This is another truly terrible book. There is really nothing to commend about it, and I simply do not understand why this would make the list for top contenders of the Great American Novel. It’s written poorly, and in an uninteresting way, as it purports to be the diary of the most horrendously selfish, shallow, and uninteresting character you could hope to create, though why you would ever hope to create such a character is beyond me. Lorelei (her name is her one redeeming characteristic) manipulates her way through life, literally committing murder and then winning esteem and sympathy for it. If this book wanted to explore distinctly American themes, it really missed out on the opportunity to write about the American women who civilized the West, owned their own shops, or were generally noble, good-hearted, and hardworking. Instead, Anita Loos portrays in the Eastern American gentility as a new version of the British nobility, quite similar to that of the Great Gatsby, in that the characters pursue no real work to speak of, only floating between social engagements and shopping trips and gallivanting through Europe in the name of “education.” Not only is Lorelei a terrible person herself, but she brings out the worst in everyone else and ends the novel with a millionaire husband and a convenient paramour who is equally as interested in the husband’s money as Lorelei. This book is 100-year old trash and is only better than modern trash because it leaves out the profanity and explicit depiction of fornication.