Chosen and the Beautiful

This is amazing story! It will take your mind into a whole different level! It's a must read!

... from the point of view of Jordan Baker -- with a twist! We always felt that both Jordan and Nick Caraway were somehow outsiders, correct? What if part of the reason for Jordan's feeling of alienation was that she WAS alien -- in the sense of being an adopted Asian child? However, there are more layers and facets to this very magical novel just as there was to the age it is set in.

Eventually I realized there was a lot of magic underneath the plain reality of the wealth and thoughtless party that the post-WWI roaring twenties.The characters are multiple layers and developed slowly among smoke and dreams. I read straight thru, it is amazing!

So, I don't know how to classify this. It's a retelling of The Great Gatsby. But with sorcery - mostly demonic. And a female narrator, Vietnamese but raised in early 20th century America, who is a sort of love interest for Nick Carraway. And a whole lot of bisexuality and LGBTQ+ themes not prominent in the original. So it's the Great Gatsby, but really, REALLY not. It was amazingly well written, but I have it 4/5 because I really wasn't sure what too with this story . . .

This book has left me feeling conflicted and weird. The moment I started it, it felt like reading The Great Gatsby but overtly queer and with magic and demonic powers. It also almost feels like a waking dream, the way the writing flows and the way Jordan is as a narrator. This is probably a great example of unreliable and unlikeable narrator. I don’t even really know what to say about this book, other than it was compulsively readable even as it has left me feeling out of sorts. Like, I think I enjoyed The Chosen and the Beautiful, but also I can’t tell if I did enjoy it. I’d definitely still recommend this book, but it’s a weird one and I can’t quite tell if it’s a good weird or not.

I read Gatsby for the first time this year because I'd had it lying around from some library sale or another and I wanted to read the source material before reading this book. Having loved some of her other works, I was sure I'd love this too, and I wasn't wrong. I thought I'd find the magic to be jarring compared to the original (I'm a pretty literal reader and don't read fan fic), but I really enjoyed it.

F. Scott Fitzgerald whomst!!! Nghi Vo owns this story now. The Chosen and the Beautiful is a masterpiece of a retelling/reworking. Slinky and sensual, surprising and sharp, Jordan Baker (a character who, in the original falls into the background) takes hold of the narrative and challenges Gatsby, Daisy, Nick, and Tom in turn while expanding the experience of New York in the 20s.The aspect of this novel I was most concerned about—the addition of magic—turned out to be marvelous. The magic spins its own dreamy, heady quality over this book without taking away the characters agency or affecting the central plot in any distasteful way. It's a subtle thing, but delightful. I particularly enjoyed the way that Jordan's magic began to connect her to her heritage and sketch out a future for her beyond the confines of the novel.

Do you like when new novels, films, or TV shows spun out of classic texts make continual references to the past material? If so, then you will probably love The Chosen and the Beautiful. In the first chapter of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, narrator Nick makes an observation that Daisy and Jordan appeared as though they had blown in like balloons (I'm paraphrasing since I don't have the quote in front of me). Well, within the first paragraph, Vo writes that the wind "blew Daisy and me around her East Egg mansion like puffs of dandelion seeds... like a pair of young women who had no cares to weigh them down." Something definitely blows-- that we can all agree on. The books reads like a bad reboot movie that constantly winks and nods at the audience as if to say, "Remember when your favorite character said that famous line from the original Ghostbusters!?? While it's back! Wink! Wink!This novel does nothing to add to the world of the Great Gatsby. Instead, it revisits famous moments with the depth of bad fan fiction. Your eyes will not roll back in haughty rivalry, they will simply roll back-- again and again-- in annoyance.

I fell in love with the opening line and the rest of the book didn’t disappoint. A gorgeous, fantasy Gatsby retelling with LGBTQ+ rep. And that cover!😍