The Chosen and the Beautiful was the best Great Gatsby fanfiction that I’ve read. It’s the only Great Gatsby fanfiction that I’ve read (I don’t expect to read more, but you never know). Vo explored Jordan as a character in a way that made me a lot more interested in the story. I happened to start reading this at the same time that one of my siblings picked up The Great Gatsby, so we talked about Gatsby and what Chosen emphasizes instead.

Vo’s writing did reaffirm my thoughts that fiction is almost always better when it embraces social issues and discussions of justice rather than burying them. Jordan spends a lot of time ruminating about her relationship with Nick and Daisy, and the ways in which each of them are bound in society. This was what I liked about The City in the Middle of the Night - both books spend a lot of paper and ink interrogating the motivations, social restrictions, and desires of their respective casts. Good motivation is good writing!

Chosen, bizarrely, is a magical realism version of Gatsby. I made it about halfway through the book before I realized that there were demons doing things in the background, and that the liquor Jordan and Daisy kept drinking was made by (from?) demons. I felt that Gatsby literally selling his soul was a both thematically appropriate and tastefully handled. I would have liked to see Vo contrast the servitude of the demons (contractual? forced? willing or not? magical?) with the social and economic chains placed upon numerous characters and groups in the book. With the demonic cat out of the bag, leaving that avenue unexplored feels a waste even if it would take the book far outside the scope of Gatsby.

Chosen might be one of my favorite books from the past few months. It’s up there with The City in the Middle of the Night and The Left Hand of Darkness.