Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Grew Up… in a wealthy family, but he is ashamed of his background. Sean will do anything to convince his peers that he’s not a privileged brat.
Living… in his dorm at Camden College, New Hampshire. Instead of studying, he spends his days partying, doing drugs, and thinking about women.
Profession… drug dealer. Sean is one of the most reputable dealers on campus, and there is a lot of demand for what he sells – Camden is quite the party school. But things are getting complicated with Sean’s supplier who is threatening him over thousands of dollars he said he is owed.
Interests… drugs, girls, and booze. Though he discourses on love and loss, Sean can’t claim to have ever had a real, emotional relationship with anyone.
Relationship Status… single, though he claims to have “real” feelings for his friend Lauren. But if it doesn’t work out with Lauren, there is always her ex-boyfriend Paul, who is a bisexual and wants to sleep with Sean.
Challenge… confessing his love to Lauren. The melodramatic Sean is having trouble dealing with his emotions. He seems to want to have a real relationship with Lauren, though he’ll never be able to make himself emotionally available if he remains stoned and drunk all the time.
Personality… jaded and cynical. Sean is a world-weary aesthete who spends his time numbing himself with drugs and meaningless sex. He summarizes his own personality well when he compares himself to an emotional vampire: “I feed off of other people’s real emotions. Search for the night’s prey. Who will it be?”
Get to Know him in...
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The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.
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From the bestselling author or Less Than Zero and American Psycho, The Rules of Attraction is a startlingly funny, kaleidoscopic novel about three students at a small, affluent liberal-arts college in New England 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 posturings 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 letter 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 Paul, Lauren's ex, forthrightly bisexual and whose passion masks a shrewd pragmatism. They waste time getting wasted, race from Thirsty Thursday Happy Hours to Dressed To Get Screwed parties to drinks at The Edge of the World or The Graveyard. The Rules of Attraction is a poignant, hilarious take on the death of romance. The basis for the major motion picture starring James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, Jessica Biel, and Kate Bosworth.
