BOOK TITLE: THE CHOSEN AND THE BEAUTIFUL
Author Name: NGHI VO
Genre: Historical, Fantasy, Asian, Retelling, LGBT
Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society―she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.
But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.
Nghi Vo’s debut novel reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.
“There are women who will forgive a great deal for a moment of kindness from a handsome man, but Daisy and the other older girls who had taken me under their wings had taught me not to be one of them.”
― The Chosen and the Beautiful
“The night before her wedding, Daisy taught me that after the world ended, you still had to get up in the morning, and the things that you ruined would still be there, needing to be fixed. When I looked at famous Jay Gatsby, soul gone and some terrible engine he called love driving him now, I could see that for him, the world was always ending. For him, it was all a wreck and a ruin, and he had no idea why the rest of us weren't screaming.”
― The Chosen and the Beautiful
When I heard there will be a retelling coming about one of the most iconic American classic novels, I couldn't help but think I just have to get that book somehow on my shelf. I loved The Great Gatsby and read it many time. I just had to get this book. I loved the character complexity in The Great Gatsby. But I always thought it was written in a way that would feel outdated now. So, when I heard its retelling is coming in 2021, I was excited. And god, look at that cover! Nghi Vo has expertly handled this classic. I read Vo’s previous two novellas When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain and The Empress of Salt and Fortune. They were great too. It was a really satisfactory read.
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