Coming of Age

Menos Que Cero / Less Than Zero

by Bret Easton Ellis

Clay returns from college to his affluent Los Angeles home, drifting through a hollow landscape of parties, drugs, and casual cruelty among wealthy, disaffected youth. Ellis's debut novel presents a stark, detached portrait of 1980s excess and moral emptiness. The prose is deliberately flat, mirroring the protagonist's numbed alienation.

More Coming of Age

• The Book of Goose — Yiyun Li
• The Bluest Eye — Toni Morrison
• The Girl with the Louding Voice — Abi Daré
• Almond — Sohn Won-Pyung
• Sooley — John Grisham
• The Catcher in the Rye — J. D. Salinger
• Deerskin — Robin McKinley
• Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me — Richard Fariña

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