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Outstanding
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Kirkus Reviews
Even his harshest critics may now have to acknowledge that this versatile, resourceful writer has formidable skills. [1 Jun 2005, p.602]
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Outstanding
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The Independent Matt Thorne
Lunar Park is an enormously entertaining novel.
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Outstanding
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Daily Telegraph Christopher Cleave
This year's most interesting novel.
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Favorable
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The Spectator Andrew Taylor
In his superb handling of horror, of the ambiguous terrors that lurk within and without, Bret Easton Ellis is oddly reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe.
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Favorable
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Salon Laura Miller
Whoever is haunting "Bret Easton Ellis" the character, it's the character who's haunting Bret Easton Ellis the writer. That's the ghost story that makes "Lunar Park" so extraordinary.
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Favorable
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Chicago Tribune Steven Zeitchik
An ambitious and haunting story, one that rises far above its lone-truth-teller Hollywood premise. [28 Aug 2005]
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Favorable
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Sydney Morning Herald Malcolm Knox
To those in the Ellis bloc, I can say this is his best novel and with it he achieves artistic and emotional peaks I never suspected he would attempt, let alone reach.
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Favorable
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The Guardian Mark Lawson
Whether it's written by Bret Easton Ellis or "Bret Easton Ellis", Lunar Park is an unnerving and funny puzzle of a book: undoubtedly the real thing, as it were.
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Favorable
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Daily Telegraph Siddhartha Deb
It demonstrates a reinvigorated talent that is all the more impressive for its funny and frightening portrayal of failure.
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Favorable
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London Review Of Books Adam Phillips
There is a lot of very amusing camp melodrama as Ellis puts this ingenious book through its paces, moving from genre to genre – from candid autobiography and deadpan confession to gothic and cinematic horror – with amazing verbal skill.
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Favorable
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Library Journal Misha Stone
Ellis delivers for his fans and for the new guard of Palahniuk readers who will appreciate his straightforward prose and twisting plot lines. [1 Jul 2005, p.96]
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Favorable
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Publishers Weekly
For those familiar with Ellis's reputation, the book is mesmerizing, easily his best since Less than Zero. [27 Jun 2005, p.38]
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Favorable
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San Francisco Chronicle Christine Thomas
The deftness with which Ellis handles an entertaining and suspenseful plot, as well as a sophisticated play between truth and fiction, real selves and imagined selves, is impressive.
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Favorable
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Giles Blunt
Lunar Park is an exasperating, fascinating and ultimately exhilarating construction of multiple fictional realities. [13 Aug 2005, p.D6]
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Mixed
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The Onion A.V. Club Noel Murray
Ellis manages some significant achievement in Lunar Park, both in his generation-removed observations on the latest youth soul-sickness, and in his obvious pining for elusive familial security. He just gets in his own way too much, crippled by his ambition.
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Mixed
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Washington Post Elizabeth Hand
The abrupt shifts in tone -- from satire to supernatural to sentimental to scary to schlock -- are jarring and ultimately exhausting.
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Mixed
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Christian Science Monitor Yvonne Zipp
"Lunar Park" owes its emotional punch to two things: the theme of estranged fathers and sons, and Ellis's undeniable eye for detailed satire.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Janet Maslin
This is what makes his book appropriately addictive, despite its colossal and ludicrous flaws: his powers of observation are undimmed as his needs have become less physical and more urgent.
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
Like his early work, Lunar Park is a victim of sophomoric overkill.
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Mixed
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The Economist
Mr Ellis seems to believe that his novel exceeds mere entertainment. Yet as an apologia for an arrogant, abusive past, it reads as disingenuous; there is no soul-searching here, save as self-promotion.
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Mixed
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TLS: The Times Literary Supplement M. John Harrison
There is a lot in Ellis's theatre of vanity to enjoy, even to admire: some good drug comedy; some structural deftness; acute observation; entertaining chains of reference in which parody becomes in itself a parodiable form; patches of intense writing. But the author's defensive recursions, the constant reminders that he might be joking, undercut the content at every turn.
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Mixed
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The Observer Adam Mars-Jones
A curiosity, but not quite a failure.
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Unfavorable
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Los Angeles Times Janice P. Nimura
Trusting readers may accept this public therapy session as sincere, but it feels more like another chapter in the book of Ellis' egomania. [14 Aug 2005]
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Unfavorable
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New York Observer Adam Begley
Halfway through the novel, I gave up hoping that I’d come across a single stinging turn of phrase or any scene sharp enough to make me tense. Nothing frightening, nothing funny, just a sad, lazy wallow somewhere in between. [22 Aug 2005]
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Unfavorable
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The New Republic Sacha Zimmerman
There are simply too many tricks and not enough connective tissue to bind this story into a cohesive whole.
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Unfavorable
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Bookslut Joey Rubin
In the end, Lunar Park's desire to tell a meaningful story about fathers and sons is foiled by the complicated metaphor of the supernatural, not enriched by it.
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Unfavorable
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The New York Times Book Review A. O. Scott
The problem with this novel is not that it is a fast, lurching ride to nowhere. Of course it is; it's a Bret Easton Ellis novel. The problem is that it does not have the honesty to admit that it wants to be more, the faith that readers will accept more or the courage to try to be more.
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Terrible
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Boston Globe Steve Almond
It is by far the worst novel he has ever written. It may be the worst novel I've ever read.
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