New & Current Releases
Archives: A-Z By Title
Archives: A-Z By Author
Advanced Search

All-Time High Scores
Best Of 2006
Best Of 2005
Best Of 2004
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Books In Our Forums

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed books.

Lunar Park
by Bret Easton Ellis


6.1

based on 28 reviews
read critic reviews
how did we calculate this?

based on 27 votes
read user comments
rate this book

Compare prices at pricegrabber.com

Buy it at powells.com

Buy it at amazon.com

Buy it at amazon.co.uk

FILM:

The "American Psycho" author's fifth novel follows an alternate-reality version of "American Psycho" author Bret Easton Ellis as all the bad karma he has accrued by glamorizing drugs, violence and vile behavior in his novels finally catches up with him.

Knopf, 320 pages
08/16/2005
$24.95

ISBN: 0375412913

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction
Horror

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Kirkus Reviews

Even his harshest critics may now have to acknowledge that this versatile, resourceful writer has formidable skills. [1 Jun 2005, p.602]

The Independent Matt Thorne

Lunar Park is an enormously entertaining novel.

Daily Telegraph Christopher Cleave

This year's most interesting novel.

The Spectator Andrew Taylor

In his superb handling of horror, of the ambiguous terrors that lurk within and without, Bret Easton Ellis is oddly reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe.

Salon Laura Miller

Whoever is haunting "Bret Easton Ellis" the character, it's the character who's haunting Bret Easton Ellis the writer. That's the ghost story that makes "Lunar Park" so extraordinary.

Chicago Tribune Steven Zeitchik

An ambitious and haunting story, one that rises far above its lone-truth-teller Hollywood premise. [28 Aug 2005]

Sydney Morning Herald Malcolm Knox

To those in the Ellis bloc, I can say this is his best novel and with it he achieves artistic and emotional peaks I never suspected he would attempt, let alone reach.

The Guardian Mark Lawson

Whether it's written by Bret Easton Ellis or "Bret Easton Ellis", Lunar Park is an unnerving and funny puzzle of a book: undoubtedly the real thing, as it were.

Daily Telegraph Siddhartha Deb

It demonstrates a reinvigorated talent that is all the more impressive for its funny and frightening portrayal of failure.

London Review Of Books Adam Phillips

There is a lot of very amusing camp melodrama as Ellis puts this ingenious book through its paces, moving from genre to genre – from candid autobiography and deadpan confession to gothic and cinematic horror – with amazing verbal skill.

Library Journal Misha Stone

Ellis delivers for his fans and for the new guard of Palahniuk readers who will appreciate his straightforward prose and twisting plot lines. [1 Jul 2005, p.96]

Publishers Weekly

For those familiar with Ellis's reputation, the book is mesmerizing, easily his best since Less than Zero. [27 Jun 2005, p.38]

San Francisco Chronicle Christine Thomas

The deftness with which Ellis handles an entertaining and suspenseful plot, as well as a sophisticated play between truth and fiction, real selves and imagined selves, is impressive.

The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Giles Blunt

Lunar Park is an exasperating, fascinating and ultimately exhilarating construction of multiple fictional realities. [13 Aug 2005, p.D6]

The Onion A.V. Club Noel Murray

Ellis manages some significant achievement in Lunar Park, both in his generation-removed observations on the latest youth soul-sickness, and in his obvious pining for elusive familial security. He just gets in his own way too much, crippled by his ambition.

Washington Post Elizabeth Hand

The abrupt shifts in tone -- from satire to supernatural to sentimental to scary to schlock -- are jarring and ultimately exhausting.

Christian Science Monitor Yvonne Zipp

"Lunar Park" owes its emotional punch to two things: the theme of estranged fathers and sons, and Ellis's undeniable eye for detailed satire.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

This is what makes his book appropriately addictive, despite its colossal and ludicrous flaws: his powers of observation are undimmed as his needs have become less physical and more urgent.

Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese

Like his early work, Lunar Park is a victim of sophomoric overkill.

The Economist

Mr Ellis seems to believe that his novel exceeds mere entertainment. Yet as an apologia for an arrogant, abusive past, it reads as disingenuous; there is no soul-searching here, save as self-promotion.

TLS: The Times Literary Supplement M. John Harrison

There is a lot in Ellis's theatre of vanity to enjoy, even to admire: some good drug comedy; some structural deftness; acute observation; entertaining chains of reference in which parody becomes in itself a parodiable form; patches of intense writing. But the author's defensive recursions, the constant reminders that he might be joking, undercut the content at every turn.

The Observer Adam Mars-Jones

A curiosity, but not quite a failure.

Los Angeles Times Janice P. Nimura

Trusting readers may accept this public therapy session as sincere, but it feels more like another chapter in the book of Ellis' egomania. [14 Aug 2005]

New York Observer Adam Begley

Halfway through the novel, I gave up hoping that I’d come across a single stinging turn of phrase or any scene sharp enough to make me tense. Nothing frightening, nothing funny, just a sad, lazy wallow somewhere in between. [22 Aug 2005]

The New Republic Sacha Zimmerman

There are simply too many tricks and not enough connective tissue to bind this story into a cohesive whole.

Bookslut Joey Rubin

In the end, Lunar Park's desire to tell a meaningful story about fathers and sons is foiled by the complicated metaphor of the supernatural, not enriched by it.

The New York Times Book Review A. O. Scott

The problem with this novel is not that it is a fast, lurching ride to nowhere. Of course it is; it's a Bret Easton Ellis novel. The problem is that it does not have the honesty to admit that it wants to be more, the faith that readers will accept more or the courage to try to be more.

Boston Globe Steve Almond

It is by far the worst novel he has ever written. It may be the worst novel I've ever read.

The average user rating for this book is 6.1 (out of 10) based on 27 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Prudence M gave it a0:
This is by far the worst load of self indulgent dribble I have ever e been forced to read. Bravo for Steve Almond. It was repugnant why should an author of such lurid filth be celebrated. The writer in me is deeply offended and quite frankly appalled.

gary e gave it a0:
really a bad book. if you must, read the first chapter and the last three pages, which aren't completely terrible. otherwise, ugh.

[Anonymous] gave it a0:
What a waste of time. Nothing more that the egotistical rantings of a lunatic.

Big Jim gave it a9:
Superb. The balance of faux autobiography, thriller, 'son to father' character transition and genuine regret for actions that cannot be undone, not to mention another exciting glimpse of the horror that is Patrick Bateman all go to make this his best novel yet.

[Anonymous] gave it an8:
In addition to being a biting and humourous satire of modern times, it was the first of his novels that really seemed to have a heart.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Bret Easton Ellis directly targets at our society's illnesses. Highly recommendable, great literature.

alex gave it a1:
pondering, turgid prose, alternating with slipshod meanderings into high-school sentimentalism. unbelievably bad writing that no creative writing professor would have ever let out of the classroom. i haven't read as pathetic a book as this in a long time. i loved glamorama and american psycho, but this is just horrible. i feel sorry for bret, it's as if he's come to regret who he once was, and needs to write a john irving novel as repayment to society. i wish he'd disappear back into the heroin and write something interesting. opening chapter is quite good though, so go spend twenty minutes in barnes and nobles and crouch against a wall.

Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis

Lunar Park
by Bret Easton Ellis