once upon a time, i had a very long, very passionate review of this book uploaded, with very long, very passionate pages of comments, and generally it was one of my favorite reviews (and of one of my favorite books) with one of my favorite ensuing discussions.

today i realized goodreads deleted it!

read the only one of my 2000+ reviews that goodreads has simply straight up taken down here, where it's safe: https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...

Fitzgerald, you have ruined me.Fitzgerald can set a scene so perfectly, flawlessly. He paints a world of magic and introduces one of the greatest characters of all time, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is the embodiment of hope, and no one can dissuade him from his dreams. Have you ever had a dream that carried you to heights you could never have dreamed otherwise? When Gatsby is reunited with Daisy Buchanan, he fills the space to the brim with flowers, creating a living dream. How is anyone supposed to comp...

the only thing I got from this is that Nick is gay

2.5

i don't care i'm putting this in my "lgbtq-rep" shelf because there is no way in hell Nick is straight. like NO WAY. you can't fight me on this.

This is a good book, though it is so ridiculously overrated. There are so many great books out there that will never get the attention they deserve. They will be forgotten and their wisdom heard by only a select few who are willing to go looking for it. So it annoys me when books like this are acclaimed by critics and readers alike as the best pieces of fiction in existence (when they are not.) There’s so much more out there!Anyway, rant over. The thing I like most about The Great Gatsby is the ...

Our fantasies of grandeur are always restricted by our aesthetic tastes and The Great Gatsby is literally an anthem to vulgarity and fraudulence…But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until d...

There was one thing I really liked about The Great Gatsby.

It was short.

Oh Gatsby, you old sport, you poor semi-delusionally hopeful dreamer with “some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life”, focusing your whole self and soul on that elusive money-colored green light - a dream that shatters just when you are *this* close to it. Jay Gatsby, who dreamed a dream with the passion and courage few possess - and the tragedy was that it was a wrong dream colliding with reality that was even more wrong - and deadly. Just like the Great Houdini - the association ...

The Great Gatsby is your neighbor you're best friends with until you find out he's a drug dealer. It charms you with some of the most elegant English prose ever published, making it difficult to discuss the novel without the urge to stammer awestruck about its beauty. It would be evidence enough to argue that F. Scott Fitzgerald was superhuman, if it wasn't for the fact that we know he also wrote This Side of Paradise.But despite its magic, the rhetoric is just that, and it is a cruel facade. Be...

Jay Gatsby, you poor doomed bastard. You were ahead of your time. If you would have pulled your scam after the invention of reality TV, you would have been a huge star on a show like The Bachelor and a dozen shameless Daisy-types would have thrown themselves at you. Mass media and modern fame would have embraced the way you tried to push your way into a social circle you didn’t belong to in an effort to fulfill a fool’s dream as your entire existence became a lie and you desperately sought to re...