Not the most engrossing book I’ve ever read but I found value in its cautionary tale - felt like ghosts of relationships past. I think the lesson here is a) really contemplate the reasons WHY and WHERE you enjoy spending time with someone before committing to a relationship and b) the mind can make great leaps and bounds to justify your conflicting mindset and lifestyle

what the fuck. this book is entertaining, funny because of how they are so arrogant and so fancy even tho they had no money, Gloria had such a character development but still a narcissist and Anthony is just Anthony. honestly i only cared about gloria because i was entertained by how she was obsessed with her beauty and how attention and a such spotlight towards you when you’re so pretty.

”Oh, my pretty face! Oh, I don’t want to live without my pretty face! Oh, what’s happened?” although I initially struggled with this book, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unparalleled ability to portray the humanity of his characters, whether it is through their timeless flaws or their incredibly honest self-expression, eventually won me over. so similar to Gatsby (which I loved!) in (very successfully) conveying the absolute chaos of the time period with all its excess and the consequences of trying to maintain a glamorous lifestyle for the sake of appearances without the wealth to do so. along these lines Fitzgerald has so much to say about vanity, class, the status quo and societal expectations and while the discussion takes places in the context of a time period/society so different to the present day, it still feels incredibly contemporary. otherwise this is a story about people who don’t want to work to support their horrendous spending habits and honestly I felt SEEN.

anthony and gloria are probably the most unlovable characters i’ve ever met

anthony and gloria are probably the most unlovable characters i’ve ever met

4 Stars *A alluring tale of ephemeral beauty and fleeting joy* There is something so compelling about Fitzgerald’s writing. It is lovely and perceptive while still feeling down to Earth. Even if he isn’t your cup of tea, it is hard to deny why he is such a lasting name in literature. The Beautiful and Damned follows a young, beautiful couple who expect to inherit a large fortune. They fritter away their lives being rich and idle, obsessed with seeing and being seen. This is a novel of the nouveau riche. It is the age-old story of how beauty and money can both slip away in an instant, and how some people will eternally chase both. “Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know--because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.” The story shows the skewed sentiments of idle upper-class society as well as the time period. Which unfortunately boils down to a lot of sexism (again, both because of the times and the expectation of women being “arm candy”). As much as I hate those sentiments, I liked the exploration of these topics in the story. You may be tempted to lay the bulk of the anti-feminist blame upon the time period, but sadly this topic is still hugely relevant today. The rich and beautiful are still idolized. Just look at how obsessively people follow celebrities, both loving and hating them. That toxic duality is evident in The Beautiful and Damned. And many lessons can be drawn from this story. “And that taught me you can't have anything, you can't have anything at all. Because desire just cheats you. It's like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it - but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you've got the inconsequential part, but the glitter that made you want it is gone.” Although wasn’t my favorite of Fitzgerald’s works, I am glad I read it. The characters may have been despicable, but it was still an interesting and tragic story. Whether he is describing a luxurious party or a deeply flawed soul, Fitzgerald had such a magnetic aura in his words. RATING FACTORS: Ease of Reading: 4 Stars Writing Style: 4 Stars Characters and Character Development: 4 Stars Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars Level of Captivation: 4 Stars Originality: 5 Stars

This book has me twisted up inside. It didn’t make me happy, not even a little bit but that’s what is fantastic about it. The characters are terrible people, but terrible in the everyday way which resonates with everyone. They make all the wrong decisions and I found myself begging them just to grow the hell up, but they never do. The writing is gorgeous but closer to real life than anything I’ve read in a long while.

A story full of rich, egotistical, self centered, narcissistic characters yet...you can’t stop reading hoping that something will change, somehow they will grow up and achieve a moral compass. But alas, they spiral completely out of control. A great read full of great detail.

This book was soooo boring! I attempted to read it 3 different! Times! And I hated every second of it! This book just ain't it yall.

What a fantastic read! I've always liked reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's books and I actually enjoyed this one much more than "The Great Gatsby".

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading the book. Not only has it been a long time since I have read anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but it has also been my recent experience with classics that a reading becomes a hard slog through the narrative to the end. This book far surpassed those expectations. Fitzgerald creates a compelling, realistic narrative. His narrative flows between styles and narrators easily and without causing confusion for the reader. In the end, however, I feel no sense of compassion in any way for either of the main characters. Their whole existence appears to be without meaning. In the end, neither one grows or changes from the immature you children they started the journey as. Though not my favorite, Fitzgerald did create food for thought. Thus, this classic I recommend.

The 20s and 30s did great things for music, architecture and fashion. I'm a die-hard Art Deco fan and have always looked at the 20s as a sort of lost age of chivalry and taste. Everything after that, with the increase of industrialization and the need to recover after the war, feels dull to me. So I see that era as the last breath of aristocracy. With this in mind and after a lot of time waiting on my shelf, I finally decided to tackle F. Scott Fitzgerald. He's the ultimate storyteller of the Jazz Age, or so we're told. He's a classic. I honestly don't know how to feel about this book. It's such a love-hate relationship. It's definitely brilliantly written (though unevenly paced to the point of confusion and annoyance, towards the end) and perfectly accurate in describing the Jazz Age. It's great in portraying the life of the protagonists in such a raw way that it easily draws the reader in and doesn't allow them to get out. After the first chapter, which felt slow and tedious (more so because English is not my first language and it took me a while to get into the slang of those times), the novel drew me in rapidly. Dazzling, I think that's the best word I can find to express my feelings towards it. The society, one that does not exist anymore, is described with such accuracy that it feels alive. I have always had a fascination for times long past and for writings that pull me in completely. From this point of view, The Beautiful and Damned is a masterpiece. However, as much as I raveled in the atmosphere of the book, I hated the characters. Take it all out of the era and you have a bland story with unlikable characters. As much as I don't like it, I could not help but feel glad for their unhappiness. Mean, yes, but when you place at the center of a novel two people who lack ambition and live for pleasure only, you cannot expect the readers to feel sympathy for them. Had they lived 100 years later, they would have been in therapy and most likely divorced. (It took me a while to grasp that Gloria could not really divorce Anthony, because she had no money of her own and no skills. 21st century feminist me judged her quite hard.) As I said, I did enjoy to see them unravel and auto-destroy. In this, Fitzgerald is brilliant. He managed to capture the character's involution with absolute talent. The journey is not one of growth, it's one of destruction. And mean little me wanted a more bitter ending than the one we were given. However, I feel some justice has been served, in the end, as there cannot be absolute happiness. I try (and not always manage) not to judge a book written in a different time by comparing it to current mores and philosophies. It's pointless to call it unfeminist, misogynistic and classist. Yes, it doesn't fit into this century and we would most likely judge people like Gloria and Anthony very roughly by today's standards. Just look at it as a great portrayal of times long past and a lesson of what not to revive ever again (the clothes and the etiquette, though, can come back, thank you!).

I am definitely a huge sucker for prose and this has been a very beautiful read at that and concepts like infidelity, narcissism, greed and other horrible attributes were portrayed very impressively in my opinion. But, DAMN, was the main character the biggest asshole on Earth. I was laughing at the end of the book, I simply couldn’t feel any sympathy.

Description Summary: Like watching a tragic car crash, The Beautiful and the Damned features two MCs who are 50x worse than Regina George but Fitzgerald manages to save the book with his unique writing. Score: 3/5 I expected more of a Bonnie and Clyde situation where I would find the book alluring, a bit dangerous and reckless. What I got well, I got a sad excuse of a couple who are completely shallow and hypocritical. I couldn’t care what happened to them and not at one point did I feel the need to feel sorry for them. I felt that a lot of the tragic circumstances that they’ve faced is due to their own doing. It’s weird but this isn’t a story you would enjoy, but I can’t help but keep going and going even though it got more morbid and grey with each page. It’s like a grim fascination similar to going to a zoo and observing the creepiest and ugliestiest animal; appalling but you’re too intrigued to look away. Here is where Fitzgerald’s writing wins and does the impossible: it actually made me want to complete the book. The writing is probably my favorite thing about this. He achieves a great balance and shift between a lyrical tone and more cynical outlook; this blend of the romantic and pessimist frankly is impressive. Do I recommend? I would suggest The Great Gatsby rather than this one.

** spoiler alert ** this book was... it was better than ok but not quite good. The complexity of Fitzgerald’s male protagonist as always was amazing. I do wish that Gloria’s character and backstory were developed more though. As for plot, it was just going through the relationship and like of Anthony and Gloria so there wasn’t much to the plot. However, I think that Anthony’s decent into madness was beautifully, amazingly written. Much better than Dick’s in TitN. The ending gave me chills.