Reviews

1.5 stars, rounded up.

I'm not sure what to say about this one. This had so much potential, and I fully think that the Fitzgeralds are deserving of having stories told about their legendary lives, but this didn't work. Half the time, I had the sense that the author was merely listing off information that could be found in Zelda's Wikipedia page, complete with throwing a bunch of notable names into the story that had next to zero emotional meaning, and relied far too much on telling me what was happening. The pacing was all over the place, and the author would regularly describe what could've made for an exciting or touching emotional scene in the span of a paragraph at most, while lingering overly long on scenes that dragged the pacing down to the speed of a snail.

My biggest problem, in the end, for all that this was an attempt to breathe life into Zelda and her husband, was that they acted like false imitations at best throughout the bulk of the story. Both Zelda and Scott didn't come across as being characterized faithfully, with depth to their personalities. There were a couple of things that did convince me to round my rating up in the end, though. A couple of the scenes between Zelda and Scott rang true to me, and I did feel emotional at times reading about their feelings for each other and how Zelda was dealing with major events. I wish those good or even great parts hadn't been so rare to come by in the course of reading the story.

The choices to ignore historical record in favor of making things up for the sake of drama, or perhaps even more importantly, sidestep events in their lives that the author felt unable to confront were both questionable and vaguely frustrating. It leaned far too much on hoping you'd be too enchanted by the locations in the story and the fact that the Fitzgeralds were a famous couple to notice the lack of substance underneath, which is a real shame since I wanted more from this book.

amyliz2008's review against another edition

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informative sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

ckshaw13's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

jansbookcorner's review against another edition

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4.0

What an interesting indulgent life so many creative people lived in the 1920’s - 30’s. The golden couple through much of that time was the Fitzgeralds. There’s no secret of the turbulence they also lived in. A well written historical fiction story.

goobyworm23's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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