hygiene routines, he has nuanced knowledge of who designed clothing just by looking at it, and he’s going insane. We first meet Patrick with another white man (they literally all look alike, and that’s part of the point) as they discuss what’s “in” for this season’s fashion trends, where to eat fine dining, and where to score cocaine. It’s really, truly, very 1980s, which you never forget thanks to MTV, cocaine, Les Miserables on Broadway, Donald Trump, cocaine, misconceptions about AIDS, and cocaine.

Eventually, Patrick starts killing people between his two hours at the gym, watching The Patty Winters Show every morning, returning videotapes to the rental store, and eating at whatever Zagat says is hot this month. The murders grow more gruesome, and yes, they are written in detail. While readers may squirm at the horror, the shame comes from how often you laugh. Ellis has written in Patrick a character so unknowable — despite him being the narrator — that readers cannot agree if Patrick is actually killing people and blurting out violent fantasies or not.

“I’m into, oh, murders and executions mostly. It depends.” I shrug.

“Do you like it?” she asks, unfazed.

“Um . . . It depends. Why?” I take a bite of sorbet.

“Well, most guys I know who work in mergers and acquisitions don’t really like it,” she says.

Ellis’s novel speculates what 1980s yuppies thought through the sharp lens of Patrick Bateman. Yes, there are female characters, but they are largely zoned out from Xanax and the like, trying to snag the richest Wall Street bro they can, like some sort of warped Pride and Prejudice. Women are cycled among men like trading cards, but no worries, because straight white guys can’t get AIDS.

In reality, the yuppies are so inconsequential that nobody can tell one from the other. They’re always arguing over who’s actually sitting over at the next table, and Patrick gets confused for a different yuppie several times. His obsession with what people are wearing and the price of things is laughable when he encounters working class people who don’t think him consequential at all, like the video store clerk or the bartender. The yuppies play at being hyper-masculine, calling anyone they don’t like a slur for gay men, yet they’re constantly getting facials, manicures and pedicures, and are worried about how realistic their tans look. The point of reading this book is not to like the characters, but to get an in-depth look at the greed related to Wall Street and how destructive it was.

What intrigued me were the moments that snuck in, showing readers that Patrick is neither hyper-masculine nor confident. He gets anxious when things don’t go exactly how he “needs” them to go, such as peers who won’t make a reservation at a restaurant when he wants them to, causing him to fret over the prospect of waiting in line: “I’m on the verge of tears by the time we arrive at Pastels since I’m positive we won’t get seated but the table is good, and relief that is almost tidal in scope washes over me in an awesome wave.”

Despite having loads of money (one peer brags that he makes $190,000 a year, which made me laugh in 2026 dollars), Patrick is obsessed with returning videotapes through the entire novel: “And I’m thinking oh my god why didn’t you return those goddamn videos Bateman you dumb son-of-a-bitch.” In context, Patrick having these panicked moments are hilarious. Context is important; one chapter is just a three-way call in which people are trying to decide where to dine. It’s a riot, but when you read the premise, it sounds like a bit of nothing. That’s Ellis’s genius; you know these things are important to Patrick, and when they don’t play out as he wants them to, he’s like a living meme of dying on the inside. He laments, “…it has been a very unstable week for me — I found myself sobbing during an episode of Alf on Monday.”

I read American Psycho with a book club (a small group this meeting, including me, Nick, and two lovely mothers, one a librarian, one a church-going pharmacist) and I’m glad I did. We had a rich discussion, including, yes, which parts made us squirm the most, but also, we exchanged ideas about what kind of man Patrick is. Despite reservations, the three of us (sorry, Nick) finished the book. The pharmacist noted that had she read American Psycho for another local book club, one that has about 25 people each meeting, she would not have finished. The intimacy of a small group made space for a hearty discussion in a comfortable space. By the end of book club, I was 100% positive that Patrick wasn’t hyper-masculine at all, more of an awkward loser who fantasized about being so powerful that he could out-purchase anyone, have wild sex, kill and consume women, lord himself over the homeless — and convince readers it was all true.