Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - The Great Gatsby

I put this on on audio because I thought it was a quick way to sneak in a short little classic to polish the stats and get it under my belt since I've never read it before, but boy was I pleasently surprised.

I think this short book had more depth for most of the characters and more drama than any full length romances I've read. It also gets to show how different relationships - romantic or platonic - can be, and how unlinear they are.
I don't find most classics gripping, and that was also the case with this one, but it was most definitly entertaining.

What I didn't like was that the "bad" mistress as well as all jewish people have seemed to be described as ugly or rude. I also found the sole attendence of certain events of our narrator as a bystander sometimes a little weird, and I get that's for narrational purposes, because how else would he know, but it's been a little weird sometimes. I also was a little confused because I thought that Jordan was a person of color, since she was described as "tan", but considering the comments and reactions of the other characters I figured that she was in fact not.

I could go on about the abundance of commentary on society, wealth and relationships this book has made, but this is still supposed to be a book review and not a discussion round, so I simply won't, but I'm definitly looking forward to a re-reas sometime in the future 😊

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_persephone's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

i enjoyed the conversations the book sparked more than the book itself.

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dmrains's review

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Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

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bxnny's review against another edition

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challenging reflective sad medium-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

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wheatlyre's review

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medium-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

4.25

I will preface my review with the fact I read The Great Gatsby in a classroom setting, with a chapter-per-week pacing, as it was for an English assignment, and very little out of class reading; which I feel should be noted, as the way I interacted with and read the book was slightly different than how I would in a recreational/normal environment.
I liked The Great Gatsby quite a bit, and while I found my feelings for most of the characters to be on a spectrum of apathy to (just barely not) hatred as people, they are interesting characters, and you could find a lot of depth through speculation over them. There are a few lines and descriptions that I found quite revealing regarding the underlying feelings and motivations of some of the characters, especially

Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby (aka James Gatz), and Tom Buchanan

, but that you might normally ignore or look past.
While I did enjoy it, there were some areas that felt slightly dull or dragged out, to the point I felt I had to skip though a bit my first read through, then re-read after finishing the chapter for additional context in the later scenes.
Nick Carroway, the narrator, skips through the summer while telling the story. He keeps the timeline linear, so it could feel a bit off-putting in the moment when he would mention seemingly random events between parties and dinners with acquaintances, but the events do all have actual meaning for being there, biggest reason being to build characterization and foreshadow future reveals or events.

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lovelikethiswillendintragedy's review

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emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

The themesssssss

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ginbat's review

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fast-paced

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

3.0

It was easy to read but idk

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sarabookshelf's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad

4.0

The first time I saw the movie, I didn't really like it. But having read the book 10 years older, I have to say I enjoyed it much more than I expected and I kept thinking about it for days after. It was a captivating tragedy with interesting characters and setting. Even though it is obvious that Nick is an unreliable narrator and his perception of the events is skewed, I just couldn't help feeling bad for Gatsby and his idealistic outlook of what his life should look like.

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