This Side of Paradise
What I thought while reading:
"Oh look at me, I'm F. Scott Fitzgerald and I was rich and I wrote about rich people blah blah blah...," is totally what Fitzgerald once said.
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What I thought after reading:
"F. Scott Fitzgerald?!....THIS is your life!" *smiling, tuxedoed host holds up a copy of This Side of Paradise*
"Oh my, really? This is all about me? Well, it couldn't have happened to a more handsome, intelligent, all-around good guy!"
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My actual goddamned review:
This Side of Paradise, written by Fitzgerald while in his early 20s, is a fictional account of the moneyed world he inhabited. Entitlement courses through every word and hemorrhages forth with a youthful flair for dramatics. Fitzgerald's...genius?...ok, sure...is that the unreality of his world is too real. That a momentary blemish can nearly bring a girl to tears of despair, that looking into the very face of death wrangles only a moment's serious reflection before thoughts are turned back to the senior prom - these scenes seem too fantastical to believe. And yet, I am angered by them. I loath these characters' nonchalance of about life and lives. If they were not authored into existence with such undeniable skill, I would not have wanted to charge into this book and wring their necks.
This Side of Paradise is a triumph of decadence unveiled.