⅘ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Don’t Sleep With The Dead
Author: Nghi Vo

Thank you so much Netgalley and Tor publishing for this ARC! I loved this book, but I did make one big mistake. It should probably be read after her other book, The Chosen and the Beautiful. However now I had to go get that book immediately. This is a blend of a Great Gatsby retelling, mixed with dark fantasy elements, romance, and demons. Also in this one Gatsby and Nick.. are love interests. Damn it was super good and packed a real punch for a short novella. The writing style is definitely for me, and I’m eager to read the previous book now. If you love Gatsby you will love this. Thank you so much for this copy!

Thank you Tordotcom for the gifted copy.

Don’t Sleep With the Dead
Nghi Vo
Publishing Date: April 8, 2025

Ok I’m going to keep this one short (shocking, I know). I was simply not the audience for this one.

This book is marketed as a standalone companion novella, to an already published book. I do feel that I order to appreciate this one, you need to have read the original book and also have a familiarity with The Great Gatsby. Of which I have neither. So I basically had no idea what was going on the entire time I was reading.

That being said, I can totally see why people love this authors writing! The dark, gothic, atmospheric setting was very cool. The prose is poetic. The love is queer. And the magic is unique. For the right audience I think this one is going to be well loved.

Well, it was intriguing. I enjoyed the mysterious quality of it- the feeling of entering a speakeasy or a fever dream. But I can’t say I necessarily feel glad I read it? I think a big component was that I hadn’t realized this book was a companion novella to The Chosen & the Beautiful. I usually catch that sort of info in a blurb, but I think the lack of cohesive elements in the covers made it less obvious. I will read that other book someday and reevaluate my thoughts!

Deeply intense and I wasn't aware this tied into a previous work from the author. But I felt the imagery was deeply beautiful and in a thematic way definitely captured what I felt was the homoerotic draw for Carraway and Gatsby.

I was excited to see Nghi Vo release a standalone companion to TCATB with the realize of DSWTD. It's dark, haunting, and Nghi will dive philosophically into heavy topics everytime. We follow along an unreliable narrator, Nick Carraway who is also not the real Nick (confusing I know) and he is haunted by Jay Gatsby and his past. Nick has this need, this hunger, this longing to make sense of not just his identity, his love, but seeking some sort of closure.

Nghi Vo has a way with writing beautiful immersive stories. Will you be confused? Yes. Am I still invested? Always.

I do recommend reading The Chosen and The Beautiful before reading Don't Sleep with the Dead of a bit of a backstory. It will make it more richer, as you read DSWTD.


Thank you Tordotcom for the e arc and the gifted copy in exchange for a honest review.

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group, Nghi Vo, and to NetGalley for this ARC. The chaos below represents my honest thoughts.

OK so this is basically what happens when The Great Gatsby gets dunked in a vat of queer longing, spooky magic, and poetic trauma and I ate it up like my cat eats plastic (serious problem).
I devoured this novella after loving City in Glass, and in my eager little book-goblin brain, I didn’t realize it was a companion to The Chosen and the Beautiful until it was too late. Do I wish I’d read that first? Yes. Did it stop me from feeling everything hard? Absolutely not.

Nick Carraway is back, pretending to be straight, human, and unbothered (he’s very much bothered). The vibes are gothic, ghostly, and so dripping with atmosphere that I could practically smell the cigarette smoke and heartbreak. And then Gatsby shows up, deadish and definitely still hot, and things get weird in the best way.

Jordan popping up like “hey boo” nearly made me drop the book. I was like WAIT A MINUTE YOU HAVE LORE??? So now I’m immediately detouring back to The Chosen and the Beautiful because clearly I missed an entire Jordan cinematic universe.

Final thoughts? It feels like an epilogue I didn’t know I needed, but now I can’t imagine being without. Just PLEASE read The Chosen and the Beautiful first, okay? Learn from my chaos.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an early copy of this book.

Realized a little too late that this is a companion novella to a novel that I haven't read--even worse, I have not read The Great Gatsby, so I feel like I'm potentially missing a lot of context that may have made this stand out to me more.

It was still fine, because Nghi Vo's writing is beautiful and has never disappointed me, but I probably shouldn't have picked this one up without looking a little more closely at it.

Thank you so much to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book early!

Nghi Vo is one of my favorite authors writing today, and this companion to one of my absolute favorites in their portfolio, The Chosen and the Beautiful, did not disappoint. I loved the glittery and gilded setting we all know and love from The Great Gatsby, but taken to new heights by Vo. The magic system and the queerness of the characters only rendered this world more exciting and heart-wrenching. Lyrical and atmospheric, Vo always manages to immerse you in each world they create and this was no exception. A fantastic fantasy.

A delightful follow up novella to The Chosen and the Dead. If you enjoy any of this author’s works this is a must read!

This was a beautifully written story and a wonderful continuation/spinoff of The Chosen and the Beautiful. Nghi Vo's voice is always so distinct and evocative and while I say the prose isn't as flowery or complex as other pieces—say Siren Queen or City in Glass—it's still delivered with stunning sharpness. Vo's world building and creativity is unmatched and that remains true in Don't Sleep with the Dead. Here, Nick's character finds himself traversing across New York City in search of answers of what happened to Gatsby. He's not quite the most reliable of narrators and that shift and realization that you get as you continue reading is a wonderful shift in perspective as everything slices together. I'll end by saying that I was personally never a fan of The Great Gatsby but the world that Vo has crafted and the ways in which she turns a theme and immerses us in a world has certainly made me a fan of her world of Gatsby.

it was such a beautiful continuation to the chose and the beautiful, it was an interesting way to add more to the ending of the great gatsby where nick finds jay at a club one night while jay should be dead, it an an amazing queer short novella

A sequel/companion novella that takes place after the first book, The Chosen and the Beautiful, a Great Gatsby retelling. This story follows Nick Carraway, or rather the paper soldier and novelist as he delves through the hellish magical New York in search of Gatsby... the very man he loves and thought dead.. back and very much alive. The story takes place after the first book and now Nick ( or rather the paper version of Nick, since the Carraway family created a paper version of Nick to send to war while real Nick stayed home only real Nick died and Paper Nick came back and inherited it all). Paper Nick is sifting through his memories and real Nick's memories as he also searches for Gatsby, who died... but is now back in Nick's life as Nick traverses throughout New York and makes deals with demons to find Gatsby. This was definitely an interesting continuation of the story and I loved the little cameo of Jordan that we got (she completely stole every scene she was in). This story is a fun take on Nick and Gatsby relationship though it can be confusing to anyone who hasn't read the initial first book. Nick is an unreliable narrator and you don't figure out what is really going on until 50% into the story. It ends on a kind of open end but I enjoyed it overall. I love the way Nghi Vo writes and their prose is just so lyrical and beautiful.

Release Date: April 8, 2025

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group | Tordotcom for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

While I didn't hate this book, I also didn't love it. Mostly, I was stuck comparing it to The Great Gatsby because I knew they were vaguely connected, but I couldn't remember much about The Great Gatsby. But I also didn't love it because while I love a good drop-in to a universe, and I know this is a companion (but a standalone companion so...), but the book needed a bit more exposition for someone who hadn't read the other book Don't Sleep with the Dead is a companion to. The mercy was that it's literally 101 pages long, so I just muddled my way through it.

Thank you, Tordotcom, for the ARC!

4.5 star

Don’t Sleep with the Dead is a spellbinding companion to The Chosen and the Beautiful, offering the closure the novel left open-ended.

Nghi Vo’s prose has always felt like magic—lush, lyrical, and immersive. She has a way of making even the ordinary feel enchanting, and in this novella, that talent truly shines. The story follows Nick Carraway years after The Great Gatsby, diving deeper into the strange and the supernatural. It doesn’t always make perfect sense, but that’s part of its charm—it’s eerie, atmospheric, and utterly captivating.

While this can be read as a standalone, I’d recommend starting with The Chosen and the Beautiful to fully appreciate the world Vo has crafted. If you love dreamlike storytelling with a touch of the uncanny, this one’s for you.

I love when an author writes a novella that goes along with a standalone book, especially when it contributes to the world building and lore. A companion to The Chosen and the Beautiful (a Gatsby reimagining from the perspective of Jordan), this novella takes place decades later and from the PoV of Nick-who-isn’t-truly-Nick.

What starts as a fleeting glimpse of someone long dead turns into a spiral down into the depths, as Nick tries to discover what really happened to Gatsby after he died. What follows is a sometimes surreal fever dream of a journey, with devilish deals and a woman made of wax and a covered up scandal.

I was here for this one and will gladly read any other companion novels Nghi Vo writes about this world she has borrowed and remade, infusing it with gritty magic and paranormal darkness. Thanks so much to Tor/Forge and Netgalley for the advanced copy!

A diabolical little companion story to The Chosen and The Beautiful. Vo picks back up Nick’s story on the verge of another World War. He has reaped what he had sown with Jay and Daisy’s story, yet he is almost consumed with hunger and wanting and obsession. It was nice to see the magic system and lore develop further a bit more. Admittedly, I felt this was lacking simply because Nick is nowhere near as star-studded as Jordan.

Despite the brief, I would not say this is a standalone and would highly encourage reading both The Chosen and the Beautiful and The Great Gatsby.

I think it was to my benefit that I didn't know that this was a companion to 'The Chosen and the Beautiful', that I've never read 'The Great Gatsby' and that I know Nghi Vo will throw me into a wild situation and the best way to enjoy is to suspend disbelief and go for the ride.
This was brutal, heartfelt, and feverish in the way that only Vo can accomplish. Even being a novella or companion to another work, I felt invested in the characters, and the absolutely delightful, rich occult aspects and historical setting were fleshed out perfectly.
This was extraordinarily angsty and horny which I didn't expect and was absolutely here for. The gay longing and accepting the ones you love, faults and all, and still maintaining autonomy once you get the answers you seek, so good.
I will be reading The Chosen and the Beautiful asap!

I love Nghi Vo's writing, and I loved The Chosen and the Beautiful, so it stands to reason that this little novella follow-up captured my heart as well. Vo's prose is beautiful and haunting, and Nick in this writing is such a wonderfully unreliable narrator. Highly recommended, but I would recommend reading The Chosen and the Beautiful first, for full effect.

I think that, in retrospect, I was more interested in the adaptive nature of The Chosen & the Beautiful than I was the world, because this sequel(ish) novella did nothing for me. It's well-written, but I bounced right off it it. Not usual for me and Nghi Vo's work.

"From award-winning author Nghi Vo comes Don't Sleep with the Dead, a standalone companion novella to The Chosen and the Beautiful, her acclaimed reimagining of The Great Gatsby.

Nick Carraway - paper soldier and novelist - has found a life and a living watching the mad magical spectacle of New York high society in the late thirties. He's good at watching, and he's even better at pretending: pretending to be straight, pretending to be human, pretending he's forgotten the events of that summer in 1922.

On the eve of the second World War, however, Nick learns that someone's been watching him pretend and that memory goes both ways. When he sees a familiar face one very dark night, it quickly becomes clear that dead or not, damned or not, Jay Gatsby isn't done with him.

In all paper there is memory, and Nick's ghost has come home."

I love connected stories wherein you don't need to have read the previous volume. That being said, you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you don't read The Chosen and the Beautiful.