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Chosen and the Beautiful
| Title | Chosen and the Beautiful |
| Writer | |
| Date | 2024-12-23 16:10:39 |
| Type | |
| Link | Listen Read |
Desciption
An Instant National Bestseller!An Indie Next Pick!A B&N Reads April Pick!A Most Anticipated in 2021 Pick for Oprah Magazine | USA Today | Buzzfeed | Greatist | BookPage | PopSugar | Bustle | The Nerd Daily | Goodreads | Literary Hub | Ms. Magazine | Library Journal | Culturess | Book Riot | Parade Magazine | Kirkus | The Week | Book Bub | OverDrive | The Portalist | Publishers WeeklyA Best of Summer Pick for TIME Magazine | CNN | NBC News | CBS News | Book Riot | The Daily Beast | Lambda Literary | The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | Goodreads | Bustle | Veranda Magazine | The Week | Bookish | St. Louis Post-Dispatch | Den of Geek | LGBTQ Reads | Pittsburgh City Paper | Bookstr | Tatler HKA Best Fantasy Novel from the Last 10 Years for Book RiotA Best of 2021 Pick for NPR“A vibrant and queer reinvention of F. Scott Fitzgerald's jazz age classic. . . . I was captivated from the first sentence.”―NPR"Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today."―Taylor Jenkins Reid on Siren Queen“A sumptuous, decadent read.”―The New York Times“Vo has crafted a retelling that, in many ways, surpasses the original.”―Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewImmigrant. Socialite. Magician.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 and Asian, a Vietnamese adoptee 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, The Chosen and the Beautiful, 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. Read more
Review
Today's read: The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi VoGenre: literary fiction, retelling, LGBTQ+ friendlyEssentially, at its most basic concept, this novel is Fanfic of Th Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This is Gatsby told by Jordan Baker. However, in this version, Jordan is Vietnamese (brought over by her missionary adoptive mother). The other difference is magic. This world, thick with the decadence and figurative magic of the wealthy of the 1920s, also layers in an undercurrent of the demonic, about as illegal as alcohol. This is an era when you could, quite literally sell your soul. And maybe Gatsby did.This is a world of contrasts, just as in Fitzgerald's work. But in Vo's creation, we are perhaps even more aware of the precipice on which our characters stand. Not only is death and dissolution coming for Gatsby, but it is coming for them all. The tensions of being queer and foreign are added to the story as, in the background, the legislature is voting to push out the foreigners (and the demonic) and their degrading influence, just as alcohol and queerness ate also being criminalized.This book is beautiful, decadent, and tragic. Everything and more than you could want from the Jazz Age."She said things, they lit up gold in the air, and then they fell to nothing like so much cigarette ash.""At Gatsby's, the clock stood at just 5 shy of midnight the moment you arrived. Crossing from the main road through the gates of his world, chill swirled around you, the stars came out and the moon rose up out of the Sound. It was as round as a golden coin, and so close you could bite it. I had never seen a moon like that before period. It was no Mercury dime New York moon, but a harvest moon brought all the way from the wheatfields of North Dakota to shine with sweet benevolence down on the chosen and the beautifu Everything was dripping with money and magic to the point where no one questioned the light that flooded the house..."
