“I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Can you believe I’ve never read The Great Gatsby? I finally decided to pick it up because there’s a Novel Pairings episode and knew I’d need support from the hosts.

I hated it. I don’t think I’ve missed anything by not reading it all these years. I didn’t like the narrator, I didn’t like any of the characters, I didn’t like the plot, and I didn’t understand the point of any of it. And the love story between Daisy and Jay wasn’t even all that interesting, which I thought was one of the main draws?

I was relieved to listen to the Novel Pairings episode and learn that they seemed to feel the same way. I’m glad I listened to the book on audio and it was relatively short or I would have felt like this one was a waste of precious reading time.