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nekotin's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
mousecat's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident and Infidelity
kenshi's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
xuany's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
adina_viorela's review against another edition
4.0
I haven't annotated a book so much in a WHILE so here are some good quotes which are hopefully not gonna spoil the fun of reading this book:
↬"In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars."
↬"I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited—they went there. [...] Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission. "
↬"He knew women early and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming self-absorbtion he took for granted."
↬" “She’s got an indiscreet voice,” I remarked. “It’s full of—” I hesitated.
“Her voice is full of money,” he [Gatsby] said suddenly.
That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it."
↬"In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars."
↬"I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited—they went there. [...] Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission. "
↬"He knew women early and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming self-absorbtion he took for granted."
↬" “She’s got an indiscreet voice,” I remarked. “It’s full of—” I hesitated.
“Her voice is full of money,” he [Gatsby] said suddenly.
That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it."
bellacom's review against another edition
5.0
i absolutely loved it, i had to analyze it for a class and i had a blast it’s such a beautiful book.
saroz162's review against another edition
5.0
Recently, I had the experience of being told by a group of five or six people how "bored" they all were by The Great Gatsby. I'm sorry they feel that way, but I can't agree. Gatsby holds a special place in my heart, and a strange nostalgic memory of a certain time in my middle adolescence - discovering my mother's old, yellowed college paperback, with the appropriately brown-and-yellow-hued cover illustration, and taking it back with me to be read, stealthily, in the corner of my spacious bathroom.
I spent a lot of time in the bathroom, then. In the cold winter months, my bedroom and bath - the farthest rooms in the house - were always the hardest to heat, and the warmest place in my small, teenage refuge was just by the bathtub, next to the heater set in the wall near the floor. Whichever year it was - was I 15? 16? - I spent a lot of afternoons there, lulled by the warmth and the calm, sea green tiled floors. I read The Scarlet Letter there, and tried to read Moby Dick; I plowed through Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, and finally learned that while I had no love for Huckleberry Finn, there was a lot of Twain I thought was really good. Most of all, I remember Gatsby, devoured quickly in just two or three reading sessions, and for once I don't recall my mother ever insisting I "come out and rejoin the world."
It's interesting coming back to Gatsby after all this time. I've lived a lot since those days of whenever-teen, and I come back to Gatsby as someone who has at least thought herself in love, and definitely someone who has been caught up, unhealthily and unavoidably, in an attraction to someone I couldn't have. It's appropriate that I re-experience the book just as I've made a clean break of that relationship, and while there weren't any big scenes or tragic consequences, it all makes those feelings Fitzgerald writes about - loss, betrayal, the realization that you won't be the one "chosen" - much more personal. And of course, what Gatsby proves is that we all have those feelings. We all lie to each other; we all cheat; we all play mercilessly with each others' hearts. It's true. It's not the whole picture of human relationship, but that much is true. And we always hurt others as much, if not more, than we hurt ourselves.
When I was a teenager, Jay Gatsby was a mysterious character, a figure both tragic and a bit sexy - the Beast of the famous fairy tale, waiting for Beauty to break his enchantment. I grieved for him but I didn't understand how much he had sown his own destruction. He built himself up, and in almost one fell movement, he knocked himself down. Now I see him in less mythic and far more familiar terms. Gatsby is anyone who knows they shouldn't say something, but says it anyway. Gatsby is anyone who can't stop themselves manipulating for their own advantage. Gatsby is anyone who plows ahead without stopping to think.
More specifically, Gatsby is what Americans train themselves to be. He is the exact inverse of the mythical American, raising him or herself up above meager roots to triumph supreme. He's the guy who did all that, who won't be told no, who thinks himself invincible and is never happy with his lot. And the amazing part of Fitzgerald's writing is that he manages to make Gatsby sympathetic - in fact, more than that, he makes him someone with whom you can empathize with. Gatsby, in the end, is everyone - or at least, anyone likely to read his story.
I still don't understand how anyone could be bored by The Great Gatsby. It's a beautiful and tragic novel, so simple, yet so rich. It doesn't take long to read, and it's not exactly dense, old-fashioned prose. Compared to most classic literature it's an absolute breeze. But never mind. I love it, just as I loved all those afternoons ago - huddled in my bathroom, turning the dog-eared pages of an old paperback, waiting for the winter to end.
I spent a lot of time in the bathroom, then. In the cold winter months, my bedroom and bath - the farthest rooms in the house - were always the hardest to heat, and the warmest place in my small, teenage refuge was just by the bathtub, next to the heater set in the wall near the floor. Whichever year it was - was I 15? 16? - I spent a lot of afternoons there, lulled by the warmth and the calm, sea green tiled floors. I read The Scarlet Letter there, and tried to read Moby Dick; I plowed through Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, and finally learned that while I had no love for Huckleberry Finn, there was a lot of Twain I thought was really good. Most of all, I remember Gatsby, devoured quickly in just two or three reading sessions, and for once I don't recall my mother ever insisting I "come out and rejoin the world."
It's interesting coming back to Gatsby after all this time. I've lived a lot since those days of whenever-teen, and I come back to Gatsby as someone who has at least thought herself in love, and definitely someone who has been caught up, unhealthily and unavoidably, in an attraction to someone I couldn't have. It's appropriate that I re-experience the book just as I've made a clean break of that relationship, and while there weren't any big scenes or tragic consequences, it all makes those feelings Fitzgerald writes about - loss, betrayal, the realization that you won't be the one "chosen" - much more personal. And of course, what Gatsby proves is that we all have those feelings. We all lie to each other; we all cheat; we all play mercilessly with each others' hearts. It's true. It's not the whole picture of human relationship, but that much is true. And we always hurt others as much, if not more, than we hurt ourselves.
When I was a teenager, Jay Gatsby was a mysterious character, a figure both tragic and a bit sexy - the Beast of the famous fairy tale, waiting for Beauty to break his enchantment. I grieved for him but I didn't understand how much he had sown his own destruction. He built himself up, and in almost one fell movement, he knocked himself down. Now I see him in less mythic and far more familiar terms. Gatsby is anyone who knows they shouldn't say something, but says it anyway. Gatsby is anyone who can't stop themselves manipulating for their own advantage. Gatsby is anyone who plows ahead without stopping to think.
More specifically, Gatsby is what Americans train themselves to be. He is the exact inverse of the mythical American, raising him or herself up above meager roots to triumph supreme. He's the guy who did all that, who won't be told no, who thinks himself invincible and is never happy with his lot. And the amazing part of Fitzgerald's writing is that he manages to make Gatsby sympathetic - in fact, more than that, he makes him someone with whom you can empathize with. Gatsby, in the end, is everyone - or at least, anyone likely to read his story.
I still don't understand how anyone could be bored by The Great Gatsby. It's a beautiful and tragic novel, so simple, yet so rich. It doesn't take long to read, and it's not exactly dense, old-fashioned prose. Compared to most classic literature it's an absolute breeze. But never mind. I love it, just as I loved all those afternoons ago - huddled in my bathroom, turning the dog-eared pages of an old paperback, waiting for the winter to end.
secreteeyore's review against another edition
4.0
Poor Gatsby. I feel for him. Trying to prove one's worth to the world and to thereby justify a far reaching love, he ended up living in a fishbowl of broken dreams, a glittery fraud. Fitzgerald never really does say what becomes of Daisy, though I suspect her torment of living in a loveless/abusive marriage and carrying the weight of three murders on her shoulders is pain unendurable. I think Fitzgerald used the man in the library with the owl like glasses, the only one who showed up at his funeral, to sum up Gatsby eulogize him properly: "poor bastard".
fluorescentbookworm's review against another edition
5.0
Since I've just finished reading it and words cannot fully express my feelings right now, all I can say is that if possible, I would've given this book not 5, but 10 stars.