This Side of Paradise

The book's critical success was driven in part by the enthusiasm of reviewers. Burton Rascoe of the Chicago Tribune wrote that "e;it bears the impress, it seems to me, of genius. It is the only adequate study that we have had of the contemporary American in adolescence and young manhood."e; H. L. Mencken wrote that This Side of Paradise was the "e;best American novel that I have seen of late."e;One reader who was not entirely pleased, however, was John Grier Hibben, the President of Princeton University: "e;I cannot bear to think that our young men are merely living four years in a country club and spending their lives wholly in a spirit of calculation and snobbishness."e;