As I want to find a bestseller I can recommend to my children, I also want to find "required reading" that I like. I know I read The Great Gatsby, probably about the time I picked up Clan of the Cave Bear for the first time. I remembered COTCB, remembered liking it. All I remember about Gatsby was thinking the houses were big. Is this because the book wasn't very good? Was it because I was 14, and couldn't relate? Or, was it because it was....."required reading"? After reading Gatsby again, I think it was mostly the second choice. Gatsby is hard for a 14 year old to "get". Rich, spoiled, needy, pompous, partying narcissists make up the bulk of the characters. The shallowness of Daisy is depressing, the neediness of Gatsby equally so. I don't think I appreciated the weakness of the characters as a 14 year old. As an adult I found the book frustrating and sad. No one gets out unscathed in The Great Gatsby. You find yourself hoping for a happy ending, while all the time seeing there is no such thing when you start with such unhappy people. The narrator keeps you reading the book, because the poor guy is able to see more than the surface, but given no power to change people or events.
So, while it may come to a "Required Reading List" near you, if it doesn't, I think Gatsby is still unfathomable and unrelatable to most teens/tweens. If is is required, you have an opportunity to discuss the themes- drinking, drinking and driving, infidelity, more drinking, extreme wealth coupled with extreme irresponsibility, untrue love, suicide, and the importance of having a gardener.
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