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sarakday's review against another edition
3.0
I wish this book was better. I love the concept, and the gender-reversal angle works pretty well (I was worried it would feel more gimmicky). But the writing is really inconsistent, ranging from some very authentic narrative moments to some really cringe-worthy dialogue.
bexrecca's review against another edition
1.0
Even if you can get past the protagonists terribly wink wink nudge nudge name (Naomi Rye for Nick Carraway - get it? Rye bread? Caraway seeds? Get it?), it's really difficult to care about her. Benincasa uses Naomi's off screen lesbian best friend as her moral compass - Skags would have said this appropriate thing, but she's not here. It's insulting to have this girl used as a way to make Naomi so alternative, aside from the cool 80s band t-shirts and Doc Martens (oooh, so different) - well, my best friend is a lesbian and has political views that I'll think about. Why not just have Naomi be a lesbian? The rest of this updated adapatation of the Great Gatsby plays out like the current rosé shortage in the Hamptons - tragic for those there, but no one else cares.
trisha_thomas's review against another edition
3.0
"My father told me once that people don’t change—they just reveal more of who they really are."
A really interesting twist on the [b:The Great Gatsby|4671|The Great Gatsby|F. Scott Fitzgerald|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1361191055s/4671.jpg|245494]. There were a lot of updated things between the two - cell phones, famous via internet blogging - and this updated version was interesting.
But outside of the interesting twists on the original, I'm not sure I would have liked this story a lone. I'm not sure I would have liked it had I loved Gatsby more either. It was interesting but didn't wow or amaze me.
A really interesting twist on the [b:The Great Gatsby|4671|The Great Gatsby|F. Scott Fitzgerald|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1361191055s/4671.jpg|245494]. There were a lot of updated things between the two - cell phones, famous via internet blogging - and this updated version was interesting.
But outside of the interesting twists on the original, I'm not sure I would have liked this story a lone. I'm not sure I would have liked it had I loved Gatsby more either. It was interesting but didn't wow or amaze me.
maggiemaggio's review against another edition
4.0
It can’t be easy to write a re-telling. People don’t want to re-tell mediocre stories so expectations are high. I absolutely love The Great Gatsby and I’ll admit I was skeptical of the ability of a YA book about rich teenagers in the Hamptons to be able to do justice to such a masterpiece, but, what do you know? In the end I thought Great and Sara Benincasa did a great job putting a new spin on a classic story.
Like any great retelling Sara Benincasa used the original, but also made the story into her own. Rather than having a male protagonist she changed it to a female, Naomi, who lives with her middle class father in Chicago, but spends summers in East Hampton with her wealthy mother, a kind of Martha Stewart-esque character. Even though she’s been “summering” in the Hamptons for many years Naomi has never made friends with any of the other rich kids, despite her mother’s social meddling. At the beginning of the summer Naomi is forced to commute out to the Hamptons via helicopter with Delilah, the supermodel daughter of a senator, Teddy, a former child-actor and the heir to an oil fortune, and Jeff, who’s friends with Delilah and Teddy, but who seems as skeptical of their world as Naomi is.
Once in the Hamptons we get to see Naomi and Delilah’s wealthy, snobby mothers and get a view of how the 1% lives when the dine out at their club. The familiar cast of characters from The Great Gatsby are all there. There’s Misti and Giovanni, the waiters at the club who come from a blue collar family up the island who get stuck in the rich families’ webs and Jacinta, Naomi’s mysterious, ultra-wealthy neighbor who takes an interest in Delilah.
Since this is a re-telling it’s difficult to say anything insightful about the story. If you’re read The Great Gatsby it should be pretty obvious to you how everything will unfold. What makes this story so great is how and when Sara Benincasa made it her own. Not only did she change the Nick character and the Gatsby character to females, she also made the very modern switch to have Delilah and Jacinta have a lesbian relationship. The story could have been retold with Naomi or Jacinta as a guy, but having Jacinta be female gave another layer to the story, one that I thought was handled really well.
The Hamptons was also the perfect setting for this book. I grew up there so it’s an area I know well and I thought, with a few small exceptions, it was portrayed very accurately. The snobby characters were all spot on and even Misti and Giovanni, the Wilson couple equivalents, with their Long Island accents and trampy clothes were spot on (although I don’t know if they’d be allowed to work in a fancy East Hampton club). It was also a nice nod to the original Gatsby which obviously also takes place on Long Island.
Bottom Line: If you like The Great Gatsby and you like YA books you will not be disappointed by this retelling. It’s pretty much the best I could have hoped for from a modern day, teenage version of Gatsby. Sara Benincasa took the classic story and put her own twist on it which gave the classic a modern, authentic, but still respectful feel.
I received an electron review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss (thank you!). All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my link text.
Like any great retelling Sara Benincasa used the original, but also made the story into her own. Rather than having a male protagonist she changed it to a female, Naomi, who lives with her middle class father in Chicago, but spends summers in East Hampton with her wealthy mother, a kind of Martha Stewart-esque character. Even though she’s been “summering” in the Hamptons for many years Naomi has never made friends with any of the other rich kids, despite her mother’s social meddling. At the beginning of the summer Naomi is forced to commute out to the Hamptons via helicopter with Delilah, the supermodel daughter of a senator, Teddy, a former child-actor and the heir to an oil fortune, and Jeff, who’s friends with Delilah and Teddy, but who seems as skeptical of their world as Naomi is.
Once in the Hamptons we get to see Naomi and Delilah’s wealthy, snobby mothers and get a view of how the 1% lives when the dine out at their club. The familiar cast of characters from The Great Gatsby are all there. There’s Misti and Giovanni, the waiters at the club who come from a blue collar family up the island who get stuck in the rich families’ webs and Jacinta, Naomi’s mysterious, ultra-wealthy neighbor who takes an interest in Delilah.
Since this is a re-telling it’s difficult to say anything insightful about the story. If you’re read The Great Gatsby it should be pretty obvious to you how everything will unfold. What makes this story so great is how and when Sara Benincasa made it her own. Not only did she change the Nick character and the Gatsby character to females, she also made the very modern switch to have Delilah and Jacinta have a lesbian relationship. The story could have been retold with Naomi or Jacinta as a guy, but having Jacinta be female gave another layer to the story, one that I thought was handled really well.
The Hamptons was also the perfect setting for this book. I grew up there so it’s an area I know well and I thought, with a few small exceptions, it was portrayed very accurately. The snobby characters were all spot on and even Misti and Giovanni, the Wilson couple equivalents, with their Long Island accents and trampy clothes were spot on (although I don’t know if they’d be allowed to work in a fancy East Hampton club). It was also a nice nod to the original Gatsby which obviously also takes place on Long Island.
Bottom Line: If you like The Great Gatsby and you like YA books you will not be disappointed by this retelling. It’s pretty much the best I could have hoped for from a modern day, teenage version of Gatsby. Sara Benincasa took the classic story and put her own twist on it which gave the classic a modern, authentic, but still respectful feel.
I received an electron review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss (thank you!). All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my link text.
ficklefever's review against another edition
3.0
i mean, when you do a modern retelling of a beloved american classic, there will be complaints. and major plot changes. but it's okay - it actually fared a lot better than i expected. when i first started reading, i actually kind of rolled my eyes at how creepily gatsby-but-not-gatsby-esque the whole thing sounded... but then it transported into the hamptons with likable (but sometimes too old timey) naomi and i breathed a little sigh of relief. and despite the necessarily dark content, this was quick and light in reading.
this is probably much more entertaining to great gatsby virgins, but if you picked this book up it's probably because you've read great gatsby. so. meh
wish there could've been more teddy/tom though. and god, just imagine how raunchy that tom & myrtle apartment scene would've been in the modern retelling. i can see why the author left it out, but still. maybe if it hadn't been so focused on the whole mother-daughter angle we could've seen more misti so as to actually, like, care what happened to her.
in any case - i'd still recommend it for anyone who likes reading about rich people's summers
this is probably much more entertaining to great gatsby virgins, but if you picked this book up it's probably because you've read great gatsby. so. meh
wish there could've been more teddy/tom though. and god, just imagine how raunchy that tom & myrtle apartment scene would've been in the modern retelling. i can see why the author left it out, but still. maybe if it hadn't been so focused on the whole mother-daughter angle we could've seen more misti so as to actually, like, care what happened to her.
in any case - i'd still recommend it for anyone who likes reading about rich people's summers
kthomas4415's review against another edition
4.0
This book was actually really good. I enjoyed the strong female lead and her moral dillemas. I did struggle with the lgbtq label, there wasn't a major influence or enough of it in the characters to classify it as that to me.
ailsahatton's review against another edition
4.0
So this was actually super great??? I mean, I don't know how Gossip Girl meets The L Word meets Great Gatsby worked, but it did. It was self aware in a way that I enjoyed. I'm still not sure why it exists, but it was a lot of fun and bizarrely honest. Like, sure, all of that 100% could have happened. Worth reading for the scenes taken directly from the original alone.
inwonderland49's review against another edition
2.0
I will not be rating this one because I DNF'd it after the first 5 chapters. I'll try this again at some point, but right now this is a DNF for me...
lispylibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
Five stars! I loved this retelling of The Great Gatsby! As long as you don't focus so much on the Retelling part and focus on the actual story, it's a great one! I loved the attention to detail in the story that really helped me to visualize just how beautiful the settings and people in the book were. I also really enjoyed Naomi's character growth as she enters the Hamptons as a slightly rebellious teen to a young woman who knows the difference between who she thinks she is and who she knows she is. Loved it!
offbalance80's review against another edition
4.0
As a rule, I tend to be skeptical, even derisive of “reboots” or re-imaginings” of classic works. In my experience, they can be ham-fisted at best and insipid at worst. I was delighted to discover exceptions to this belief, in the form of this delightful update to the book that has become synonymous to the phrase “Great American Novel.” It’s full of Easter eggs for Gatsby experts - one particularly brilliant change was making the TJ Eckleberg sign into one for a plastic surgeon - Dr. Zazzle (a marvelous skewering of NY-area ubiquitous advertiser Dr. Zizmore). The characters are a little lightly sketched and could have done with a little more development, and the ending was a little rushed for my taste. Otherwise, this is a fun trip for a Gatsby devotee.