What’s the craziest thing you have done for a crush? Maybe you started listening on repeat to an album they said they liked? Or maybe you took a longer route to class so you could ‘accidentally’ bump into them? Anything it was, don’t worry yourself too much. Just remember nothing you’ve done (or at least I hope) is as crazy as what some fictional characters are willing to do just for their crush to notice them.

Maybe I’m giving myself too much credit here, but I think that with that description, the book for this week is pretty obvious; we’re talking about ‘The Great Gatsby‘.

I know this book might bring back some not-so-great memories for some people; you’re in class and your teacher keeps asking you about the symbolism behind the green light or some eyes while you are just waiting to leave and never open the book again.

Nevertheless, I feel like the seriousness with which our education regards this classic has taken the fun out of reading this book for what it actually is; the tale of a 20th century simp.

In case you haven’t already been tortured with this book in high school, ‘The Great Gatsby’ is a novel written by American author F.Scott Fitzgerald (Although it is said he actually plagiarized this work from his wife Zelda) and published in the year 1925. This book relates the story of a rich man named Jay Gatsby through the lens of Nick Carraway; a World War I veteran who just moved to New York from the midwest. Throughout the book, we discover that before Gatsby had amassed his fortune, he had been in love with Nick’s cousin, Daisy Buchanan, but she rejected him in favor of marrying a wealthy man called Tom Buchanan. Nevertheless, Gatsy is still in love with her after all these years and does everything in his power to get her back; he buys a house right across from her, he hosts massive parties in the hopes that she will attend one, he befriends her cousin Nick, and he even takes the blame when she murders her husband’s mistress. In the end, Daisy abandons him and he is shot to death by the husband of Tom Buchanan’s mistress.

While reading this story, I could not help but wonder why was Gatsby doing all these things for a girl who so clearly valued money over any love that he may feel for her? But then I realized that this book is supposed to be a critique of the ‘American Dream’ and I realized that perhaps Daisy was intended to be the physical embodiment of this idea. No matter how much wealth, power, or popularity Gatsby earns, he can never truly reach Daisy and the closer he gets to her, the quicker it all falls apart. Just like Daisy, the ‘American Dream’ is unattainable to Gatsby no matter how hard he tries.

This is a read that I would honestly recommend to anyone, maybe even more to the people who already read it in high school. It is an extremely interesting take on the traditional American ideals and the realities behind them.

But, if you don’t feel like going through this book again I also really recommend the 2013 film ‘The Great Gatsby’ starring Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan.