This Is The Greatest Novel Ever (And Why I Keep Re-Reading It)

It changed my life.

​The Great Gatsby​ changed my life.

I don’t mean that the way some writers might. Yes, it is one of the best and most beautiful novels in the English language.

But ​The Great Gatsby​ first changed my life not by reading it, but by writing about it.

In 2004, my 11th-grade English teacher assigned us an essay. The prompt was: “Analyze how and why The Great Gatsbyis an exploration of the American Dream as it exists in a corrupt period.” I thought I was completing just another ordinary assignment. But the next day, Mrs. Kars printed out my essay and we spent the entire period reviewing it with the class.

It was the first time anything I had ever written had been recognized. Now that I think about it, it may have been one of the first times in my life that I had ever felt like I might be anything but average. I would later ask Mrs. Kars ​for a letter of recommendation​ to a college I did not get accepted to, but I can still remember a line from it. “I have no doubt,” she said, “that Ryan will someday be a literary giant.”