4.5 Stars

If nothing else, this extraordinary book proves that A.M. McLemore can do literally anything they want. Even though this story isn’t magical realism, which is what they usually write, I went into it with absolutely no reservations, because I trust this author with my life. And let me tell you: that trust was absolutely not misplaced.

The best word that comes to mind when I think about summarizing this story is to say that it’s “tender.” It’s so soft, and hopeful, and beautiful.

I’m kind of blown away that A.M. McLemore has pulled this off, because they’re somehow able to clearly reference the source material and maintain those key moments, themes, and even images, but also transform them into something completely different. "The Great Gatsby" is really a story about the evils of the American Dream, the seductive siren’s call of wealth and privilege that dashes you upon the rocks, it’s about tragedy and loss and yearning that goes unanswered—and yet A.M. McLemore is able to create this story about the hope, beauty, and necessity of dreams.

It’s such a great re-framing of “The Great Gatsby.” Even the title is playing within that complexity, because the story is both challenging that concept of what it means to be a “self-made” man, while simultaneously affirming the experience of being “self-made” in relation to transness.

Especially in the upper echelon of society, there is this beloved myth about being a "self-made" success, getting to where you are because of hard work and nothing else. But that is fundamentally untrue, by definition, not only because systems of power exist, but because no human goes through the world without being taught, supported, or effected by other people.

To be “self-made boys” in the way that Gatsby and Nick are is quite different, because it acknowledges the community around them that protects them, loves them, sees them, and gives them the tools they need to be themselves. They’re “self-made,” not because they created themselves in isolation, but because they had to learn all these ways of moving through the world that were not intended for them, but that they claimed for themselves regardless.

That beauty of community is everywhere in this story, even in how Gatsby is taking Nick under his wing to teach him the right words to say, the right things to wear, the right way to hold himself so that he passes. Again, it’s just a brilliant re-framing of that almost mentorship-like dynamic layered on top of a really beautiful romance.

Again, I just think it’s a tremendous feat that A.M. McLemore is able to take this story that’s about tragedy, loss, and despair, that’s about Gatsby clinging onto this dream that will never ever come true—especially given how the original story ends—and how they transform that into a story about the necessity of hope and joy. This is a story about the necessity of dreaming not only for yourself, but for others, about how dreaming mean that you see a version of yourself in the future that is deserving of happiness, which is something we should all keep fighting for.

The t4t romance is also stunning. It turned me into a giddy, giggling, soft, melty mess, and I can’t talk about it without getting extremely emotional so I won’t. But everything I’ve said here is barely scratching the surface of what this story has to offer. I truly cannot recommend it enough, right along with all of McLemore's other tremendous work.

I think I may be a little biased as a trans person who not only loves Gatsby but also this author, but I adored this retelling. I loved the exploration of race and transness, especially the nuances of passing in terms of both gender and race. I also loved seeing the way trans people of the time would have binded, dressed, and supported each other. I really thought this brought out some key themes of the originally work and amplified them and I really adored it and it’s queerness.

Amazing, I loved it, loved the race and colorism aspects thrown in, the class dichotomy, the exploration of what trans and queerness might have looked like for people living in the 1920s. Made me stop hating Jay Gatsby after reading the original in HS. ;)

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Confession: I didn't really like The Great Gatsby when I read it a few years ago.

I loved the movie though and, book crime or not, I watched it before reading the book. In fact, it quickly became my favourite movie and while it isn't currently, I was excited to delve back deeper into the Gatsby-esque world of 1920's America in Self Made Boys. I also hoped that perhaps it may even spark a love for the original book for me. While I liked the book, I didn't love it. Although that may also be because it was an English Lit book for school.

Self Made Boys is a remixed classic of The Great Gatsby featuring a vastly diverse cast of characters. It follows Nick, a transgender boy who arrives from Wisconsin to New York City to live alongside his cousin, Daisy and her partner, Tom in the cottage they leased to him in the West Egg. While living there, Nick becomes fascinated by his neighbour, the enigmatic Jay Gatsby who throws wild parties all for the likes of impressing Daisy. He also discovers that Jay is also a lot like Nick. He's transgender too. As the two get closer together, Nick falls in love with Gatsby as he tries to reconnect him with his first and lost love.

I think I preferred this book more than the original which is a testament to the writing of Anna-Marie McLemore. This book, while sticking to and maintaining the heart and soul of The Great Gatsby and what makes it so special, was able to completely reshape it in a way that kept the story fresh, alive and modern. It had heart, it had tenderness and it had character and I absolutely loved the story it shaped up to be.

I loved all the characters from Nick to Gatsby to Daisy. In the original book, I admittedly didn't like Daisy much, not even in the movie either. But this book elevated her character and really developed her more. She wasn't just a rich girl who was about to marry an old-money man, she was a Latina girl who's heritage she hid to fit in with the rich-white society she was hoping to marry into. She was by all means a flawed character but I loved how honest she was, how real she felt and how she developed and grew from trying to meet other people's expectation and mould herself truly into who she wanted to be. And her ending? Satisfying. I loved that she ended up happy and I loved the twist.

For me, Nick, whether be in the original book or movie, always seemed like a passive sort of character. We saw everything from his perspective but we didn't really get to know him that well. I was so happy with this book that we got more glimpses into who he is. I liked seeing his work relations too and I found I learned a lot about commerce, finance and how markets operate economically from this book. I also liked how we also got more glimpses into his family life and how accepting his parents were of his coming out. I overall just enjoyed reading from his perspective and he provided a captivating lens that helped navigate the story well.

I was also really impressed with the hints of transgender history the author incorporated in the book. Admittedly I didn't know much and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to learn through reading. I also liked how we learned more about Latin-American's and how they lived in 1920's society. I also loved how the reflections on the racial systems were handled in this book and Nick's perspective on how his cousin was changing herself including changing her family name to appear more "white" for the sake of fitting in.

All in all, this book was a fantastic take on the Great Gatsby tale with flawed and real characters that made this book come alive on the page. I absolutely recommend it to anyone who loves The Great Gatsby because, despite the few changes to the original story, Self Made Boys keeps the essence of Gatsby's legend and brings it forward to a new generation of readers.

ACTUAL RATING: 4.4 STARS

Give me all the classics remade for our time - make them queer and diverse and relevant to today… just like Anna-Marie McLemore turned the Great Gatsby into Self-Made Boys by retelling Nick and Jay’s story.
Definitely recommend

10/10 would recommend this book to everyone and anyone. It's trans and gay and brown and heartbreaking and victorious. It's everything.

This was such a fantastic take on The Great Gatsby retelling, and I couldn't be happier with the novel that McLemore delivered. I love the examination of queerness as well as the intersectionality of being Latinx. Here we see that Nick is judged for the color of his skin and is begrudgingly accepted while his cousin Daisy is able to pass because of her white skin. I hope to see more modernized takes on classics such as these that incorporate marginalized identities.

As a gatsby retelling this is really well done and hits all the marks but for whatever reason I expected the romane between Gatsby and Nick to be more forward focused than taking a back seat to all the drama with Daisy. It ended up being extremely frustrating for me which is par for the course with an unreliable narrator like Nick but still I think it would have been more interesting if Tom had been cut and it was just Daisy/Jordan and Nick/Gatsby from the get go. With that said I still think this should be taught alongside the original

This was a great retelling. It had the glamour of the original and felt brand new at the same time. There is great representation and i feel like this book was a look into real lives even if some of it was a little wild. This book felt raw and real and i really enjoyed it.

Self-Made Boys doesn’t have McLemore’s usual magical signature, but once I got into the novel, I found it quick and digestible. It was almost too quick, however; McLemore fills the pages with valuable topics, from lavender marriages to colorism and passing as white, but it still feels surface-level because there isn’t enough space to develop deep into each one.

I liked nearly every character—even Daisy, who frustrated me in the beginning—but I kind of wish I hadn’t. The original Gatsby is partially so memorable because of its morally grey cast, and I expected to see more of that in Self-Made Boys. Also, the characters’ ages did not seem realistic. It was just hard to picture Nick as a budding investment professional at 17 and Gatsby as having fought in the war and amassed a fortune by his late teens.

Even so, I liked that McLemore retained the original Gatsby’s glitz and glamor while supplementing it with nods to people of color, the underground LGBTQ+ scene, and more. This was an innovative retelling, though I think it tried to balance too much at once.

I never heard of the remix series until this book. I thought it was a great retelling of The Great Gatsby. I wish there could be a sequel for Jordan, but that’s wishful thinking. Can’t wait to check out more from this series.

Excellent representation! I look forward to hearing future stories of Latinx and/or trans teens who resonated with this. I'm so happy that McLemore (and the other authors working on "remixing classics") is making "classic" literature more representative of what America actually looks like.

It took me a while to get invested but once I did I finished it super quickly! The relationship was so sweet and tender and I was rooting for them the whole way. Their relationship was described in such a beautiful way I couldn't not love them. Even the use of visual imagery was gorgeous. The Trans and queer rep felt so natural and made me feel so at ease.

The cast was a huge highlight. This mostly queer group was super fun and I liked how each character was well rounded. Nick was a great main character and made it enjoyable to follow his journey. Jay was also very likable. Daisy wasn't as likeable but still added much to the plot. She was a very complex character and I had mixed feeling throughout reading. Jordan was the best! Her friendship with Nick was the cutest.

I'm not often a fan of historical fiction but this was done so well. This story made the setting easy to grasp and made the representation feel authentic to this Era. I definitely want to see more of these types of queer retellings. This is my first book in the Remixing Classics series so I'll definitely have to check out some others.

Overall, I would definitely recommend for anyone who wants a fresh queer take on the Great Gatsby.

Let me preface this by saying an Anna-Marie McLemore book could never be bad. Their writing is always, always so good. Regardless though, this book didn't work for me like I was hoping it would and it didn't live up to my (admittedly high) expectations. I kind of missed the magic, both literally and figuratively, in McLemore's writing. I am familiar with the original story and I loved the changes that were made, but I wasn't emotionally pulled into the story and I didn't feel like I really got to know the characters and care about them. I just felt largely uninterested by the plot. I'm a big fan of McLemore as an author in general, but this wasn't my favourite book by them.

SO GOOD and so dang CLEVER! There's a reason this book was long listed for the National Book Award! I wouldn't call myself a fan of The Great Gatsby (I actually remember really disliking it when I read it in high school), but this is such an interesting remix of the source material—like so much more engaging than the original text. LOVE everything Anna-Marie McLemore writes <3

I love this remix. When I think of The Great Gatsby I think of privilege, tragedy, and how annoying Daisy is. This remix? Not at all like that. Still told from the perspective of Nick, now a latinx transgender man, Self-Made Boys feels like what The Great Gatsby should have been. I don't want to give away the ending, but it doesn't end how you think. Honestly, the whole time I fell in love with Gatsby, Nick, Jordan, and the rest of the family they created.

This book has an old school romance feel, with the angst and pining, but with the addition of queer characters.

This follows the story of 'The Great Gatsby' fairly closely. You have the green light, the parties, the affairs, but LGBTQIA+ and Latine issues are brought in as well. Being Latina, I appreciated the approach McLemore took to white passing Latines vs brown Latines and how the world treats us differently. Daisy is embraced by the world but Nick has to constantly prove he belongs there.

Oh my heart, Nick. Nicolás Caraveo is a brilliant reimagining of soft, reflective Nick Carraway. The essential characterization is the same, but there are added levels with Nick's Latine ancestry and recent coming out as a trans man. McLemore does this with each character, keeping their personality from the original book but adding more to add depth to the story. It hits the same notes, but honestly has a better ending.

100% love the premise of this one! The chemistry felt a little forced but was enjoyable overall. Great retelling of a classic.

“There’ll always be someone trying to make you apologize for something about who you are. But you learn not to feel it quite as much.”

✨
The Great Gatsby is a classic, the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald distinct, and to capture its essence an Everest to climb. Anna McLemore builds Self-Made Boys on the bones of its glimmering brilliance.

The New York Anna McLemore builds allows us to see a Daisy that is just as vapid as always, this time playing on whiteness. Tom is just as callus and racist as always.

Gatsby is much more of a person and much less of a myth, existing outside of his love for Daisy. Nick is much more real, alive and open and caring about the world around him, taking off his rose-colored glasses.

I quite love that every retelling of The Great Gatsby I’ve read this year has been determined to carry to light the racism and classism of the early 1900s upper class. And they’ve all been so marvelously queer. I’m sure Fitzgerald would hate it.

McLemore has taken The Great Gatsby in its essence and created something so much more. The bones are there but the story itself has evolved. We’re allowed to glimpse into a world that is so much more than the one we were given by Fitzgerald and I am so utterly in love.

Love Gatsby? In the mood for a retelling with more LGBTQ+ and Latinx representation? You’re in luck, because Anna- Marie McLemore, winner of the Stonewall Award for books on the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender experience, has given us “Self-Made Boys,” a “remix” in which Gatsby and Nick are gay and trans, and Nick and Daisy are Latinx! Thank God I wasn’t the only one who thought that Nick was low-key in love with Gatsby when I read the book in high school. I always wanted a story with this “alternate ending.” That being said, this is not the Leonardo DiCaprio “Gatsby” that graced our screens a decade ago. The characters feel less one-dimensional than they did in the original. Daisy’s motivation is especially fleshed out and is no longer the “beautiful fool” we expect her to be. Nick is less of an unreliable narrator and more of a man in love! Tom, however, is still our villain, but somehow gets more villainous in this story!

Self Made Boys offers a slow-burn gay romance that is more nuanced than original. But then again, the original was a societal critique rather than a modern day romance. This retelling is engaging because there are enough changes to the plot that keeps it fresh. Despite reading the book and watching the movie obsessively, I still did not know what to expect from Jay, Nick, Jordan, Daisy, and Tom. While I did give the book 5 stars, I think Self Made Boys misses out on the criticism of classism and Gatsby’s obsession with the past that made it such a good book to teach in English class. Instead, the book spends more time addressing transphobia, homophobia, and racism, none of which even have a chance to be addressed in the original!

As a person who strives to be a better ally,, it was interesting to imagine how LGBTQ characters may survive in the ‘20s. I learned about lavender marriages (2 seemingly hetero couples that are actually gay men and lesbians marrying for appearance) and side lacers (hetero women used to wear them to flatten their chests to achieve of the androdynous flapper look as did trans men).

Thank you to NetGalley for exposing me to this book and for a eARC in exchange of an honest review.