Book # 3 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Of all the books on this list, The Great Gatsby is probably the one that I had read most recently before we started this project. Even though I had read it only about two years ago, I couldn't really remember too much about it. My opinion on a second reading is pretty much the same: it is a really good book, but I don't know how it could really be considered one of the top 5 books of all time. Maybe so many people read it in high school because it is so short.

The story is pretty simple. A rich guy, Jay Gatsby, throws big giant expensive parties in his huge house and is trying to win back a girl, Daisy, that he fell in love with five years earlier when he was poor and felt like he couldn't provide the lifestyle that she wanted. Unfortunately Daisy is now married and has a really unlikable husband. Then *spoiler* there is an accident and more bad stuff happens and everyone ends up either dead or sad. The end.

I really enjoyed Fitzgerald's writing style and the book is full of really beautiful passages. The narrator of the story is a pretty average guy that is easy to relate to and helps ease the reader into the type of world that Gatsby and Daisy live in. I really did enjoy it, but I can't say that I loved it. Most of the characters aren't really that likable at all, especially Daisy at the very end. It is hard to see what Gatsby really likes about her. The book does suggest that Gatsby loves the idea of what Daisy represents (wealth, the past, something to yearn for) and once he gets her back he is a bit let down by her. It also seems that the accident that drives the end of the book is almost too big of a coincidence and convenient for tying together all the story threads. Probably the fact that I could remember so little about it from my first reading just a couple of years ago should say something too. I give it an A, but it does not crack my top 50 list.