This book is worth the read as an early glimpse of the author, and his narrative. When I first went to college I pulled out a sheet of loose leaf, and mapped out eight perfect semesters. Life deviates in strange ways. Having illuminated his emergence F. Scott Fitzgerald spilled more of the beans than I suspect he would have cared to further on down the road based on my limited knowledge of his treatment of his emergence later in his career. Cliché as it sounds, this is also true: the odometer alone does not define the journey; the paths taken counts for much. He is spoken of, and his work recreated as cinema still to this day, but are the inheritors of his mentors dreams proud of the body of his work, and the criticisms? Much effort was expended staking this young man on his literary journey. In the first hundred pages he drops character examinations with his typical sly wit, and then he tortures himself. Then he walks out on thin ice, and survives. If you've ever been in the position to write something on any of the empty, or partially scribbled on leaves of paper that can confront us, and wondered what will happen to them, this is one of the better literary journey at a start books out there. If you haven't, it is still a good read, though you might not recognize the struggle.