poppins8587's review
2.0
The book never quite got to where I needed it to go. It was just blah throughout.
laurenc18's review
4.0
I originally thought this book was non-fiction when I picked it up, so it took me a while to set aside that this would read more like a novel. Nonetheless, I feel I learned a lot about the relationship of Scott and Zelda. I didn’t know about the Cuba trip, and it was nice to read about possible things that happened the last time they were together.
yangyvonne's review
3.0
In 1939, after F. Scott Fitzgerald went to Hollywood to try and break into film, and after Zelda was spending more and more time committed to institutions, they took a "last" trip to Cuba together. This book explores that trip (in a fictionalized manner) where the two are involved with multiple "scandals" in their short visit and don't seem to make any real progress on their own relationship. First, Scott is befriended by Cardona, a business woman who seems to want to rope him into an investment scheme, but later works to help free them from police suspicion surrounding a bar fight. Then, Zelda picks-out Aurelio and Maryvonne, a newlywed couple as their next "friends". He was in the Spanish War and she is a French nurse. They spend days together in an odd flirtation before Scott is injured at a cock fight and the Fitzgeralds call upon Cardona to help them flee the island. Zelda returns to NC and Scott to Hollywood, where he died the next year; they never saw each other again or resolved their many issues.
I am a huge fan of just about anything dealing with the Fitzgeralds. How can you not be attracted to a story of glamour, tragedy, love at first sight and total disregard for societal norms/pressures? That being said, it took quite some time for me to get into the story. I was well past 100 pages of this 364 page over before I really felt connected to the story. The writing is vivid and very meticulously shifts between the thoughts of Zelda and the thoughts of Scott, but you never really break through the facade to the meat and history of what brought them to such a terrible place in their marriage. The interaction with the strangers is also odd; there is no resolution to the police investigation, no explanation of what Cardona really wanted with them and no indication of whether Maryvonne intended to have an affair with Scott (or Zelda??) and/or what Aurelio's thoughts were on it all. A good read, but it left me with more questions than answers.
I am a huge fan of just about anything dealing with the Fitzgeralds. How can you not be attracted to a story of glamour, tragedy, love at first sight and total disregard for societal norms/pressures? That being said, it took quite some time for me to get into the story. I was well past 100 pages of this 364 page over before I really felt connected to the story. The writing is vivid and very meticulously shifts between the thoughts of Zelda and the thoughts of Scott, but you never really break through the facade to the meat and history of what brought them to such a terrible place in their marriage. The interaction with the strangers is also odd; there is no resolution to the police investigation, no explanation of what Cardona really wanted with them and no indication of whether Maryvonne intended to have an affair with Scott (or Zelda??) and/or what Aurelio's thoughts were on it all. A good read, but it left me with more questions than answers.
juliaghoulia's review
1.0
Soooooooooo boring. Scott and Zelda were such interesting people and this author's writing style does NOT do them justice. There's too much dialogue and thinking and not enough of people doing anything. It tries too hard to be deep.
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