They just speak to people in different ways. Personally, I got a lot out of "Catcher In The Rye" and "On The Road", but the themes of those books resonated heavily with me at the time.<p>I enjoyed "The Great Gatsby" as a story, but it didn't connect with me in the way it seems to connect with others. However, I suspect that read in a different moment of my life its impact could be profoundly different.