One of the things I love most about this book is that it is told from the point of view of an honest man. Nick Carraway does not exactly fit into the extravagant lifestyle of his companions.. He serves as a medium for Fitzgerald's social commentary on the Jazz Age. The book's not about how "great" Gatsby is. In fact it tells you more about how he isn't so great..

Spoiler

How he can't face reality or let go of the past. How he can't truly even be himself! He has to have his image of wealth to have the woman he wants and that isn't even enough for her!

The book is not a romantic vision of the Twenties as so many readers think. Rather, it is a more honest depiction and that is why I admire the honesty of the narrator so much.

But there's more to him than his honesty that I like. See, he knows that Daisy and Gatsby are both reckless people. But he shows us that just because someone is reckless and shallow, it doesn't mean that you can't find something to admire about them. He was a good friend to both of them even though they caused more harm than good, and I thought that was very honorable of him.

As I've always said, I'm not a fan of romance as a genre or a theme. I LOVE that this isn't a love story. I believe it just contains a lot of fundamental truths about relationships and human nature that everyone should ponder, and that the place where the author chose to expose those truths in his own words happened to be a failed romance in an indifferent age.

This book should definitely be read once. Perhaps even twice if you didn't grasp the full beauty of Fitzgerald's words in high school. I mean he may have had a lot of problems in his life that caused him to do some undesirable things, but the fact of the matter is that he is probably one of the most eloquent writers of the 20th century. The man could write!