Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Who would have thought that a 1037-page, 80-year-old novel about a spoiled, petulant teenager in petticoats would completely suck me in, and turn out to be one of the greatest novels of all time? Everything about this book is beyond superlative--vivid characters, settings that live and breathe, but especially Margaret Mitchell's prose. It would be worthwhile for any writer to study her sentences, every one of which flows with living motion, without a single flowery word. The dialogues between Scarlett and Rhett make sparks fly off the pages! One could criticize the liberal use of racially offensive terms and the portrayal of happy slaves, but I would disagree. Within the world so meticulously created by the author, a bygone world, for all its faults, that was seen as being in equilibrium before its downfall, to have done otherwise would have been false. This is truly the Great American Novel, in the top 5 of the greatest books I've ever read, and I suggest that you will thank yourself for reading it. My only regret about finishing Gone With the Wind is that now I can never again read it for the first time.