The Fountainhead

By Ayn Rand

It seemed that most people who like Ayn Rand started out with this classic of hers, so I thought I had better give it a shot. Yet to be totally honest (please don’t shoot me!) I was actually a bit disappointed…

Now in my defense, my first book by Rand was Atlas Shrugged (which I read for the first time as a freshman in college, originally in the hopes of writing a scholarship-winning essay about it afterwards… yea, that essay never happened). I found many of her core ideas were the same as in The Fountainhead, just expressed in different ways and through different characters.

While I loved Wynand, and Roark (because, I mean, who couldn’t?), I found Dagny to be much more inspiring and relatable character than Dominique. I really felt the difference in the women characters… and that’s why I can say, while I’m glad I read The Fountainhead, I still prefer Atlas Shrugged.