Stunning, dazzling, glamorous, imaginative, smart, insightful, magical

The Chosen and the Beautiful is a book that I’ve been excited about since the moment I heard about it. A queer, Asian reimagining of The Great Gatsby sounds incredibly ambitious and I was so interested to see what Nghi Vo would do with it. While reading it was immediately clear that there is so much thought in every detail. The way that Vo redirects our attention to certain phrases or ideas that were less critical in the original because of the time period and the way that she mimics the style is nothing short of stunning.

Jordan Baker grew up with the wealthy and glamorous in NYC in the socialite circles of the 1920s. She has it all: money, education, invitations to the most lavish parties of the time. But she is also a queer, Asian, adoptee, being treated as exotic and doesn’t have the same doors open to her as her peers. However, she wields something that no one else has, a papercutting magic that allows her to feel the spark in paper grow into a flame.

To review the chosen and the beautiful you must discuss The Great Gatsby. To me, The Great Gatsby is one of those classics (whatever that means) that, when we read it in high school, everyone seemed to be obsessed with it, except for me. The world was sweeping, glamorous, beautiful, exciting, but it just wasn’t written for me. I could never see myself in the pages in the way my classmates dreamed that would one day be them, swept up in the glamor and high society that can be New York City. The world just has never shown me that would be possible for me.
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