 Regarding the book 's achievement , Shone remarks " He now stands at year zero – creatively , psychologically . " However , typical features of Ellis ' earlier works remain intact ; for example , in its depictions of violence . Commenting on its self @-@ referential aspects , Janelle Brown of the San Francisco Chronicle recommends " for his next endeavor , Ellis should stop worrying and start looking for the exit of his own personal rabbit hole . " The Buffalo News awarded the novel its Editor 's Choice . Jeff Simon comments that it " brings an excessive <unk> flavor to Obama America " . With regards to the novel 's writing style , he comments " The first @-@ person sentences run on and on , but the individual sections of the book are nothing if not minimal ... ghastly narcissism or not , Bret Easton Ellis has a fictional territory all his own and , heaven forbid , a mastery there . " The Wall Street Journal on the other hand , described this prose style as " flat and <unk> " . Such is the book 's violent aesthetic that , for Eileen Battersby of The Irish Times , " the book is closer to his remarkable third novel , American Psycho " . She further compliments Ellis as " a bizarrely moral writer who specializes in evoking the amoral . " Concerning his writing , she notes its " despair is blunt , factual and seldom approaches the laconic unease of JG Ballard . " 
