Reviews with content warning for Racism - The Chosen and the Beautiful

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

121 reviews

writewithapendragon's review against another edition

challenging mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book is short but it took me a longer time to read than I expected. Vo’s prose is beautifully poetic, each word carefully chosen. I want to go back and annotate, I enjoyed the language so much. Gatsby itself is so over-done that I wasn’t expecting this to be so unique and captivating, but it is a truly singular work.

Content Warnings

lzad's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

lolajh's review

Go to review page

medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Wow. What a rollercoaster. Such a promising lead up,

I loooooved Jordan in the original, and was really rooting for an eventual romance between her and Daisy in this 😫 It fr would have been so perfect for Daisy to realise at the very end she didn’t care for Tom or Gatsby and instead Jordan had been there waiting for her the whole time. They kissed and had such a homoerotic relationship already it would have been perfect

but a much weaker middle

Nick and Jordan’s relationship made me so mad it was so toxic and jordan didn’t even really like him

and end

WHAT THE FUCK EVEN HAPPENED

, especially regarding the magical realism fantasy bits that I really feel didn’t properly meld with the rest of the book. A lot of things were really disappointing, especially regarding the likability of Jordan as a main character when she was one of the only redeeming qualities I could find about the original. Jordan seemed quite manipulative and fake a lot of the time, and none of this was really explained.

A perfect explanation for her choosing to stay with Nick all that time while she internally complained about him would be that she was FUCKING IN LOVE WITH DAISY yet she never (properly) admitted that and instead just gaslighted Daisy at the end when they were so close to actually addressing their relationship. Even if they just remained friends, I would’ve loved to see them have a happy ending together, even if Jordan had to go with her and Tom. I feel like the fight between them over Gatsby running over that girl was weird and Daisy was just obviously traumatised like everyone else was by seeing a dead body, especially when Daisy actually saw Gatsby kill them and then went through him dying as well.

I loved Daisy, honestly wishing all the best for her and was rooting for her the whole time. Her character is just so real, I loved her in the original as well and think she was written well in this. Just the direction this book went and different weird elements like the fantasy stuff and a hint of incest???? Where jordan got jealous of Daisy flirting with Nick (Daisy and Nick are cousins????) Weird plot point, but anyway. I shouldn’t have gone into this hoping for certain things

like a sapphic romance

because the author never promised that and that isn’t fair. Was still disappointed anyway, but oh well!!

Content Warnings

faeriviera's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

I love The Great Gatsby, I love racebent and queer retellings, I love lyrical writing, and I love magic realism...but for all of these interesting factors, this book didn't really click for me, and I think it boils down to the fact that the author had a TON of ideas for this story and they all ended up feling underdeveloped, partially because a lot of the book is just rewriting scenes from The Great Gatsby from Jordan's point of view rather than building on the new aspects added from Jordan now being Vietnamese, queer, and having an ability to create life from paper. It's a shame too, because I'd love to see more of this world and this Jordan.

Content Warnings

alizirrah's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Gorgeously evocative - vicious and incisive and subversive in the best possible ways. Each sentence felt so precise and surprising, like no word was wasted or out of place. I loved how everyone was casually queer and messily all in each other's business.

So why did it take me over 2 months to read this fairly short novel? I could not tell you. Possibly it was because it often took a lot of concentration to follow and parse each sentence's meaning, and when I tend to read before bed, this would lead to me nodding off after only reading a few pages. There were a few times that the story suddenly slipped into a flashback and I wasn't sure what time the scene took place, and other times I *thought* we had flashed back but then that scene actually had been current.

But it is an absolutely gorgeous book overall. The magical elements were fascinating and very memorable. I found this parallel universe 1920's U.S. very compelling.

Content Warnings

eldaaurora97's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

"I was a little crazy after secrets that year. I liked collecting them, and though I seldom told, I did gloat. I was years from who I had bin in Louisville, some of those scars healed over to give me a hard polish that made me more mean but less vulnerable" (24)

The prose here fits Jordan Baker's character like a glove, in this re-telling of The Great Gatsby. Here, Jordan is reimagined as a Vietnamese adoptee into a wealthy family after Eliza Baker died. As well as dealing with her feelings and the intrigues of Gatsby's parties, there's another twist--she's a magician, able to make things out of paper and frequently deals with demonic. These things makes the 1920s setting all the more intriguing...but will she be able to deal with it?

I've read "The Great Gatsby" many years ago in school, and what interested me the most were the shimmering parties Gatsby holds, all for a lost cause. It still plays out with this story, as Jordan "had an idea of what was on offer given the rest of the party, but whatever Jay Gatsby was having would be exception" (54). But there's a bite to Jordan's POV when describing the parties, as "all of Gatsby's beautiful people were being revealed for the sloppy, irritable, wayward, and human creatures they really were" (60). The setting remains in its beautiful yet toxic landscape, as we see Gatsby reunite with Daisy, and everything fall through. The twist in which Gatsby "sold his soul, and in exchange for the power to be a man worthy of Daisy Fay, he had created a way station for Hell..." (224) was a plot twist I didn't expect.

Speaking of which, the magical aspects of "The Chosen and the Beautiful" are intriguing, but some other parts weren't really clear. One of my favorite scenes was during Daisy's bridal dinner, in which Daisy is in a complete mess and needs help. Jordan uses her paper magic to create a doppelganger, which leads to a sweet moment between them. However, discussions about demoniac and other magical spells weren't as clear for the rest of the book--it was cool, but somehow didn't fit with the rest of the plot...

...except in terms of where Jordan came from. "...the only time the class was ever full was when he presented the section on paper wives of the Lac Dragon Kings...paper cutting was effigy magic, ancestor worship, and another sign of the barbarity of the region..." (115). It reflected in how the white characters of the book looked down on people of color (and Gatsby himself, seeing he was of mixed descent?) While Jordan was seen as the exception to the rule, it was still jarring. It played out quite a bit near the end--one with the Manchester Acts, and the other with a scene in Chinatown. Seeing Jordan come to terms with her Vietnamese background, and the ins and outs of it all, was rewarding.

"The Chosen and the Beautiful" is a great book, filled with great prose, intriguing twists, and a fascinating point of view through Jordan Baker. It sheds a light on the glitter and darkness of the 1920s Fitzgerald originally wrote, and it's so curious! But if only a few more things were developed, it would be the perfect book--not only as a retelling, but also on its own right.

Content Warnings

talonsontypewriters's review

Go to review page

mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Vo's prose is as lovely as ever, and the magical realism elements are interesting, but the added magic and focus on Jordan are really the only major divergences from Gatsby -- overall, the story felt heavily reliant on the reader already being familiar with Gatsby (which I say as someone who is Very Normal about Gatsby), and I don't know that it really offers any more nuanced or thorough a glance at most of the characters, including Jordan. Could have definitely been a lot more fleshed out and more of a genuine retelling than effectively a companion novel, just feels a bit disjointed and shallow.

Content Warnings