2.5 stars. meh.
This wasn't really what I was expecting. The book is called "A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald" but a more accurate title would be "A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald in Relation to Her Husband F. Scott Fitzgerald." The book was about Zelda & Scott, and who Zelda was in relation to Scott. It starts the day she meets him, and it ends with his death. A very short afterward gives the reader the gist of the last 8 YEARS of Zelda's life after his death, which bugged me because it was like the author was writing off the parts of her life that didn't include F. Scott as unimportant.
It seems to me like a book marketing itself as a kind of novel/fictional biography of a person should include their whole life, or at least more than just their life during their marriage. I know that's the most interesting part of her life, and focusing on Zelda's years with Scott gives her plenty of opportunity for sex, drinking, famous people name-dropping, and general Roaring Twenties partying, but to give a full and well-rounded story of Zelda I had expected that her formative childhood years, as well as her eight years of life after Scott, would be given some importance, which didn't happen.
It was fun reading about Zelda and Scott's crazy lives, and the book did a good job of giving me some real 1920s and 1930s vibes. There were some solidly emotional moments; Zelda was very likable and I cared about her story (but more on her later). It was fun to read an imagining of the details of her life and what these famous people were like behind closed doors. I always love historical fictions about real or real-ish people.
I don't really have a lot of factual information about either Zelda or Scott Fitzgerald, having never read a biography of either of them, but wow Scott sure was a jerk in this book. He was not nice to Zelda at all and made their relationship all about him, barely letting her do anything she was passionate about and belittling her talents. Zelda constantly excusing him, or being annoyed but not doing anything about it, made this book very frustrating to read. Obviously it's the 1920s and 30s, so Zelda didn't have a lot of options or freedoms as far as marriage went, but it was still irritating to read her complaints about Scott's behavior and then a total lack of action from her to do anything about it, and so have this controlling and terrible relationship be painted as a great love story.
The real Zelda Fitzgerald was a fascinating woman. She was witty, intelligent, funny, charming, and charismatic. I am told all of this by the book. The author makes a point to remind us that Zelda is all of these things. However, I am hardly ever actually shown Zelda's wittiness or intelligence or humor. Sure she has a few amusing one-liners, but overall she was very dull and bland. She read like a generic Nice Female Main Character, who let things get done to her instead of doing them herself. If i wasn't TOLD that Zelda was funny and smart and all of these things, then I would think she was a rather boring person and be rather confused as to why Scott Fitzgerald the witty author fell in love with her. I just wish that I didn't have to take the author's word for it that she was witty and everything else, but rather SEE her BEING witty and funny and smart throughout the book.
The writing was also very meh. It was awkward at times and the dialogue wasn't as good as I expected. I had expected great witticisms and prose from characters that are some of the greatest authors of their generation, like Fitzgerald or Hemingway, but they don't sound like themselves at all. They sound flat and boring, like Zelda and most of this book.
A big complaint i have is about the treatment of Zelda's mental illness. Zelda spent a lot of her later years in and out of sanatoriums and mental institutions, and even died in one, and looking back on it today most historians agree that she was bipolar, or manic depressive. Instead of demonstrating this as something that Zelda suffered with that eventually reached its breaking point, the author largely ignored it. At the point in Zelda's life when she entered a sanatorium for the first time, the author gives Zelda a quick breakdown and then ships her off. This was a really important piece of Zelda's story that was hardly touched on. Again, this is an issue with showing vs. telling. We are told that Zelda has some kind of mental illness that merits her staying in a mental institution, but we are never shown it. The author skips over most of it and it is treated as one of the least important things in Zelda's life, when in fact it was a huge part of her story.
I think I just want to go read a biography of Zelda or read some of her writings instead.
similar books (but better)