I am shocked that this wasn’t as good as I’d hoped for! There is an incredible uniqueness to this story, but it wasn’t as dreamy as The Chosen and the Beautiful. It felt a bit lost and maybe that’s the point and it sailed right over my head?


Either way this is my first 3 star rating for Nghi Vo so it was always bound to happen that a favorite author would have something I wouldn’t love.

Thank you to Tor and Macmillan Audio for my physical copy and ALC. My opinions are my own.

Synopsis: On the eve of WW2, the paper soldier turned author Nick Carraway keeps seeing Gatsby who died during that summer of 1922.

Read for:
- a short story set after The Great Gatsby ends
- what if there was magic
- what if demons existed
- a gay author

My thoughts: this was an interesting short story follow up to The Chosen And The Beautiful. Technically this could be read as a standalone but I highly recommend reading The Chosen And The Beautiful before attempting this, because it makes all the nods and references easier to understand. I enjoyed reading the physical copy, but Greg’s narration was incredibly helpful in bringing Nick to life rather his voice just being words on paper. The narration was perfect; blending the story and action with the vulnerability of the character.

Highly recommend!!

I am a sucker for retellings of classic stories. When I heard queer fantasy retelling of The Great Gatsby I just had to give this a read. I actually had the audiobook for this, and really enjoyed the narrator!

I thought this was really well written. The pacing was good, the characters were interesting and I could definitely pick up on the Gatsby inspirations. Part of why I didn’t love the book was because I think the writing just isn’t really my style, or maybe I was expecting more from it? Over all I would still recommend to all readers!

Don’t Sleep with the Dead was a Macmillan Audio pick and it grabbed my attention because it’s a companion/sequel novela to The Chosen and the Beautiful, her The Great Gatsby retelling. Of course, I had to read book one first because I am a perfectionist, and you can check out that review a few posts down!

Don’t Sleep with the Dead is from Nick’s POV (while TCatB was from Jordan’s POV, a swap from The Great Gatsby), and we discover that in the roaring 20s world of demons and magic, what’s dead doesn’t always stay dead. This takes place on the Eve of WWII, nearly two decades after that summer in 1922, and Nick, who did not return West in this retelling, has been pretending to be everything he is not for a long time. This novella gives us more insight into Nick’s queerness, his inner desires, and a deeper truth of exactly who, or what, he is.

This story was lovely. It kept generally the same vibe and voice as TCatB, while adding a grittiness it so needed, especially to set itself apart from the glam of book one. While TCatB didn’t have quite the same enigmatic ending as TGB, Don’t Sleep with the Dead delivered that open-ended feeling. I give this audiobook 5 stars, and I think Greg D. Barnett was a great Nick!

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for a free advanced reader’s copy. I received this copy in exchange for my honest review.

I truly did not know what to expect when I picked up this book, only that it was written by Nghi Vo and, honestly, that’s usually all I need to know in order to feel like I’ll be in good hands. Nghi Vo has this way of writing magical realism that feels like the moment just before you catch your footing tripping on the stairs, like you’re always a little too out of the know and out of your element but you understand enough to play along with everyone and this was no exception. Slowly finding out within the first two pages that this was a prequel to the events of the Great Gatsby was thrilling because I also got to feel out the way Vo changed the world to suit the magic she’d embedded it with, it felt like a story that could sit comfortably next to the world of the Siren Queen so if you enjoyed that book, you’ll love this novella as well.

Our narrator, Greg D. Barnett, did an amazing job with the material as well, his small character choices really shone in this fast paced world and kept people organized and imbued with personality. I loved the curious but unsure way he embodied Nick as well as the mysterious and smokey way he spoke as Gatsby. I usually find that when a piece is narrated by a man, his weakness is feminine voices but I didn’t feel that was the case here, Barnett’s depiction of Jordan didn’t feel jarring and the husky nature he gave her voice felt right for the role.

Overall, Nghi Vo has done it again! Please pick this up if you like fun yet intangible magical realism and speculative reimaginings of well loved classic stories.

The audio for this was very good (he perfectly portrayed Nick's emotional yet apathetic personality) and Nghi Vo's writing is so descriptive and full it's easy to forget it's a novella. I did think the ending was fairly satisfying for what this was, but I also think I would have enjoyed it more had I read 'The Chosen and the Beautiful.' As a Great Gatsby lover I'm always excited to see another retelling, but something about magic in this world in particular is just jarring to me personally as a reader. Overall, I would recommend reading the novel first because the magic system is not explained in any real depth and it did cause me to be confused.

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the advance copy, all opinions are my own.

I am so glad the author decided to write this!!

It's companion novella set almost 20 years after the events of The Chosen and the Beautiful.

So yes, it is a standalone but honestly, to get the most out of this book you really should read the chosen and the beautiful first so you get all the context.

The book has a dream like quality to it, very haunting. I love the authors writing and this book really was entertaining. The narration was magnificent and I am so glad I went the audio route with this one.

If you like unreliable narrators, this one is a must! Nick is the epitome of unrealiable haha.

The chosen and the beautiful is a reimaging of the great gatsby so this just gives you the aftermath.

4 stars

Queer Gatsby? Yup, sigh me up! I love a retelling with more modern sensibilities and Nghi Vo is an absolutely phenomenal storyteller, so I wasn't surprised that this was phenomenal.

Beyond the actual story, the narration phenomenally takes the book to the next level and makes this an unputdownable novella.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this Audio ARC Copy!

This is my second book by Nghi Vo, and I was really interested to see where this book was going to go. I also read The City in Glass and that one was so unique and interesting, but also a bit confusing at time and based a lot on vibes. This book had the same weird (in the best way) aspects as CiG, but it also had more substance that I was able to follow and relate to in the weirdest way. I did not know that this was a companion to another book by this author that is a retelling of The Great Gatsby, but I think it was completely okay to read this as a standalone, though now I definitely need to read the other story to see what fun easter eggs I may have missed.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced listening copy in exchange for an honest review!

It’s been years since I read The Chosen and the Beautiful, and while I think a reread would have given this Maximum Effect (and I do think you need to have read the novel before reading this), it was still great and I still loved it. I love Vo’s reimagining of Nick and Gatsby and the rest of them, and the funky fantasy aspects she infuses them with. I loved how haunting this is and all the twisted thoughts in Nick’s head. The angst was delicious and if Vo wants to return to this world I will be there.

Greg D. Barnett did a good job with the narration, and I enjoyed the audiobook very much.

A very easy novella to get through. You don't even have to have read The Chosen and the Beautiful, just be familiar with The Great Gatsby as a queer coded text and then remember this is also a fantasy version of that world. I loved this little toe dip into the world Vo created previously, and fully plan to read The Chosen and The Beautiful now. But this never assumes you've read the previous book, and always does its best to introduce the world to you in an easy to understand way, never overloading you with world building details.
I loved the story of Nick desperate to reconnect with someone, regardless of how toxic, and how he finally finds that connection.
I want 500 more stories in this world (most notably about the ghosts of the war).

Let us start with my two disclaimers: 1) I didn't read The Chosen and the Beautiful, which in theory should be fine since this is a stand alone. 2) I have only vague recollection of The Great Gatsby and I didn't get why everyone loved these characters so much....I should really re-read this one.

With that out of the way, this book was interesting. I had no idea what was happening MOST of the story. The world was very fantasy-driven, but with hints of the classic that we are familiar with. This is also taking place well after the events in the original story, and Gatsby has passed. This is Nick Carraway's closure story, pretty much. The writing is beautiful, and I loved the imagery and the concepts of the world. It makes me want to pick up the original story and the author's other works just based on how beautifully the author's words painted her world. So, I will leave you by saying that I had no idea what was going on, but it was a world that I wanted to explore more of.

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

Really enjoyed this even though I wasn't necessarily in the mood for it when I started. Fantastic as an audiobook, too

I have not read The Chosen and the Beautiful yet (I know, what am I doing??) but I definitely will be reading it soon after seeing how magnificently this is written. This takes place well after the events of the novel and is a standalone story with some references to the novel. If you’ve read the Great Gatsby, you will love this as The Chosen and the Beautiful is a reimagining of that story. I never felt lost, having not read The Chosen and the Beautiful, but I have read The Great Gatsby before, so that may have helped.

It was a beautiful audiobook also, drawing me into the world more.

First I have two brief disclaimers for my above responses: The characters of THIS story are diverse, but they're based upon an old white classic without much diversity, and so while the world is diverse, the main two characters are not particularly diverse. Then, I love the characters, because I've long loved The Great Gatsby, but I wouldn't necessarily consider them loveable.

Onto my thoughts: I gotta be honest, I did not enjoy this book up until the end. For a large portion of the novel, I wondered what the point was. I had complicated feelings about The Chosen and the Beautiful. To sum them, I liked the magic and the Jordan that Nghi Vo fully-realized. But I didn't think it made much sense in the world of Gatsby, especially how much of a presence Jordan had and the way Daisy was written. So going into this, I wasn't entirely sold. And I felt like Nick was running all around for strange reasons and it was somewhat random.

THEN, in the eleventh hour (almost literally cause I was listening on 1.3x speed so my Netgalley audio went negative cause it doesn't know how to track w/ speed), I got it. The scene covered in the last couple chapters was remarkable. It was a perfect story for this fantastical Gatsby world. Beautiful and heartbreaking and Vo's Nick captured it so well. Something I love about every Gatsby adaptation is the ways writers use Nick to explore POV narrators who aren't the protagonist. How Nick can be everywhere and everything but still somehow second-billing.

The writing was flowery and lovely, especially in descriptions and tone-setting. While my imagination couldn't always follow the ways of this world, I was still able to hold on and understand what it was trying to convey. As much as I want a world in which Gatsby and Nick are in love and together and get a HEA, that isn't The Great Gatsby. That's an entirely different book. Nick was so apt in how he saw and envisioned and understood Gatsby. I didn't entirely understand the lead-up, but the ending was a real triumph. It proved once and for all that Nghi Vo understands The Great Gatsby, and the characters therein. In doing so, it also allows me to better enjoy Chosen for the not-quite retelling it is. Yes, the events of Gatsby overlay Jordan's story, but her story is uniquely her own, and now that Nick's ending exists, she can also exist without having to be the narrator of someone else's story. I can see The Chosen and the Beautiful in a new light without overanalyzing the ways it compared to the original text.

I don't really know how to write about the ending without spoilers, but I cried. It was haunting. This isn't a sequel to Gatsby so much as a snippet of closure for Nick. Even as he's not the Protagonist with a capital P, Nick does get to tell his own story of his own nightmares and dreams and wishes. He follows the ghost of Gatsby through the city, and comes to understand himself better along the way.

Thank you to NetGalley for the audio-ARC in exchange for an honest review. Sorry the review's so late! 4.5 Stars!

I didn't know what to expect when I started this book and took a bit to get into. But by the end I was really grateful to have gotten to read jt

I love when Nghi Vo puts out a gay lil novella just for me.
Wonderful companion to The Chosen and the Beautiful.
Narrator nails it once again.

First, I want to start this review by noting that I did not read the companion novel, so I was completely lost starting this one. I'll keep this review short, but I don't think I was the right audience for this one. This book is marketed as a standalone companion novella, to an already published book. In my honest opinion, you do need to read that original book to appreciate this one, to have some familiarity with the plot. I did not, and therefore, I had no idea what was happening the entire time I was readings.

I can see why people like this author though, the writing is excellent. I enjoyed the dark, gothic, atmospheric setting, this was very well done. The prose was poetic, the queer love was well done, and the magic was unique. This book is definitely going to be loved by a select audience. I have more books by this author on my shelf that I am excited to get to.

I am a big fan of Nghi Vo, But one of the books on my shelf that I haven't gotten to yet is THE CHOSEN AND THE BEAUTIFUL. Even so, I wanted to try this novella to see if it really did feel like a standalone. And I'm happy to report that it did! I felt like I was meeting the characters for the first time in this universe, the only context I had being my knowledge of GREAT GATSBY. The writing was sharp and lovely as usual, and I'm so interested in learning more about the world and the magic within it. If you're a fan of Gatsby, Vo, queer stories, or great novellas, give this one a shot! I think you'll enjoy it.