I liked the book as a teen, but after broadening my literary horizons I realised Easton Ellis is really a bit of a hack who happened to find a niche. David Foster Wallace sums it up:"If what's always distinguished bad writing--flat characters, a narrative world that's clichéd and not recognizably human, etc.--is also a description of today's world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then Bret Easton Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything."The film sees the funny side, at least, and Ellis himself has acknowledged it works well as a 'greatest hits' of the novel. It's also still Bale's best performance.