This Side of Paradise (Bookcassette(r) Edition)

Rating:
Summary: endearing
Review: Fitzgerald's early work is gorgeously flawed. No reader will ever forget Amory Blaine. This Side of Paradise is an experimental, naiive, and self-consciously brilliant work, and should be read by anyone on the brink of their college years, and then again and again.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully-written, somewhat self-absorbed novel
Review: While reading the book, I really enjoyed the prose, but my impression was that Fitzgerald KNEW that what he was writing was top-quality, and I think he tends to overdo it a little because of that. The novel is definitely a fun-to-read story. The author has a great sense of humor and has an eye for the subtle traits that make people who they are. And to correct a statement by a schoolmate of mine...Princeton is BETTER than it was during his day. Go Tigers!

Rating:
Summary: A flawless novel that really makes you think
Review: This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the best books I've read, period. Fitzgerald's masterful use of the language is stunning. He approaches Shakespeare in technical skill and his ability to express with precisely the right words what his characters are thinking and feeling. The self-exploration of Amory Blaine as he grows from a child to a young man is exquisite. He epitomizes the lost generation that I enjoyed identifying with in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. It is intellectually stimulating but not boring, exciting but not full of action. An excellent work.

Rating:
Summary: The best book this side of--oh, never mind.
Review: Okay, so not the ABSOLUTE best, but by golly definitely one of them. At first, you think, "Oh, no, I'm going to hate this Amory Blaine, I really am." But then he grows on you somehow, because you can say to at least one of the situations he gets in--usually the abortive romantic ones--that you've been there, too. Especially good for young men (although by no means just them) and aspiring writers of whatever gender. I liked the way Fitzgerald experiments a bit (the one scene done in the form of a play) and how he ends the book with a phrase that many of us can say, at the end of our journeys--- "`I know myself,` he cried, `but that is all.`"

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, intellectual but NOT boring!
Review: This book was a complete surprise. The structure and material are very fresh and original, although it is almost 100 years old. The plot is not atypical (life story, growing up, especially college) but I'll be damned if any one I ever met in college had conversations like this character and his friends. It makes the reader think - something this reader hasn't done in a few years (and certainly didn't do in college either!). I liked it very much. It touched my imagination and made me realize that I've been a little bit stagnant for some time... (I'm 30). I would recommend this book to anyone. It's very readable, with a lot to say about the world, and all of it applying to today's world as well as the writer's. Thank you, F. Scott.

Rating:
Summary: From a reader at the University of Pennsylvania,
Review: F. Scott Fitzgerald has once again perfectly captured an entire generation in this book, yet did so in such a way that people can still relate today. Everyone can relate to Amory Blaine's plight of finding who you are amidst a generation that is lost and determined to do nothing substantial. Furthermore, Amory's incessant dissatisfaction with himself is something else we all can relate to. The reader is told that with Amory, "it was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being." Amory always wanted to do things but never took the time to appreciate what he was. This Side of Paradise is a must read for anyone who wants to explore their own life, and how they are living it.

Rating:
Summary: Paradise Lost
Review: Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise is simply astounding--a cautionary tale of youth, of lost innocence, of the things we do when we don't know what to do. His hero, Amory Blaine, is a boy on a search for something--for meaning, for love, for the marrow of life itself. But like the people who characterized the era of "The Lost Generation," Amory is met with heartache and despair. Like Fitzgerald later wrote, "Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy." A must read for anyone still searching for themselves. It is moving, insightful, and filled with notable quoatables:"I'm in love with change, and I've killed my conscience"-Amory Blaine.

Rating:
Summary: This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Review: This first Fitzgerald novel is a brilliant telling of college life in the early twentieth century. Fitzgerald is a genius, inserting psychology and philosophy into his writing with ease. This book is extravagantly written with wonderful detail and a well developed protaginist. A book about egotism, this is a must-read for any reader. One of the best books all time. Pure Genius.

Rating:
Summary: Like Salinger's Caulfield, we all can relate to Amory Baine
Review: A young middle-westerner walking in the great paths of Fitzgerald's Caraway and Blaine, not to mention Francis Scott himself, I found This Side of Paradise a brilliant illumination of human character and the subtleties of interactions between people. Who can ever forget such flippantly poignant lines as, "I'm afraid of you. I'm always afraid of a girl--until I've kissed her." Reading this book, you will find your mind alert, sensing your heart melt.

Rating:
Summary: Nice
Review: It's a shame modern Princeton (or any other college) is not half as wondereful. Nice book, great in parts. It's a good thing Fitzgerald didn't graduate from Princeton, he never would have been even a halfway decent writer then.