the great gatsby

post-reading this book, i have seen many reviews/analyses, and i totally get why some people love this book, but i'm just not convinced this is like the greatest american novel of all time etc etc.

i thought the plot of the book was quite trite and said very little with too many words. don't get me wrong, i'm a sucker for beautiful prose, but it didn't hit for me in this case.

more generally, i also thought the first half of the book was quite slow, and at times, it felt like i was forcing myself to get through the book (because i am stubborn and will refuse to dnf books), which sucks, because i went into reading this with a really positive expectation. [spoilers] i'm also just not a big fan of cheating in general, and one of my least favorite trope is the miscommunication trope, so that was why i think this book got tanked quite a decent amount.

to be fair, i do think that some of the qualms i have are probably a me issue AND perhaps my thoughts will change after i re-read it or read some more praise of the book, but i'm sticking w the two stars for now, unfortunately.