Book #17 - The Great Gatsby

The Great Gastby
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Blurb: A love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.(From Goodreads)

Opening Sentence: "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."

Length: Short - 180 pages

Notes: I think that maybe I just don't like the classics.  This wasn't my favorite book.  People chasing after money, affairs, running away from accountability, murder...that's pretty much what this book was all about to me!  I didn't like the characters at all.  Maybe it's supposed to be all about the writing, and not the story.  I don't know.  I feel like something is wrong with me for admitting that I didn't really like this book, but I didn't!

Random quote: "Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead."

Recommend: ehhh

Have you read this book? Share your feelings!