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

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

36 reviews

saritaadam's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.75

La prochaine fois qu'on me dit "maIs POurQuOi cHaNGeR lA RacE dES PerSoNaGEs" je leur donne ce livre

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mynameisrebecca's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This book felt like Nghi Vo took "retelling" as an excuse to not develop her world or story properly. The prose and writing is beautiful, but every idea and character felt underbaked. You need to know Gatsby to fully understand this book too - I wouldn't recommend going in blind.

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knitterscasket's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Creative but not my jam.

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tinyjude's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

I really wanted to love this. Unfortunately I feel it fell short to my expectations, perhaps because I was acquainted with the author's other works and I didn't realise this was the first one published. I felt like Nghi Vo wanted to dwell on several topics but barely grazed over them in the end, much in the Great Gatsby itself. The writing style and characterization is very similar so props to Vo for that, because still they felt like Original Characters. The good thing mainly is that we follow Jordan's pov, whereas in the original she was a secondary character, and this book takes the queer subtext and just screams at you QUEER QUEER QUEER in almost every page subtlety and loudly, simultaneously.

Despite that, Jordan's heritage and how the political landscape of the time will affect her are barely addressed by. Her paper cutting magic and the magic realism aspects could have been used more prominently and the queerness of, especially Nick and Jordan, could have been explored in more detail. It felt as if still we only got them as a couple who were each fascinated by Daisy and Jay, rather than madly in love with them. I get it was supposed to feel confusing but I think it didn't translate that well into the text.

The interpretation about the souls was interesting, thou.

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klbreyfogle's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

Slow-paced is definitely true, but I enjoyed it as a retelling of the Great Gatsby that explores the queer elements of the story and adds some true fantasy as well.

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zombiezami's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

3.75

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katierobertsonshaddix's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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lolajh's review against another edition

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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!!

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talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

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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.

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honeybeewitched87's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad tense 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

4.0

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