to tell 13 yo DD she can't read American Psycho? - also alternatives please. (Content Warning from MNHQ)

[GatherlyGal]

So my (very mature) 13 year old DD has come home from town with American Psycho which she bought in Waterstones. I'm a bit surprised they sold it to her tbh but I suppose it's not their job to police who is buying what.

Anyway at the risk of making it sound even more exciting I've taken it off her and plan to return it. She's very interested in psychopaths so any slightly more appropriate suggestions would be very welcome!

You say she is very mature for her age. I know the book is probably not the best idea but you have, by this reaction, made it absolutely sure that she goes on to buy it on kindle (phone app or whatever) or buys a cheaper copy somewhere anyway.
I think you have no other option now. Give it back to her and read it together.

I’m all for teenagers reading widely but American Psycho is a horrible book. I read it as an adult and some of the scenes still linger in a deeply unpleasant way.

Maybe you could look at Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test as a non-fiction exploration of the subject?

Totally agree with poster above. That book is horrific. At 18 I was disturbed (and I read Clockwork Orange, Portnoy’s Complaint, etc at 13).

Pyschopath Test is perfect.

Psychopath!

Goodness.

I am pretty liberal and but this book has probably the most graphic descriptions of sexual torture I have ever read.

The bit at the end where he nail guns the two prostitutes to the floor, plus the very (and I mean very!) pornographic descriptions of every last detail of what he does to them?

Totally not appropriate for a 13 year old.

SantaCLause i know what you mean but it is awful and I found it hard to stomach as an adult. Reading together sounds good in theory but she reads alone and would absolutely not be into a shared experience!

TheOnly I'll look that up thanks.

I agree with taking it off her.

I read that book as an adult and it remains the only book to have made me physically sick and the most disturbing book I have read.

Given her interest, perhaps a healthier alternative might be getting her a copy of 'People of the Lie' by Dr Scott Peck. It is a fascinating scientific study of psychopaths that is easy for a lay person to read.

I've read American Psycho. I don't see why a teen can't read it: it's going to be very dated now, and I don't remember it being particularly about a psychopath--just about the excesses of the time (I think it was written in the early 1990s). It's not a nice book, but it's not horrible because it's scary, it's horrible because it's about horrible people.

The suggestion of Jon Ronson's Psychopath Test is perhaps a good one. But I wouldn't suggest you get it instead: buy it for her as well as AP. Let her explore books as she wants to. She'll develop a great reading habit, and that's good. The more you try to police her reading the less she's likely to talk to you about it, and that's bad.

I'm 37 and seriously wish I'd never read this book. There is one scene (rat) that will never leave me.

DO NOT let her read this book please. Maybe let her watch the film as I've heard it is very tame compared to the book!

He nailguns a woman to a floor and rapes her? That isn’t appropriate.

I found it very disturbing. Three things from it have really stayed with me (a throwaway comment about torturing a dog, something he does with a severed head and the rat). It's awful. I would complain to Waterstones that it was sold to her tbh.

I think your daughter want to move onto more adult themes but American psycho might be a bit of a leap. Maybe go back to waterstone return the book and ask them to show the young adult section and have a bit of a browse through with her and let her pick.

Has she read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote? I must have read that at about her age. I mean, it's still a bit grim, not least because it's true, but it's an excellent book and has more humanity to it than American Psycho.

I read this at 19. I would not have handled it at 13 but a lot would have gone over my head.

Thanks all it seems I'm not alone in having concerns! She might well track it down another way (just like I went out of my way to see the Exorcist when my mum told me not to) but I've told her I found it hard to read in my 30s.

Just google “American Psycho rats” for why a 13 year old shouldn’t read it...

I saw the movie at age 19 on the back of which I decided to read the book (I usually do it the other way round).

Don’t think I made it past the first chapter. I was seriously disturbed. The book was far more graphic than the movie and you wouldn’t let a 13 yr old watch the movie (would you?).

The film is far tamer. Even some of the chapters that are not graphic are really disturbing because it shows how disturbed his mind is (the Phil Collins chapter made me really uncomfortable, because of the level of obsessive detail, for example).

I'm pretty lax and I read it when I was relatively young (16/17) but no way would I allow my 13yo to read it.

Didn't fully understand it when I first read it to be fair but knew it was grim.

I would imagine a thirteen year old would find it quite dull in parts in any event - other than the gratuitous sexual violence which would possibly traumatise her.

If she's into psychopaths and what makes criminals tick, there are far more interesting books. I would recommend Paul Britton (sp?). He was a forensic psychologist and his books 'the jigsaw man' which focuses on well-known criminal cases he's worked on and 'picking up the pieces' which focuses on his clinical work are a really interesting insight into the human psyche with out being gratuitously violent and totally fucked up in the way that American psycho is.

SumandSubstance great idea plus it's in the bookcase.

SIngyourheartout she's very familiar with the young adult section but seems to be branching out!

'In the 1991 novel American Psycho, the narrator Patrick Bateman performs rat torture on a kidnapped woman by cutting open her vagina enough to fit a plastic tube into and forcing a rat to crawl into her vagina. He removes the tube, staples her labia together, then watches as the rat eats the restrained woman from the inside out'

Definitely not suitable for a 13 year old! I was an advanced reader but this is was too advanced