Book #58: The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Another book where I wasn't sure what to expect, and here Bret Easton Ellis' book revolves around a fictionalised version of himself as a high school senior in the 1980s.
One of the major plotlines here involves an unidentified serial killer called "The Trawler", and Bret's obsession with him. One of the big plot turning points comes when a main character is killed off, and may be a victim of the Trawler, or the result of drug use.
At the same time, a new student called Robert shows up; it seems apparent that he may be the Trawler, particularly because his background seems to involve a troubled family history, and that he may have killed his mother.
I had mixed feelings about this book. It got very exciting in the climactic moments, but I had a few issues with it.
First off, it took ages to get on to the trawler storyline, and it started off feeling like an erotic novel. So, at the start, Bret is in a relationship with Debbie, but he constantly cheats on her with other male students. It felt like a slow start to the book.
The novel also felt quite long-winded at times; some of the paragraphs seemed to go on for about a page, so it felt a bit exhaustive at times.
I had mixed feelings about the way that Ellis chose to end the book, by flash-forwarding to the present and showing what happened with his relationship with his fictional friends while mentioning the novels he published in real life.
I'm glad I took the trouble to read this, but I wasn't convinced to keep reading his novels.
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