The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Recommended Age: older YA (15 years and above)

Lexile: 1070L

Content Warning(s): alcohol/excessive drinking, cheating, class discrimination, death, language, (misogynistic) violence, racism

---

Book Summary

"Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with Jay Gatsby, the mysterious millionaire with an obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan."

My Thoughts

The Great Gatsby was the recent focus for the literature unit in my English class. At first, I was a bit skeptical—after all, how relevant and interesting could a book written a hundred years ago actually be? Over the years, I'd heard so much about this book: its reputation as "the great American novel," the movie adaptation I would always see on flight catalogues, and countless references to living like Gatsby in songs. Yet, I never actually knew what it was about. So, I had a completely blank slate going into the book.

Since my English class spent three weeks analyzing the novel, I understood the subtleties, hidden meanings, and references in way more depth than if I'd read it on my own. Since it's only 180 pages, we could dedicate entire classes to pore over the countless details hidden in a single chapter. Even though this is not normally how I read books—I get excited, read too quickly, and then miss details—the depth and understanding I have about this book make me wonder whether I should make this a habit in future reads.

Obviously, since this book was set in 1922, right during the Roaring 20s, many day-to-day details aren't relevant to modern life—and nor should they be expected to be. However, I feel like a lot of the themes still hold true. In one of the classes, we discussed the values found in the book and came up with the following: opportunity, morality, hope, love, class, and wealth. I think this book has remained as timeless and enduring as it has and is still being taught and analyzed in classrooms today because the story itself applies to any time. Even if you take Jay and Daisy's story out of the context of the 1920s and read it as if it were happening right now, it would still fit.

The first page in my copy of the novel—likely one of the three hundred used in my school’s classrooms for about twenty years—feels like a memorial. Past tenth-grade students have written their names and the years they read it, and looking back on it, it's a tangible testament to this book's relevancy over the years.

The characters felt fully developed, fitting archetypes and personalities that were familiar in the world today. Sometimes, authors focus too much on developing the protagonist, leaving the rest of the cast feeling two-dimensional and flat. But this wasn't the case here. Sure, we got a glance inside Nick's inner thoughts, seeing as he was the narrator, but, even so, I still got a good grasp on the kind of person Jordan was. Even seeing how they interacted with the others and how Nick thought of them was a good judge of character.

I will say, though, that I really wish we had gotten more closure and a stronger conclusion to the story and the characters inside it. I'm trying not to give too much away, but the last two chapters felt rushed, and you had to read between the lines to put things together. Maybe that was Fitzgerald's intention in writing it this way, but it made a lot of the resolution and key messages too easy to miss. In fact, I only fully understood a crucial event after someone else pointed out a tiny detail to me—without that, I was pretty much lost on what the ending was. That might be my fault, but I'm not a big fan of authors who make endings too abrupt or don't fully close them out.

After spending so much time with the cast, it's frustrating to reach an ending that doesn't feel conclusive for the rest of the characters. You're left thinking, "Wait...now what happens to them?" Still, aside from my frustrations with the ending, the rest of the book was captivating—I often found myself wanting to read ahead—and I can see why Gatsby has been called the Great American Novel for so long. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a glimpse into how the Jazz Age and Roaring 20s were for the elite or to anyone looking for a simple story that transcends time and still feels relevant.

---

*A note on the genre classification: if Fitzgerald had written this book today, it would probably be classified as a historical fiction novel. But at the time he wrote it, it very much reflected what was present at the time and so, the closest genre fit is realistic fiction.