Play Book Tag discussion

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is set during the roaring 20s in America. It's narrated by Nick Carraway, a man from a wealthy family who has returned home from the Great War and decides to move to New York and take a job selling bonds. He moves to bungalow in East Egg, across from Gatsby's mansion.

Gatsby is known around New York for not just being a millionaire, but also for throwing the biggest and best parties at his mansion every Saturday night. Gatsby himself is somewhat mysterious. No one really knows anything about him. One day Nick gets an invitation from to come to one of his parties and meets Gatsby for the first time. The two become friends but Nick starts to wonder why Gatsby is trying so hard and doing so many nice things for him. He soon finds out that Gatsby wants Nick to invite his cousin Daisy over for tea. Nick discovers Gatsby and Daisy were in love years ago, but Gatsby went off to war and Daisy married Tom Buchanan. They haven't seen or spoken to each other in several years, but they had never forgotten about each other. When Gatsby finds out that Nick and Daisy are cousins, he uses that relationship to see her again.

I didn't have to read Gatsby in school and I have never seen any of the movies, so I came into this read with no idea of the plot and what transpires during the story.

"The Great Gatsby" is widely considered a masterpiece of American literature, and the descriptive language in this book makes that easy to understand. The beginning of the book drags on for quite a while, with little conflict or anything truly interesting happening until over the halfway point. I thought the characters in "The Great Gatsby" were very flawed and hard to sympathize with.

It reminded me of a Shakespeare tragedy and I just didn't enjoy my reading experience. I never expected to read this book, but I'm not sorry I did because I do admire Fitzgerald's ability to create beautiful words. I'm sorry it didn't hold the impact for me than it does millions of other readers.