Not Recommended: "Imperial Bedrooms"

"Imperial Bedrooms" by Bret Easton Ellis is worthless. From a writer's standpoint, it's poorly written, purely plot-driven, shallow, soulless, and completely banks on shock value. From a reader's standpoint, it was mildly entertaining but fell flat, and was mostly just disgusting. The narrative follows a screenwriter from LA named Clay who's hedonistic and self-involved. He is constantly having sex with random young girls (and sometimes young boys, too) by promising them that he can get them roles in movies, and of course he never follows through. Then he finds out his long-time best friend, a guy named Julian who works as a pimp, is dating the girl Clay has been pursuing. So Clay does what any normal person would do: he drops Julian off with a violent killer to be murdered. Then he rents a house out in the desert where he spends days violently raping and torturing a young girl and young boy, until the boy turns evil and the girl goes out of her mind. The entire book is completely devoid of emotion, and Clay lacks remorse for everything he does, discussing these horrific acts the way a person would talk about going grocery shopping. But the cold-hearted, detestable main character didn't bother me as much as the bad writing. Don't waste your time with this one.