Honestly, in the beginning of the book, I felt like I was watching a movie of The Great Gatsby but with the perspective shifted, which is of course the goal here, but it was done so seamlessly that I can only applaud Vo. Vo’s prose is lush and extraordinary detailed, and so reminiscent of Fitzgerald’s writing but somehow even more atmospheric and lyrical. I’d heard through the grapevine just how fantastic Vo’s writing is and after reading The Chosen and the Beautiful, I can only wholeheartedly agree. Retelling the original story with a queer Asian main character is quite the hefty challenge, yet Vo masters it beautifully. In Chosen and the Beautiful, Vo reimagines the classic The Great Gatsby and gives voice to one of the most overlooked characters in the famous story about the American Dream: Jordan Baker. I existed in a kind of borderland of acceptable and not, sometimes more on one side, sometimes more on another.”ĭid anyone else count down the days until The Great Gatsby became public domain because that meant we were going to be flooded with queer retellings and reimaginings of this story or was that just me? “ They knew it instinctively, their mothers knew it definitively, and eventually, I had no choice but to recognize it as well.
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May 2023
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