And Jordan is a queer, adopted Vietnamese woman who gets to see the best parts of society but doesn’t get to experience them due to her race. The Chosen and the Beautiful is told from the perspective of Nick Carraway’s main love interest, Jordan Baker. Let’s face it, literature has stood the test of time better than history, anyway.

What I ended up getting was a new mantra: if white men can rewrite history, women of color can rewrite their books. 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.When I picked up Nghi Vo’s debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful, I was excited to get a more femme retelling of one of my favorite books of all time, The Great Gatsby. 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. The protagonist’s casual observations of magic and passing references to demons feel at home in the raging party scene of the 1920s. What makes “The Chosen and the Beautiful” so fascinating is how Vo expertly weaves in the fantasy elements in such a delicate manner that it feels like a natural part of the story. Through Vo’s novel, readers can return to the world of Gatsby through the fever-dream veil of the fantasy that Vo has woven through the classic tale. Vo’s spin on the classic Jazz Age tale offers a new glimpse into Gatsby’s character and adds dimension to Nick, the original tale’s narrator. That puzzles her until she meets someone else who can do the same thing, which forces her to reflect on her early childhood. As she spends her summer drinking with Daisy and flirting with Nick, Jordan tries to avoid the cloying and all-too-powerful nature of Jay Gatsby.Īt the same time, Jordan finds that she has a strange skill that allows her to bring paper figures to life. Vo injects an air of fantasy into Fitzgerald’s classic, as Jordan moves through a world that doesn’t quite accept her due to her Vietnamese heritage and queer identity. Vo’s novel revolves around Jordan Baker, who was raised and lives among the wealthy set during the Jazz Age, despite not quite fitting in with the rest of the group. Readers who love the glitz of “The Great Gatsby” might enjoy Nghi Vo’s debut novel “The Chosen and the Beautiful,” which revisits the captivating world of Gatsby.

Chosen and the beautiful