Book Review - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

 Book Review - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald


This is one of those books I read in high school but couldn’t really remember (it has been decades since high school, after all).  I chose this book because it is on a number of reading lists for high schoolers and I wanted to see if it would be appropriate for my high schooler to read next school year.  I had originally picked another book for this “slot” in her assignments, but found it to be rather inappropriate in some of its content.  This book is much better, but you should know that its main plot involves extra-marital affairs.  While that is, of course, sinful, the author does not find it necessary to be graphic in any way about these encounters.  There is a lot to learn about the excesses of the 1920’s in this book.  The level of materialism and promiscuity is emphasized and will open up a lot of discussion about worldliness and materialism and the ways they can easily infiltrate our lives without us thinking about it because of the culture we live in.  I would recommend this book, but caution you that, if you want your high schooler to read it, make sure you have read it recently, too, and that you discuss it with him/her.

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