The Rules of Attraction

Set at a small, affluent liberal-arts college in New England at the height of the Reagan eighties, The Rules of Attraction is a startlingly funny, kaleidoscopic novel about three students with no plans for the future—or even the present—who become entangled in a curious romantic triangle. Bret Easton Ellis trains his incisive gaze on the kids at self-consciously bohemian Camden College and treats their sexual posturing and agonies with a mixture of acrid hilarity and compassion while exposing the moral vacuum at the center of their lives. Lauren changes boyfriends every time she changes majors and still pines for Victor, who split for Europe months ago, and she might or might not be writing anonymous love letters to ambivalent, hard-drinking Sean, a hopeless romantic who only has eyes for Lauren, even if he ends up in bed with half the campus and with Paul, Lauren’s ex, who is forthrightly bisexual and whose passion masks a shrewd pragmatism. They waste time getting wasted and race from Thirsty Thursday Happy Hours to Dressed to Get Screwed parties to drinks at the End of the World. The Rules of Attraction is a poignant, hilarious take on the death of romance.