In this Great Gatsby retelling, Nick Caraveo is a latinx trans guy from Minnesota who comes to New York City to start a career so he can earn money to send back to his family. He finds himself over his head in an ocean of white people who don’t even see him and can’t be bothered to even try. His cousin Daisy, engaged to a rich white man, is pretending they aren’t related because she’s passing for white and climbing the social ladder.
Daisy is trying though, she’s gone out of her way to help Nick fit into the new society. She’s gotten him these side lacers that flatten his chest (and hers, as that’s the fashion of the day). When Nick drunkenly stumbles into his neighbor Jay Gatsy and discovers that Jay is a self-made boy just like him, he can’t help but fall a little bit in love.
The story follows the Great Gatsby story mostly, but it adds a queer lens, showing queer folks loving and existing in the spaces between. It also adds another dimension addressing the racism of the time and neatly holding up a mirror to the present day too. Tom saying that Nick isn’t “one of the bad ones” until suddenly Nick isn’t taking it anymore.
I have to admit that I didnt entirely remember ALL the events of Gatsby from when I read it in High School, which was *coughalongtimeagocough* years ago. I remembered a car crash and ending in misery. Also gold toilet seats, which thankfully didn’t make a re-appearance in this story.
I don’t want to give all the story away, but I do want to say that I am VERY pleased at how it turned out.

Spoiler

There is a moment where Nick is emotionally compromised and angry with Jay and Jay turns to him and says that yes, he loves Daisy, but he has only fallen IN love with one person.

It’s So Good. It adds such rich nuance and (literal) color to the old story and reshapes it into a more queer and equitable tale that had me staying up till midnight because I HAD to know what was going to happen.