Review: Gatsby Girls by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Title: Gatsby Girls
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Format: Paperback
Publisher: BroadLit
Publish Date: May 7, 2013
Source: I received a copy from the PR; however, this did not affect my review.

Why You're Reading This Book:

• You're a fiction fan.
• You're a classics fan.

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "She was an impulsive, fashionable and carefree 1920s woman who embodied the essence of the Gatsby Girl -- F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda. As Fitzgerald said, "I married the heroine of my stories." All of the eight short stories contained in this collection were inspired by Zelda.

Fitzgerald, one of the foremost writers of American fiction, found early success as a short story writer for the most widely read magazine of the early 20th century -- the Saturday Evening Post. Fitzgerald's stories, first published by the Post between 1920 and 1922, brought the Jazz Age and the "flapper" to life and confirmed that America was changing faster than ever before. Women were bobbing their hair, drinking and flirting shamelessly, and Fitzgerald brought these exciting Gatsby Girls to life in the pages of the Post."

My Two Cents:

Oh, how I sometimes yearn for days that I never actually had a chance to witness! "Gatsby Girls" had me yearning for one of those days. This book is a collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories that appeared in the pages of The Saturday Evening Post. Imagine opening your newspaper and being able to read great short stories week after week. Now you're lucky if your newspaper even has a book section! Oh, the good old days!

I hadn't read any of Fitzgerald's short stories so it was nice to get a chance to read them now! His stories are mostly about the flappers. As is mentioned in the note in the beginning of the book, Fitzgerald based many of his female characters on some aspect of his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald. I guess he truly wrote what he knew, eh? I'm absolutely fascinated by Zelda Fitzgerald so I found myself reading the stories with the idea that many of them were based on her in the back of my mind. Some of the stories I had heard of before but hadn't read (such as Bernice Bobs Her Hair) and others I hadn't heard of at all.

This is a great collection for those who have read Fitzgerald before or haven't and are looking for a good jumping in point. I really liked that this collection included the pages of The Saturday Evening Post that the stories actually appeared on. Each story has really interesting illustrations and I also really liked being able to see what the pages of the post looked like (I got a kick out of some of the ads that were on the pages).

Overall, this is a great collection of stories!