jheinemann287's review against another edition
1.0
If you're writing about Nick before he moves to NYC and meets Gatsby, there are a few expectations:
1) Nick meets a man who may be Gatsby during the war.
2) Nick spends time with Daisy and Tom in Chicago before they move away.
3) Nick has a girlfriend he may or may not be engaged to before he moves away.
4) Nick may be queer. (Hellooo, end of Chapter 2!)
This is what the people want. Michael Farris Smith ignores all of this, focusing instead on Nick's relationship with Manic Pixie Picture Frame Girl and then with a toxic couple in New Orleans. It's vaguely clever, I guess, to show him mostly as an observer of other people's stories, and there are a few scenes that echo what we'll see in Gatsby: At one point, he's shocked to be the only one at a funeral. He surprised to receive an invitation to a gathering. He becomes a caretaker to an addict in the style of James Gatz and Dan Cody. And of course, his dad tells him that not everyone has had the advantages he's had. Cool. But the story is too tedious and meandering and disappointing for these moments to feel like much.
Skip this. Read The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo instead.
1) Nick meets a man who may be Gatsby during the war.
2) Nick spends time with Daisy and Tom in Chicago before they move away.
3) Nick has a girlfriend he may or may not be engaged to before he moves away.
4) Nick may be queer. (Hellooo, end of Chapter 2!)
This is what the people want. Michael Farris Smith ignores all of this, focusing instead on Nick's relationship with Manic Pixie Picture Frame Girl and then with a toxic couple in New Orleans. It's vaguely clever, I guess, to show him mostly as an observer of other people's stories, and there are a few scenes that echo what we'll see in Gatsby: At one point, he's shocked to be the only one at a funeral. He surprised to receive an invitation to a gathering. He becomes a caretaker to an addict in the style of James Gatz and Dan Cody. And of course, his dad tells him that not everyone has had the advantages he's had. Cool. But the story is too tedious and meandering and disappointing for these moments to feel like much.
Skip this. Read The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo instead.
bremaura's review against another edition
4.0
An interesting story providing a fleshed-out background for Nick from The Great Gatsby. This is less fiction and more literary fiction. There are several small plots but not a single overarching plot. Nick travels from France to New Orleans to West Egg as he first encounters war and then spends time attempting to recover from the horrors he witnessed.
sarlope12's review against another edition
3.0
I had wanted to read this after Again But Better, but it turns out Nick is a two week loan from the library so I had to read it first. In a way, I'm kind of upset with myself for not realizing that Nick participated in World War I because most people who go to war come back with PTSD. So this book was really heavy and hard to read because PTSD was very prominent in Nick's mind (as it should be to some degree). The book was really well written, and I did enjoy that. I would argue that in some ways this could've been a story about anyone, but the author chose to use Nick Carroway because of the love people have for The Great Gatsby. Smart. I see you, Michael Farris Smith.
Anyways. Julia Quinn if you're reading this I'm still waiting for The Viscount Who Loved Me. I'll just keep adding that to my reviews until I get the book.
Anyways. Julia Quinn if you're reading this I'm still waiting for The Viscount Who Loved Me. I'll just keep adding that to my reviews until I get the book.
mkruff's review against another edition
2.0
Wanted to love it, but I think I appreciate the narrator Nick in Gatsby more than the main character Nick in this book.
mrsclearyreads's review against another edition
5.0
If I judged this as it is marketed (a Gatsby prequel telling Nick’s story), I would rate it three measly stars.
But this book is reminiscent of Hemingway and Fitzgerald in ways that make me so happy, and Smith created a character in Nick that at first I thought was not the Nick I knew and loved. BUT then Smith twisted the story, and it was so spectacular.
It is so much more than Gatsby fanfiction, and I almost wish that it had been given its own standalone life. But then I may have never picked it up and seen how neatly Smith could carve out Nick’s character.
If you loved Gatsby you may love this but also despise it. Read at your own risk.
But this book is reminiscent of Hemingway and Fitzgerald in ways that make me so happy, and Smith created a character in Nick that at first I thought was not the Nick I knew and loved. BUT then Smith twisted the story, and it was so spectacular.
It is so much more than Gatsby fanfiction, and I almost wish that it had been given its own standalone life. But then I may have never picked it up and seen how neatly Smith could carve out Nick’s character.
If you loved Gatsby you may love this but also despise it. Read at your own risk.
shinysquares's review against another edition
1.0
I disliked the never-ending sentence fragments, strange plot lines, incorrigibly invented doublewords, and shaky characterization. The style attempted lyricism, but the result was clunky and disjointed. It was extremely unpleasant to read, and I nearly gave up at least four times. Severely lacking in artful formatting, I was thoroughly and frequently confused when the narration switched from first person, to second person, to third person… to other characters’ perspectives, even. My list of complaints goes on. All I can say is that I think F. Scott Fitzgerald would be better off looking to AO3 for the writers who continue his public-domain legacy.
Also, Nick wasn't nearly queer enough, lol. Come on, with the privilege of *public domain* Great Gatsby, why on earth wouldn't you take this fantastic opportunity? Alas, his only romantic escapades are with an elusive French manic-pixie-dream-girl (and also, I did not appreciate the fact that Nick was kind of a stalker??)
Also, Nick wasn't nearly queer enough, lol. Come on, with the privilege of *public domain* Great Gatsby, why on earth wouldn't you take this fantastic opportunity? Alas, his only romantic escapades are with an elusive French manic-pixie-dream-girl (and also, I did not appreciate the fact that Nick was kind of a stalker??)
magazine_euphemism's review against another edition
3.0
*minor spoilers, but truly very minor
I want to start by saying that I love The Great Gatsby and really wanted to love this book just as much. Nick had never been the most interesting character and when I found a prequel that focused on him, I was immediately interested.
The book starts in Paris, as Nick is on temporary leave during WWI, and he has fallen in love. The first section of the book bounces back and forth spending time with the women he'd met, and his time on the front. Most of this section of the novel is told through summary, and there is very little dialogue. While unused to this style, I thought it fit well while the focus was on the war. It caused the reader to feel as disconnected from his actions as Nick seemed to be. It seemed very distant, and the character of Nick felt nothing like what Nick Caraway in TGG.
I pushed on through the book because the writing was beautiful and I assumed that we'd slowly see Nick become the man we know him to be by the time TGG starts. The first section of the book was clearly showing a man traumatized by war and it did that wonderfully.
Once the war is over, and Nick starts his journey back home, we are greeted with a very different style, as it switches to move grounded, dialogue-heavy scenes, I assumed that this was the start of the change in Nick's character as he comes back to himself and starts to heal.
In a spur-of-the-moment decision, Nick decides to use his train ticket from the army, not to return home, but instead to travel to New Orleans. It never becomes clear as to why he chooses NO, but we spend most of the remainder of the book there. The train station is also where we hear the first hear of the prohibition, which is scheduled to go into effect at the start of 1920. The war ended in 1918 and the start of TGG is in 1922, while the entire second section of this book (spent in NO) feels like just a couple of weeks. With the book ending just as TGG starts, large amounts of time fell missed or rushed through.
Nick quickly gets dragged into the drama and violence of a married couple, currently separated, which is clearly supposed to evoke the same feelings of him being witness to the drama of Daisy and Gatsby. The main issue here, in my opinion, is that he liked Gatsby, and was related to Daisy, giving him both a reason to be witnessed in the first place and a reason to stick around. That doesn't seem to be the case here, as much. He is intrigued by the wife in this relationship and takes to almost stalking her, but he had no further stakes. And yet, this is most of the action of the novel, until he just leaves.
The last section of the book is Nick's travel home, he sees his family and falls back into the routine of that small town and his father's small business. He gets bored of this and convinces his dad to fund his travels to New York while he tries to get a foot in the door of bonds business (his father thought bonds would be more stable than stocks). The book ends with him entering his new home in West Egg.
If you think it sounds like I rushed through the last section, you wouldn't be wrong. But the book speeds through it just as much, and even being generous with the timeline of Paris and NO, it seems like the entire third section takes place over a year, or two. And it's less than 30 pages.
I tried so hard to give this book a fair chance and even in the early parts, where Nick's characterization is widely different from TGG, I figured that we'd see him grow and change into a recognizable character before the book ended. And frankly, that never happened.
I reread TGG after this and there are a few established points of the original text that are completely ignored in "Nick." He at some point after the war spends time with Daisy in the Buchanan's house, which doesn't take place within this novel. Daisy asks after a potential girlfriend, who in this book could only possibly be the girl in Paris, but he never mentioned her to anyone.
I think this is a fantastic book about WWI and a soldier who doesn't seem able to leave the war behind. The drama in NO is both heartbreaking, and engaging. It's a gripping and impactful story, that has almost nothing to do with The Great Gatsby. I can't tell if the author of Nick didn't understand TGG or if he wanted to reimagine it in a way too far removed.
I want to start by saying that I love The Great Gatsby and really wanted to love this book just as much. Nick had never been the most interesting character and when I found a prequel that focused on him, I was immediately interested.
The book starts in Paris, as Nick is on temporary leave during WWI, and he has fallen in love. The first section of the book bounces back and forth spending time with the women he'd met, and his time on the front. Most of this section of the novel is told through summary, and there is very little dialogue. While unused to this style, I thought it fit well while the focus was on the war. It caused the reader to feel as disconnected from his actions as Nick seemed to be. It seemed very distant, and the character of Nick felt nothing like what Nick Caraway in TGG.
I pushed on through the book because the writing was beautiful and I assumed that we'd slowly see Nick become the man we know him to be by the time TGG starts. The first section of the book was clearly showing a man traumatized by war and it did that wonderfully.
Once the war is over, and Nick starts his journey back home, we are greeted with a very different style, as it switches to move grounded, dialogue-heavy scenes, I assumed that this was the start of the change in Nick's character as he comes back to himself and starts to heal.
In a spur-of-the-moment decision, Nick decides to use his train ticket from the army, not to return home, but instead to travel to New Orleans. It never becomes clear as to why he chooses NO, but we spend most of the remainder of the book there. The train station is also where we hear the first hear of the prohibition, which is scheduled to go into effect at the start of 1920. The war ended in 1918 and the start of TGG is in 1922, while the entire second section of this book (spent in NO) feels like just a couple of weeks. With the book ending just as TGG starts, large amounts of time fell missed or rushed through.
Nick quickly gets dragged into the drama and violence of a married couple, currently separated, which is clearly supposed to evoke the same feelings of him being witness to the drama of Daisy and Gatsby. The main issue here, in my opinion, is that he liked Gatsby, and was related to Daisy, giving him both a reason to be witnessed in the first place and a reason to stick around. That doesn't seem to be the case here, as much. He is intrigued by the wife in this relationship and takes to almost stalking her, but he had no further stakes. And yet, this is most of the action of the novel, until he just leaves.
The last section of the book is Nick's travel home, he sees his family and falls back into the routine of that small town and his father's small business. He gets bored of this and convinces his dad to fund his travels to New York while he tries to get a foot in the door of bonds business (his father thought bonds would be more stable than stocks). The book ends with him entering his new home in West Egg.
If you think it sounds like I rushed through the last section, you wouldn't be wrong. But the book speeds through it just as much, and even being generous with the timeline of Paris and NO, it seems like the entire third section takes place over a year, or two. And it's less than 30 pages.
I tried so hard to give this book a fair chance and even in the early parts, where Nick's characterization is widely different from TGG, I figured that we'd see him grow and change into a recognizable character before the book ended. And frankly, that never happened.
I reread TGG after this and there are a few established points of the original text that are completely ignored in "Nick." He at some point after the war spends time with Daisy in the Buchanan's house, which doesn't take place within this novel. Daisy asks after a potential girlfriend, who in this book could only possibly be the girl in Paris, but he never mentioned her to anyone.
I think this is a fantastic book about WWI and a soldier who doesn't seem able to leave the war behind. The drama in NO is both heartbreaking, and engaging. It's a gripping and impactful story, that has almost nothing to do with The Great Gatsby. I can't tell if the author of Nick didn't understand TGG or if he wanted to reimagine it in a way too far removed.