The Great Gatsby

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

I bought this book because it is considered a classic, but I was not aware that it was under 200 pages. On my Kindle, it was 110, which is about 170 in physical book form. I read it in a day.

I was a bit disappointed and only rated it 3 stars. The reason is that it was a bit flat, which might be due to how it was written and what the author was going for. It was written in a narrative style from the notes of a character who lived during the period, was Gatsby’s neighbor, became his friend, and observed his lifestyle.

To me, this narrative approach reads very choppy, jumping from one thing to another in a sentence or two. There was no progression or character development.

The period was the golden age of the 20’s, and the characters were portrayed as self-absorbed and superficial. Almost no real connection, just lived to have fun with no real cares in the world or for each other. Since it is a small book, I will leave it at that, as I could summarize the whole book in this review.

I will say the last 30 pages were the best part of the book, where everything came together, the story made sense, and the transitions were fun to read as they developed.

Finally, I thought he could make two books out of this: leave the first as is, and the second go deeper with more backstory and character development. I think that it could have been a good, engaging reading.

One thing I like to do when I read a book this old is to check the reviews from when it came out, and surprisingly, they are not far off from what I felt. It did not do well. It only gained traction after World War II, in a second life, and did much better, elevating it to the status of a literary classic.