Rating: 
Summary: NOTHING NEW HERE
Review: I read this book in less than two hours, and it did nothing for me. THIS IS NOT CATCHER IN THE RYE FOR THE MTV GENERATION!!! This is a decent writing for maybe a twenty year old want-to-be writer, which is what he was at the time. Personally I don't know how Ellis got this work published. I kept waiting and waiting for ANYTHING to happen, but unfortunately Ellis was not very creative. Instead he liked to talk about what people were wearing, he should have used that energy and time on thinking of all those 80's fashions, and I don't know, write a decent plot, or story. Do yourself a favor and take the money that you were going to spend on this book and buy some paper and pens and write your own story, it will probaly be more entertaining. As much as I wanted to like this novel, um sorry Bret, not very good even for a teenager.
Rating: 
Summary: A waste of time, watch the movie.
Review: This 200 page book was a complete waste of time. I saw the movie before I saw the book. The movie has nothing to do with the book except the same character names. I did not find this book to be the new "catcher in the rye", i just found it horrible. there is no substance to this book, but there is a ton of substance abuse. Maybe i'm missing the point, but the entire book consists of this: I went to a club, snorted some coke, went to another club, snorted some coke, went home and slept, snorted some coke. I have read numerous novels about corrupt youth/drug addiction and I have to say this was the least interesting. At least in the other novels I felt bad for the characters. In Less Than Zero I just wanted them to shut up. None of the main characters die or is there drug addiction really touched upon. I felt the author just skimmed over the book. Ellis had a great subject, perfect title and characters but he managed to make this story turn into complete blah. Scenes that could have been graphic and made the story more interesting were skimmed over. For example, a homosexual sex scene where a character is forced to watch in a hotel room...there is no description of emotions or anything of the sort. After the character says he is watching his friend (sell) himself, the next paragraph is five hours later. What happened there? I guess i could go the route and say emotions were not in this book because the characters did not have any...but at least make it interesting. Final thought: skip this one. Its not worth the time. If you want to read something like this, read Smack. Or if you are looking for something about people being so out of their minds they make no sense read Fear and loathing in Las Vegas.
Rating: 
Summary: The Catcher in the Rye of modern times
Review: A gripping portrayal of the vacuous existance of the young and priviledged. When there is nothing left to explore and no moral guidance, what is left but the lonlienss of being? Defenitely not for everyone, but a strangely poetic story of the hoplessness of life.
Rating:
Summary: L A in paperback form
Review: Ellis captures Los Angeles in all of its self-absorbed and hyperbolic superficiality. Less Than Zero is a wickedly decadent look at people whose lives have been hollowed out by excess and boredom. Ellis' rushed style and choppy sequences add to the overall disengaged and surreal environment that the book is set. As essential a read as a Thomas Guide for any Left Coaster.
Rating: 
Summary: More than zero...
Review: This book was tight. I really loved it and could relate to it being a private school snob. Plus...my sister goes to the high school that they mentioned. Sweeeettt....
Rating:
Summary: It's A Book
Review: I don't really know what to say about this book. It's not something I was very excited about. Run-on sentences almost killed it. Not much was interesting in the book until about half-way where everything is described in a different perspective. It's as if some things, I think, the majority of people would see as odd situations, and very disturbing, but the main character sees them as something he doesn't have to care about. Several phrases are striking, and are remembered throughout.
Rating:
Summary: Has Everyone Forgotten That Ellis Is A Satirist?
Review: After recently rereading Less Than Zero, I thought I'd come onto Amazon and see what other people had thought of it. I've found, however, quite a few negative reviews by people who have obviously _completely_ missed Ellis' point. The book, like all of his books, is a satire of modern (well, not anymore) pop culture. The book is hysterical at times, overdone because it was _meant_ to be overdone. The book wasn't supposed to be the bible of a lost culture, it was supposed to poke fun at coked up rich kids. Definitely a recommended read.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing to Lose
Review: There's a scene in "Less Than Zero" (I will not divulge specific details to you, as it occurs towards the end of the novel) where one character tells the main character that he does the horrible thing he does in this scene only because he has nothing to lose. This concept, of having so much that you have nothing to lose, is ultimately at the heart of Bret Easton Ellis' first novel.I think perhaps the single most important thing to consider while you read this book is that Bret Easton Ellis was a mere 20 or 21 when he had it published. The energy and pacing and language is certainly that of a young man (although he does carry this style through in his later novels, to what result I'm unsure as of this review). What I am sure of is that Ellis' later novels surely reached a higher level of complexity, whereas "Less Than Zero" exists on a purely emotional level. Take this how you will; for my money it works, and Ellis is skilled in his execution. Bear in mind that "Less Than Zero" is about 17 years old now; I suggest this because the style of writing is not nearly as compelling when you consider other modern writers, such as Chuck Palahniuk. In fact, the whole books feels a bit on the cliched side, and by contemporary standards, hardly as disturbing as it purports to be. That said, there's nonetheless something ultimately compelling about this book that carries it through from beginning to end. While the decadance that Clay, the main character and narrator, experiences and participates in is hardly new, I have the sneaking suspicion that it really made an impact when it was originally published. The book is very much about 80's youth culture, an orgiastic journey through clubs and concerts of long forgotten bands and mounds and mounds of cocaine, the ultimate "make" of the white, upper class 80's man-boy. Running at barely over 200 pages, the book is an intensely quick read, and while you may not be blown away by the sequence of events, there's no denying the passion (or lack of, depending on which scene you're referring to) within. You'll be hooked for a good afternoon. Read it in one sitting; for once that phrase applies in a realistic fashion. "Less Than Zero" is hardly intellectually taxing, but the rapid fire pace of its slim-to-non-existent narrative will certainly leave you breathless.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting
Review: Ellis' first and arguably best book. Like that other great eighties novel, Bright Lights, Big City, Less than Zero is probably remembered more for the terrible movie that followed (though Robert Downey Jr.--surprise, surprise--was quite good as the coke addict Julian) than for the quality of the novel itself. But this novel is an undeniable masterpiece, spare and haunting. I think the other reviewers have missed an important element to the novel: the narrator, Clay, is emotionally dead, an empty observer of his friends' depravity. Like Ellis' later character, Patrick Bateman, Clay is equipped with an elaborate code of etiquette and manners rather than any sense of morality or outrage. It is a mistake to view him as "better" than any of his high school friends; he is not a white knight or film noir hero disgusted by the violence and vice around him. Instead, Ellis suggests that the supreme hollowness and detachment of Clay from his surroundings is the ultimate horror (a theme further developed in American Psycho and Glamorama). All in all, a brilliant debut novel and a book that has long outlived the decade and culture that produced it.
Rating:
Summary: Ellis' first is a masterpiece that stands the test of time
Review: "Less than Zero" is the first novel by Bret Easton Ellis, who in my mind is the best writer of his generation. Like most controversial artists, Ellis is usually loved or hated; not too many people read his work and say he is simply 'okay' or 'average.' Money and wealth are like soul vacuums in Ellis' novels. The wealth of his characters is the main reason for the bad parenting, heavy drug abuse, promiscuous sex and overall moral emptiness all of his characters experience. The drugs and sex seem to make them feel something other than boredom and contempt. There is no real plot in "Less Than Zero" just a slice-of-life from the mind of Clay, who is home on Christmas Vacation and who seems isolated from his flithy-rich friends and family. He cares about little except where his next line of cocaine is coming from. He also seems to care about the welfare of his friend Julian, who seems to be in even worse shape than he is. "Less Than Zero" speaks for itself. It made Ellis a household name in the literary world, and is just as effective now as as the year it was released. Quite possibly the novel of the decade.
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