I met Miss Ellis once years ago when I was temping at Random House around the time that American Psycho was first published. Pretty much the entire staff, especially the staff of Alfred A. Knopf, was in an uproar that senior management had dirtied the reputation of Random House and its imprints by agreeing to publish such poorly-written filth. Miss Ellis came to the office one day to meet with an editor, and shaking her hand felt squeezing a cold, dead fish.
In my hierarchy of reading there is Literature, then there is Good Trash, and finally Bad Trash. American Psycho is definately in the latter category, as are pretty much all of Bret Easton Ellis's works with the exception of his first novel, Less Than Zero. Even that work became tiresome after a point when the novelty of the free associative narration experiment wore off. Perhaps Less Than Zero would've worked better as a short story. I attempted to read both The Rules of Attraction and American Psycho but put them both down when it quickly became clear how bad they were and that Miss Ellis is a one-trick pony with her fixation on trust fund kids and designer labels. Both novels were populated with despicable, reprehensible characters with little or no redeeming qualities and there was simply no one to cheer for. Like a dry, joyless fuck. American Psycho reads like a misogynist wet dream. She probably hates humanity in general.