I just finished reading ‘The Shards’ by Bret Easton Ellis, and I have to say it definitely deserves 4 stars! If you haven’t read any of Ellis’s other works yet, I would recommend doing so before picking up this novel. Originally published as a podcast, ‘The Shards’ may have worked better in that format.

Set in vibrant 80s Los Angeles, this narrative follows seventeen-year-old Bret as he meets Robert Mallory, a new student with a mysterious past. Throughout the book, we follow Bret’s obsession with Mallory and his growing preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be taunting him and his friends.

What makes The Shards so unique is its ability to blur the boundary between facts and fiction through Bret’s perspective. One moment you think that what you’re reading is fact-based – something that really happened – but then it quickly turns out to be part of someone’s imagination. This creates an overall experience of prurient curiosity that keeps readers on their toes until the very end.

If you're looking for an exploration into the depths of adolescent self discovery set against a thrilling backdrop then The Shards should definitely be your next read! However if you haven't read other works by Bret Easton Ellis then I would suggest starting off elsewhere first - this is not one for newbies!

I spent lockdown listening to Bret read this out on his podcast and to read it as a full novel was exciting and special. Bret is one of my favorite authors and I love everything he does. This is no exception, a 600-page fever dream of idyllic teenage life in the 80s with a sexy serial killer in the background. Do yourself a favor and read this now.

With his first novel in 13 years, Bret Easton Ellis, author, and podcaster, takes us to the early-'80s in Los Angeles, where a character named "Bret" attends an elite prep school and a deranged serial killer is on the loose in his latest psychological thriller, THE SHARDS.

From the prolific author of (6 novels); Less Than Zero and American Psycho, we follow a group of privileged high school friends at the exclusive elite Buckley prep school with drugs, alcohol, parties, violence, sex, pop culture, and a serial killer in his latest coming-of-age saga.

Ellis uses his own life and experiences as a backdrop for a fictional story and is the book's narrator and main character.

In this semi-autobiographical meets fiction (reality and fantasy), of 1981, Bret and his uber-wealthy entitled friends with little or no parental controls spend their final year of high school in all sorts of trouble with wild parties. They are wide open.

A new kid, Robert Mallory, joins the mix, and Bret is curious as to why he would transfer from Chicago to L.A. in their final year in high school. He gets bad vibes. But the others do not seem to mind welcoming into their elite group. Robert also has a mysterious past which makes Bret even more suspicious.

There is also a background story of The Trawler, a serial killer who targets, tortures, and kills young women. Bret becomes obsessed with the story. Does he wonder if the killer has anything to do with Robert Mallory and the timing? Could he be The Trawler?

The twisty complex plot has three subjects: the nostalgic history of the L.A. landscape in the 80s, which he does well; the coming-of-age closet gay teen who wants to become a writer and a true crime story about a serial killer targeting teens.

Overall, a wicked, gritty, edgy tale with dark undertones. Dark and disturbing and not for the faint of heart, but it has twists of dark humor. From obsession, jealousy, and fear, the emotions run high with intensity.

A very lengthy book and often gets repetitive and sexually explicit with violence. This was initially published in a podcast over several episodes. Those who enjoy Ellis's writing will enjoy this one. It would be better in a podcast than a book; however, the author is a great storyteller.

The author's vivid descriptions, nostalgic backdrop, and details of time and place make the book shine!

Thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for a gifted e-ARC.

Blog Review Posted @
www.JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
Pub Date: Jan 17, 2023
My Rating: 4 Stars
Jan 2022 Must-Read Books

Ellis insists that the events depicted in this book actually happened and their horrific nature affected him psychologically for years. Oddly, their ultimate truth or fact just does not seem to matter all that much for the story. Indeed, an Internet search for “The Trawler” or serial killers with similar MO’s in 1980s Los Angeles comes up empty. At its extreme, Ellis insists that there may be some mysterious conspiracy to hide the truth. After all, we DO live in an age of “fake news” and corrupt people in powerful positions.

The complex plot has three linked topics: nostalgic reminisces of the LA landscape in the 80s; the coming-of-age of a closeted gay teen who aspires to become a writer; and a true crime story about an insane serial killer targeting teens. Adult Ellis is the narrator and teen Ellis is the protagonist. The latter is in his final year of high school at LA’s exclusive Buckley Prep. His friends are mostly entitled, self-involved, and largely unsupervised. This group of teens is indeed hard to like. In them, Ellis captures an empty and numbing mood accentuated by drugs, sex, and access to far too much material wealth. Adult supervision is absent. Most of the adults in the novel are deeply flawed or just plain absent from their kid’s lives. So, these characters, on the verge of adulthood, get most of their validation from each other while spending large amounts of time alone in their expensive cars or empty mansions. Ellis consistently refers to his own home as the “empty house on Mulholland.”

Ellis is at his best when nostalgically characterizing the LA of his youth. He is meticulous about its pop culture, especially the music, movies, restaurants, and malls. Teen Ellis spends large amounts of time driving around the city, mostly at night, and adult Ellis treats these forays with cinematic mastery. Clearly, these are the best part of the book and the work of a skilled screen writer.

The depiction of the protagonist’s homosexual and writerly urges are unfortunately not up to that standard. Instead, they get a more casual treatment. One senses that young Ellis expected all along to be accepted and successful at both with little need to struggle. Clearly, this has been the case for adult Ellis, but the absence of any teenage angst surrounding these important parts of a developing persona seems unusual and unbelievable.

The true crime aspect of the novel is its least successful part. The absence of any record of such a serial killer casts a cloud over Ellis claims. Nevertheless, he succeeds in using it to create a tense, suspenseful and haunting mood. However, his attempts to link this to teen Ellis and his friends seems awkward and contrived. Particularly jarring is his freakish obsession with the new kid, Robert Mallory, who comes to LA with a checkered history, but is openly embraced by his peers. One wonders if petty jealousy may play a role in this plot element.

Ellis’ skill with metafictional horror is on display in THE SHARDS. However, its close resemblance to his previous work suggests laziness and an absence of new ideas. The novel also is marred by being far too long. Although necessary parts of serialized podcasts, the repetitions and digressions tend to interfere with momentum with the novel genre.

Bret Easton Ellis, most famous for his books American Psycho and Less than Zero, has penned a wicked tale, one that is at once bewildering, terrifying, and completely absorbing.

"We were teenagers distracted by sex and pop music, movies and celebrity, lust and ephemera and our own neutral innocence."

We go back to the days when Bret himself was a senior at the private Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, CA. The year is 1981. He and his uber wealthy friends plan to spend their final year in high school under the haze of alcohol, cocaine, quaaludes, and anything else they can get their greedy little hands on. Kids with "a what-the-fuck entitlement" as they are described in the book. The year starts of well enough until a new kid, Robert Mallory, joins the mix. Bret is curious as to why someone would transfer from Chicago to LA in their final year in high school. He immediately gets bad vibes from Robert yet his friends are all welcoming him into their elite group.

Meanwhile, in the background of this story is The Trawler, a serial killer that is targeting, torturing, and killing young women. Bret gets obsessed with the story yet no one else seems to be paying attention. Certainly none of his friends are interested. Maybe it's the writer in him but he begins to build a time line of the murders and they all coincide with Robert Mallory coming and going from LA. Is it possible that Robert is The Trawler?

This book is a hard book to describe. It seems semi-autobiographical but it really is a work of fiction. I hit up Google many times while reading this to try to figure out what is real and what isn't. The Trawler was a serial killer in LA in 1981 but he targeted elderly women. Bret took that story and spun it to fit the narrative of this book and it was super successful. I was creeped out and chilled to the bone on several occasions. Having said that please be warned that this book is not for the faint of heart. The descriptions of the murders for some will be beyond disturbing and nightmare inducing. As a reader you will also have to endure all sorts of debauchery. If teens getting high and having sex is a no no for you then move right along. I would describe this book as hypersexual. There is a lot of male/male sex, some male/female sex, and a whole lot of masturbation. I've mentioned before that I don't need to know all the nitty gritty details of sex in my books but it does work here because there is absolutely nothing erotic about it. It sets the tone and atmosphere of not only the place but the time being 1981 when homosexuality was still firmly in the closet.

What is stopping me from giving this book 5 stars is the length. This book is over 600 pages long and incredibly dense. There is a lot of text on the page so you can't just fly through this. This book demands that you take your time. I personally think an editor could trim this down and make this book a masterpiece. For example there is a lot of driving around the LA area:

I took Avenue of the Stars and would make a left onto Santa Monica and then drive South Beverly Glen until it hit Bel Air Road where I would swing a right onto Bellagio, which would take us to Stone Canyon.

I was on the freeway and realized in a daze that I was flying through the Cahuenga Pass when I saw the Hollywood Cross lit above the Ford Ampitheatre and I found myself racing across the 101 passing through Burbank and Studio City and then Sherman Oaks and Encino and Tarzana, until I was out in Woodland Hills, where I drove through the now empty parking lot of the Promenade.

Now for someone from the area this may be really cool but for someone like myself on the East coast all these driving scenes got a little tedious because I wasn't able to visualize them at all. Maybe I should have pulled up a Google map of the area but, come on, who really wants to put that much work into reading a book.

So yeah, my only complaint is some editing because this book is sensational otherwise. A+ for the cover art as well. 4 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for my complimentary copy.

The Shard is spooky and mysterious and sets a chilling tone. This book is certainly not for everyone as it is graphic with sex and gore. But if you're a Bret Eason Ellis fan, this one is a must.

4.5/5

I recommend reading Ellis’s shorter backlisted catalogue first to get a feel for his writing and if you like those books then you may be ready for this one. Let me emphasize may be. He takes his beautiful excesses and gorgeous prose to a whole new level here. I cherished every page for one reason or another.

Thank you for this opportunity!

A trifecta of excellence!!!! Setting, characters and themes set this book apart from contemporary literature. If you thought Less Than Zero and American Psycho were the best books Ellis ever wrote, think again! He tops himself with his latest work The Shards. In less than capable hands of another writer, this book would have fallen flat, but with Easton Ellis it is a masterpiece!!. He impeccably captures Beverly Hills of the 80s while invoking today's modern day obsession with true crime. Told in flashback, the story smoothly unfolds as the reader holds his/her breath. This was a book that I could not put down. If not for the graphic sex, which is limited, I would have recommended it to my students.

Definitely a fascinating book to read and some of the better stuff coming from Ellis in years. There is a lot to like, some not to like. I treated it and read it as a novel but Ellis has said publicly that it is a memoir and that this is a true story of his senior year in high school. But it is written like a novel with the benefit of 2022's hindsight. Anyway, the book is unlike any other coming of age or high school story you will ever read. It is dark and graphic, an exploration of sexuality, and revolving around a crime story set in Western Los Angeles in 1980. And here is where the book really shines: the incredible detail. Ellis provides a Google Earth, street level view of Westwood and the West Hills of 1980 Los Angeles, with a heavy, rotating dose of the drugs, movies and music circulating at the time. The writing is transporting. At times it read like Ellis was doing a novelization of Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, albeit with a very different set of characters and a very different setting. The crime/serial killer stuff, and its intrusion into this "paradisical" world of these privileged high school students, is also riveting. The book lost me on the lurid, graphic sexual exploration of its narrator and his endless forays into various sexual encounters. There is a lot of sex in this book, of all varieties and methods, and I think it detracted from the rich detail and fascinating story. But still definitely worth a read, especially for Ellis fans.

ARC from NetGalley

Thank you, Knopf, for allowing me to read The Shards early.

I couldn't wait to dive into Bret Eason Ellis' new book and he definitely didn't dissapoint. It feels like the author used his own life for this story and therefore the book read like an autobiography but ficntionalized. Loved it!

When I heard Bret Easton Ellis had a new book, I didn’t hesitate to read it without even seeing a blurb. A huge fan of his works, this one was no exception. I rated it 5 stars as it stayed with me long after I finished and even writing this review a few weeks later, I still find myself thinking about it and it leaving me with the same unsettled feeling. The author knows how to provoke, intrigue and compel you to read more. Told in his unique story telling and mixture of reality and fantasy this one is more of what we have come to love and want from this author. For example, the main character is named Bret and the story is told in narration as if the events really happened to the author, or did they? The story really encompasses those teen years and shows the less glamorous side of the rich. Mix in serial killers, drugs and alcohol, the naivety and hope of youth and what you have is a wild ride. There is some m/m sexual content and some sexual exploitation themes which may be a trigger for some readers. I’d highly recommend this one. It made me want to go back and re-read The Rules of Engagement which is my favorite book by this author. Thank you to Bret Easton Ellis, the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced arc of this book. My review is my honest opinion.

An interesting and sprawling book. One that definitely deserves and maybe requires a re read in the future.
The format was enticing and kept me hooked throughout.
Less of a horror and more of mystery, but I definitely looked forward to rereading in the future!

As of this moment, I don’t have a formal review for this book. I will say this: is is an exceptional book, one of Ellis’ best.

If the author is game, I’d enjoy interviewing him and writing about the book in the context of a conversation about it.

This book is very Bret Easton Ellis-y, and reads like a cross between Less Than Zero and American Psycho. As someone who came of age in the same time and place this book is set in, I really enjoyed all of the restaurants, stores and clubs mentioned, including many I’d forgotten. My one issue is that it is too long, and could use some editing, although the details and repetition give some insight into the protagonist’s state of mind. Also, the book is full of sex, violence and gore (including animal abuse), so it will not appeal to every reader. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The return of Bret Easton Ellis is a success! It's nice to read him again giving voices to the young and rich from L.A. We get to know his alter ego, mostly in his final year of high school. Bodies are pilling up as a serial killer is on the loose. Bret seems to be the only one interested in what's going on. And then comes the new guy, who Bret is sure to have seen a year before. He starts suspecting the new guy of being the serial killer, an opinion not shared by his friends.

I was gripped right away and really looking forward to know how it was going to end. It's been too long, a world without a new book from Bret Easton Ellis. Hopefully, we won't have to wait as long for the next one.

The author, Bret Ellis Easton, has written a book that can be described as autobiofiction. That is a genre where the author uses his own life and experiences as a backdrop for a fictional story. Ellis is the narrator and main character of the book.
The story began in September 1981, the beginning of Bret’s senior year at the private Buckley School. His parents were having difficulties in their relationship and felt it was OK to leave Bret alone in their large house for weeks while they traveled abroad. He had a close knit group of friends at Buckley. He had known these teens since middle school. There was Thom, a handsome football player, Thom’s girlfriend, Susan, a cheerleader who had been a close friend of Brett since 7th grade, and Debbie, a rich but needy girl who was Bret’s girlfriend. However Bret was gay. He engaged in sexual activities with other boys in his school but keeps that information a secret from everyone else.
School began and there was a new student, Robert, who had transferred into the Buckley senior class. Bret sensed that Robert was lying about his background and how he ended up transferring into the school. Then Susan, the president of the Student body, was told by the principal that Robert spent the last few months in a mental health facility where he was placed after his mother’s accidental death.
At this time in Los Angeles, there was a series of abductions of teen girls by someone dubbed the Trawler. The Trawler kept his victims for weeks after the abduction. Then he would return their mutilated bodies to a familiar place.
Bret was the only one of his friends who was interested in the Trawler’s crimes. Debbie was heavily into drugs as were some of Bret’s other friends. She was the spoiled but needy daughter of a gay movie executive and an alcoholic mother who seemed to have little time for her. This parental neglect was pretty common in their school. Matt, One of Bret’s friends, had an apartment with a separate entrance. He rarely saw his parents so when he mysteriously disappeared, his mother didn’t notice until his friends came looking. Other friends held unchaperoned parties with drugs and alcohol at their lavish homes with their parents’ approval. It all comes to a violent climax in the last few chapters of the book.
This book has many graphic descriptions of violence and sexual activities. There are also numerous references to alternative music popular in 1981. It is over 600 pages but the reader will want to finish it and find out what happened to this this group of entitled California teens.
I received this ARC from the publisher and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

BEE became one of my favorite authors after I laid my eyes on American Psycho. It bewitched me with its cold hard gaze. I was trapped in its clutches and I never wanted to escape.

Bret with a new murderous book, count me in! The Shards sounded like something that I should have loved. There's a serial killer on the loose and targeting teens in the local area. Things get bloody real quick for Bret and his friends when more people start to disappear. Then a hunky new kid steals all of their hearts. Bret knows something is wrong but will anyone listen to him before it's too late?

This book had a lot of promise but it just didn’t do it for me. There was sex, sex, even more sex, a murder, sex, sex, sex, and sex. Did I mention that there was a lot more sex than an actual murder mystery!? It was a disappointment. It took me forever to read just a tiny bit of this and I was bored throughout. I should have skimmed this but I was a fool.

The Shards has a great title but the story within just wasn't for me. It pains me because I love books by BEE. I was hoping for another horror masterpiece that would keep me glued but it wasn't any of that for me. It was a huge letdown.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I just read American Psycho and was super pumped to read Bret’s newest book. The description was amazing and I had fallen for it when I saw it.

Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed. First off, it’s super long. If this was cut in half I could have finished it no problem. There were a lot of interesting parts in the story but they got overshadowing by the boring bits. I had to give up reading a bit of the way in. It’s just too repetitive and it read a lot like American Psycho where things kept happening that didn’t feel like they mattered to the story. I’ll probably come back to this one soon but I can’t do it now. I’ll probably end up buying it when it comes out so I can read it at my own pace.

Despite its length, Ellis’s novel is characteristic of all great thrillers: keeping readers guessing and compelling them to want more information. This is a violent novel with much to say about growing up, sexuality, and class in America. This is the rare popular novel that deserves a rereading due to its many layers.

I quit around 40%.

At first my feeling was "wow, what an immersive story", but that quickly turned to "wow, this story is overly descriptive ". While there was action in the beginning in the form of teenagers moving from one tedious party to another, or driving the hills of California, I found that there wasn't enough action to keep me interested. Ellis continually drops a variation of the line "little did we knew what was about to change" however nothing indicated to me that at 40% I would be rewarded by continuing to read.