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

Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

34 reviews

miak2's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

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

2.5

“When you can't fix a thing, the best course of action can be to ruin it all so that no one can see what truly happened."

The Great Gatsby but make it gay.

This is a hard one to rate. Part of my issue is that the original story just doesn't compel me, and The Chosen and the Beautiful remains (to my vague recollection) fairly faithful to it. But it's not Vo's fault that The Great Gatsby as a premise doesn't work for me. Similarly, I just didn't like any of the characters, but they weren't meant to be likeable, so that's hardly a criticism of the book either.

What worked for me:
- Vo's writing is really beautiful. I really felt transported to the 1920s, with all the glitz and glamour and daring. Additionally, her descriptions of the magic were charming.
- I liked the exploration of Jordan as a queer, Asian American in a time that was especially unfriendly towards both identities. Her discomfort when in a Vietnamese social space was conveyed really well and hit home for me quite hard.
-There's a brilliant line about learning how a man reacts to being told no that's going to stick with me until the day I die.

What didn't work for me:
- The magic system as a whole felt largely unnecessary to the plot. Beautifully written, as I said, but I don't think it added much to the story at all. There's a scene at the end that shows how cool this magic could've been if it were more fully explored, but as it was...eh.
- Really the main thing is that this story didn't grip me at all. And, again, part of this is because the original Gatsby story isn't that interesting to me either, but Vo didn't add enough to it to make it compelling. Even during the climax, I was really just reading it to finish the book, not because I couldn't put it down.

Tl;dr there's a lot that I liked about this book, but it ultimately fell flat for me.

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abominablesnowaro'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? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Points for diversity and queer characters. Some points off for connecting them to demons and doubling down on the antisemitism from The Great Gatsby (but only in a brief mention). Overall weird, but pretty good

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ehmannky's review against another edition

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emotional reflective 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

5.0

F. Scott Fitzgerald WISHES he had written this book. The prose was beautiful, I loved what Vo did with the original story and the magic was so beautifully integrated into the plot. I was holding my breath in that last chapter, it was so beautifully written and sad and just full of yearning. I loved every part of it.

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olivia_piepmeier's review against another edition

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dark mysterious relaxing fast-paced

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

4.0

For people that had to read The Great Gatsby (TGG) multiple times throughout their education and/or watched the movie(s) a lot, this will likely feel like a familiar but new friend. At least that's how I felt to me. It immediately starts off establishing this world is a little different in a magical way, or not. TGG is written from the perspective of Nick and this is written from the perspective of Jordan, so one could argue this was all happening in the original book but we didn't get access to this side of the story until now. Vo does such a great job making this feel like the original story in the way it's written with beautiful, floral language. It wouldn't have worked as well if this read in a way that didn't feel like it was the same characters or time period as TGG, especially because it's a book that's hammered in the heads of all US public schools and English majors. The fantasy elements to this are subtle but work well, though I did find myself a little confused sometime about what was happening.

After reading this, I feel a little salty Jordan got such minimal air-time in TGG. Fitzgerald wouldn't have done her justice like Vo, though, so it's okay. Just like TGG, everyone is a mess. Truly. They're in their 20s and Gatsby is not but he's hella obsessive. Mistakes are made left and right. It ends in a way that I feel hope for only Jordan, out of all these characters. Unfortunately, part of the reason why she's on to new things is due to a super racist legislation that was passed. Jordan's racial background is not the focus of her character, but it's a facet that is mentioned just enough to help the reader understand how she viewed herself, others viewed her, and how she played a part in this different version of the 1920s.

Overall, a very satisfying read! It was fun to go back into a new and improved world of TGG.

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billyjepma's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

"It's a dream. Why not enjoy it for a little while?"

A sumptuous, decadent, horny, mesmerizing twist on The Great Gatsby. Vo's writing expertly mirrors the style of Fitzgerald's novel without simply imitating it—she weaves in bouts of sharp modernity and genre subversion that somehow manage to elevate and complicate the original book's ideals with new wrinkles and dimensions. I was repeatedly thrilled by the ways Vo takes the story I know so well and refracts through new lenses that enrich what's already present while also introducing new tensions and commentaries on race, sexuality, gender, class, wealth, and more. It's a savage, sexy love story that aptly rejects heteronormativity with rich, glorious aplomb, and I devoured just about every single word.

Not all of those added dimensions work, though, and I was left wishing that Vo had fleshed out the bits of magic she introduces into this version of the Roaring 20s. Other areas feel slightly undercooked or underutilized as well, but what's here is fascinating and speaks to the kind of hubris and self-fulfilled godhood that Fitzgerald interrogates. The problem is how fleeting Vo's development of these ideas is, as her references and illustrations of magic (or something more demonic) are so quick and loose that I wasn't initially sure if I was meant to take them literally or not. Maybe that's the point, but it didn't work for me the way I hoped and was a somewhat recurring speedbump during my otherwise entranced experience reading this lavish book.

And it is oh so lavish. I love how physical and sticky Vo's version of The Great Gatsby is, how she takes all of the sexual tension and longing of the original novel and brings them right to the surface with sensually charged crescendos of sex, manipulation, and vulnerability. None of these characters are good people, Vo repeatedly reminds us. Still, they are (more or less, in some cases) human and her intimate exploration and dissection of their deepest fears and most desperate longings are sensational. I was totally floored by this, even when it occasionally trips over itself, and I can easily see myself revisiting it alongside any rereads of Fitzgerald's book. It gets 4.5 stars and all my recommendations.

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aardwyrm's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I wasn't one of the poor children caught by the Great Gatsby in high school, either in one of those long-running grudges against the concept of symbolism after too many conversations about green lights and painted eyes, or caught like a character by the glamor. It was just a book. This is a much more interesting and meaningful book, through the simple expedients of handing the camera to a more interesting person and reflecting on the world, not just the idea of the world. Also there's some demons and stuff.

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5aru's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

4.75

I don’t know how to describe this other than as an experience. It preserves so much of the essence of what made the original The Great Gatsby so bitter and disturbing, but explores a whole other side of America and its dreams and excesses as embodied in the 1920s. And I do think no Gatsby content I’ve consumed before has quite encapsulated that sense of pretense, of superficiality and absolute indifference the way this does.

Jordan is a fascinating character throghout, and while the inclusion of magic and the supernatural was surprising, it ended up fitting so well and being so well-woven within the context that it almost seems incredible that it wasn’t in the source material at all. While it remains a retelling, The Chosen and the Beautiful is very much its own story; it had something to say, and delivered it with a lyricism and a passion that would’ve been difficult to find anywhere but with Nghi Vo.

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