What a desperate, beautiful piece of work. The prose is sparkling whether it is about the glitz of Gatsby or the drudgery of Carraway's socialite life. Read at the ripe age of 29 it seems predictable, but only because it is an exemplar in its genre and had been copied to death. The ending is fabulous-it is what would happen with humans instead of the narrative we expect. Even better, it took me two hours to finish all told (with breaks in between chapters)... One sentence review: Sadness compiles upon despair until we are left hollow but satisfied. 
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 Categorized as a Romance (which I do) it breaks the de facto one true rule: the people in love end up together. Despite this flagrant violation of modern sensibilities it holds up as a true gem of the genre. Many of the traditional romance rules are upheld: the hero and heroine are attractive and attracted to each other, the impediment-the husband-is properly brutish and unthinkingly cruel but also sympathetic. The couple gets together but is also torn apart. There is the right amount of sex in a book for me, which is to say none that is explicit but enough implicit passion to suggest it satisfactorily. 
 Gatsby bucks the stereotypical hero trend. He is not stoic, then pink and squishy, then strong and reliable. He is an untouchable man until Daisy's arrival. He then begins unraveling by inches. Gatsby's sadness and pathetic tendencies are at first touching, then painful, almost repulsive, and never regains his composure. He is a man who works so hard for the one thing he wants, and is rewarded with misery. 
 Daisy is a shadow of a character, which not only expected for the time period but almost necessary for the story. This is not Daisy's story-she is merely an object to be coveted, loved, tempted, stolen, and returned. Such as it is, Daisy is still portrayed in a multi-faceted way. We know why Gatsby loves her, why Tom loves her, and why she loves them both-but doesn't. She is strong enough to have an affair, which is nice but ultimately flees back to "safety" i.e. money when the truth is revealed- a very old and discouraging trope, but fitting for the time period and ending. (hide spoiler)]