A review by miak2
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

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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