The Chosen and The Beautiful by Nghi Vo
The Chosen and The Beautiful is a retelling of The Great Gatsby told from the perspective of Jordan Baker. Jordan provides some important insights into the early years of Daisy Buchanan (formerly Fay) and Jay Gatsby.
Full disclosure: I am a HUGE The Great Gatsby fan. Every time, I read that book it is magic. It makes me feel like a kid all over again, trying to reach out to grab an unattainable dream. Earlier this year, I read a book called Nick which was supposed to be a Great Gatsby prequel. It was horrible. It had none of the magic of The Great Gatsby, and it was just depressing and sad.
The Chosen and The Beautiful aligned with The Great Gatsby (it was consistent with the original story), and it also covered the same time period. Having Jordan Baker be the narrator was simply brilliant because it allowed for Vo to not have to try to completely replicate Fitzgerald – the tone and storytelling could be a bit different than the original and still remain consistent.
In terms of plot, I really enjoyed learning a bit more about Daisy’s history and more details about what went on that summer. There was still a bit of magic in this book; however, it didn’t rise to the level of Fitzgerald. Although developing the characters of Daisy and Jordan was enjoyable, I thought that this book was trying to accomplish too much by introducing Khai. This person just seemed to appear randomly throughout the book. Daisy and Jordan both had really great character development, showing them as imperfect characters.
The ending of the book was entirely forgettable, and it should have been much stronger.
Overall, this is one of the best retellings that I have ever read (with the exception of The Song of Achilles), and I am looking forward to reading more by this author.