I read this book based on the recommendation of a friend whose opinion and general character I highly value but whose taste in literature I suspect is vastly different from mine.

That being said, this book got me wondering about the idea of what we "put into" our minds and my responsibility as a Christian to avoid texts like this, that are gratuitously violent, sexual, carnal, and that explore shallow, hollow, superficial lives for no apparent purpose.

I never would say Bret Easton Ellis was condoning any behavior that takes place in this book, but neither does the book appear to be a public statement on the moral universe.

Some of the descriptions in this book - especially of the rapes and murders - were just so disgusting and horrifying - and disturbing in their robotic, technical, devoid-of-emotion re-tellings - that I could barely keep going. Finally I put the book down when I started having violent dreams about it.

I have a pretty thick skin, but this one really got beneath it, and I never finished.