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The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
1925 · 180 pages · Classics
How it reads
The Great Gatsby is classics (tragedy, specifically), and its dominant mood is melancholy. It's quietly sad, wistful and reflective. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.
It's set in a big city setting, in the historical past, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are love, class and society and identity. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is bittersweet: it resolves, but at a price. At 180 pages it's a single-sitting book. It's a mega-bestseller — the book everyone seems to have read.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something melancholy
- you want something to chew on
- you want a complete story in one book
Maybe not if…
- you need something funny or hopeful
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- classics
- Author gender
- male
- Author experience
- established
- Setting: place
- big city
- Setting: time
- historical
- Mood / feeling
- melancholy
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- short
- Narrative style
- third person, one viewpoint
- Publication era
- classic
- Popularity
- mega-bestseller
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- love, class and society, identity
- Ending style
- bittersweet
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- The Death of the HeartElizabeth BowenShares: classics, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, bittersweet ending
The GamblerFyodor DostoevskyShares: classics, melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, set in big city
Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale HurstonShares: classics, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, historical setting
A Confederacy of DuncesJohn Kennedy TooleShares: classics, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, set in big city- Persepolis: The Story of a ChildhoodMarjane SatrapiShares: melancholy mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, bittersweet ending
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper LeeShares: classics, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, bittersweet ending
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