The Chosen and the Beautiful
core novel 2021 The Chosen and the Beautiful
Record
| First published | 2021 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.54 (19,648 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 260 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781250784780 |
Synopsis
The Chosen and the Beautiful reimagines F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby by recasting Jordan Baker, a minor character in the original novel, as its narrator. In this version Jordan is a Vietnamese-American adoptee raised among Louisville's white elite, who has quietly kept hidden a magical ability to cut paper into living shapes, in a Jazz Age New York where magic exists openly alongside bootlegging, demonic bargains and old-money glamour. As she moves through Gatsby's circle of wealthy, careless friends -- including Daisy Buchanan, Nick Carraway and the enigmatic Jay Gatsby himself -- Jordan must navigate questions of belonging, identity and desire that her position as both insider and outsider to this world makes especially fraught. The novel follows the broad shape of Fitzgerald's plot while foregrounding a perspective the original left at the margins.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Chosen and the Beautiful
- Series: The Chosen and the Beautiful (novel) core; position 1 of 1 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Nghi Vo
Awards (verified)
- Locus Award (Best First Novel), 2022: finalist; Per the no-cutoff Locus-poll convention; winner was A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark. Confirmed directly via sfadb.com's own 2022 Locus Awards page (the accepted primary source for Locus lineage claims), not from Wikipedia's infobox alone.
Notes
- From the series record (The Chosen and the Beautiful (novel)): Single continuous novel, registered per the single-work-by-LOTR-analogy convention -- a queer, Vietnamese-American-narrated fantastical retelling of The Great Gatsby (Jordan Baker as narrator), with magic (demonic bargains, paper magic, blood magic) woven into 1920s New York. No sequel or further work set in this world.
Sources
← The Chosen and the Beautiful dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.