The world building was excellent, the secondary characters enchanting, and the outlook almost dire and bleak. The voice and tone felt like they were trying to emulate the original, rather than the author's own, but it's hard to tell as I've not read anything else by them!

I always forget how much I like speculative fiction, and I honestly think if this had been it's own book instead of a retelling of the Great Gatsby it would have been better. That's not to say the book was bad, not at all. It was a great read, but it trod the beats of the Great Gatsby and it made things almost... expected.

The book kept you with it, but something about the ending just didn't quite settle with the tone and actions of the rest of the book.

Local Heavens is a great gatsby retelling that has my heart. Set in 2075 New York City, Filipino-American Nick Carraway is sent to investigate mysterious billionaire Jay Gatsby, and the secrets that surround him.

Let me start off by saying that I have never read the original work of The Great Gatsby, and I am only familiar with it due to movies and pop culture. I am so enthralled by the story that is told that I want to read the original work, and that is only because of how Local Heavens delves into the depths of the relationship each character has with each other.

The cyberpunk setting is nothing to scoff at. Nick Carraway is a netdiver and most of the cyberpunk setting is fleshed out by him and the grim reality that surrounds him, one where millionaires are trying to cheat death and leaving any lower class with no space to live. My favorite scenes are those that dig into the heart of the technological concepts created.

While I can’t compare the two works, I enjoyed the cyberpunk story of moral decrepitude at its finest.

Full disclosure: I know The Great Gatsby inside out and back to front. When I was sent this proof by the lovely Tamara at Zaffre, I was absolutely over the moon.

The writing was brilliant - it incorporated just enough references to the original (including actual dialogue) without feeling too repetitive. The characters mirrored the originals very well, and the futuristic updates felt spot-on - I absolutely think that Tom Buchanan would go for low-key yet expensive work to remain looking 30, while Jordan Baker would splash out on anything that gives her an edge!

I thought this was a fascinating take on a beloved book. It changed enough that it didn’t feel like a rehash, but kept enough elements that the inspiration was recognisable. I have never read a cyberpunk book before, but I thoroughly enjoyed this. The bar was high for me on this one, but I’m pleased to say that Local Heavens delivered.

I’ve read multiple books inspired by The Great Gatsby, but this is by far the best. I would absolutely recommend this to fans of the original - it’s beautifully written, the characters are absorbing and compelling, and the world building truly blew me away.

local heavens is a brilliant tribute to fitzgerald’s magnum opus, and the great gatsby is perhaps my favorite book ever, so i do not say this lightly. fitzgerald’s prose is something that cannot be truly replicated, but fajardo does an amazing job with the language and atmosphere while adding a twist to the story. although local heavens is set in the 2070s, a century and a half after the events of the great gatsby, its overarching message and overall ambience is still reminiscent of the original.

‘it was strange to observe—not because i believed in magic, but rather because a part of me, right up until the end, had still believed in “gatsby.”’

‘buildings grew taller, slums grew wider, bodies younger and souls colder, and at the end of it all, we had moved far from the society we’d been when the probe first launched, its romance diminished with each generation under the growing cynicism of our declining nations.’

what i think made the great gatsby so special to me was the complexity of its characters and their relationships with each other and the world, and local heavens is the closest i’ve ever gotten to reading something that resembles the magic of the great gatsby. nick carraway was always my favorite character and local heavens’ nick is no exception; i loved the interconnection of cultures and ideals in his character. gatsby was perfect and daisy was so flawed i adored her character so much #istandwithmycancelledwife

the worldbuilding in this book was absolutely insane. everything was so clearly thought out and fajardo’s way of portraying it was so vivid but didn’t feel thrust in my face at all. i’ve never been a particularly big fan of dystopia (i still am not) but local heavens absolutely blew me out of the water and it was just so?? realistic?? fajardo doesn’t shy away from dissecting capitalism and wealth and privilege even in the cyberpunk world and it was so intriguing to read about (especially considering the state of our world rn)

‘it was an odd thing to see an android hesitate—a small but devastating trick of technology that replicated the very human instinct of sympathy.’

local heavens is genuinely such an impressive debut & i look forward (am gnawing at the cages of my enclosure) to reading more of the author’s work!

thank you to netgalley for the arc!

‘“a breach?” muttered gatsby.
“yes, sir.”
“physical or cyber?”
the klipspringer paused. “both, sir.”
jordan and i feigned interest in the aquarium.’

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this upcoming debut album by K.M. Fajardo.

I have casually followed the author's journey through her posts on booktube, and it was very exciting for me to have an opportunity to read her work. Admittedly, I was a skeptical of the novel itself, being a reimagining of Great Gatsby. As a millennial, the Leonardo DiCaprio film influenced so many dances and parties during my teens and twenties that I had pretty much burnt out on the classic novel. But seeing that this new take was cyberpunk, queer, and tackling the social issues in the novel from a new perspective made me open to trying it.

And what a novel it is! I loved this from the start. The atmosphere feels electric, like the neon flashes that wash the dark city with bright light. The characterization is deeply personal and feels so true to the source material, while also finding space to dig deeper. K.M. Fajardo portrays iconic characters such as Daisy Buchanan, Nick Carraway, Jordan Baker, and Jay Gatsby himself with so much nuance and intensity, I found myself suspended in this new-but-familiar world. As the plot progressed, I genuinely questioned whether I knew the ending or not. Sure, I knew the key plot moments, but the emotional journey felt raw, fresh, and urgent in a way I personally never experienced reading Hemingway's novel.

Note: there is a bit of spice on the page, for those who care, but it's not the sole emphasis of the story.

This novel feels as much an emerging companion to The Great Gatsby as it feels like a classic in its own right. I am thrilled for K. M. Fajardo to debut and I can only hope she continues to share her voice with us readers for years to come.

5/5 Stars - highly, highly recommend. Perfect for fans of Song of Achilles and The Great Gatsby (of course).

(This review will be posted to Instagram on Friday, July 25)

Local Heavens by K. M. Fajardo is one I’ve followed on YouTube and Instagram for a hot minute, so I was over the moon when I was selected for an ARC. I’m also a huge fan of the recent musical adaptation and spent last summer listening to the album while I read the original Fitzgerald novel.

So if you weren’t in the know, Local Heavens is a cyberpunk retelling of The Great Gatsby and right away I was intrigued by the concept. Back in high school I read the series The Thousandth Floor, which honestly has really similar vibes technologically and thematically. Local Heavens balances being a riveting summer-read and commenting on class and racial conflicts.

Now, with all that out of the way... It was amazing!!

I say that as someone who’s not super into science fiction. For some reason I can eat up a complex magic system with unique terminology but as soon as an author does the same thing with technology the wrinkles in my brain turn into question marks. But Fajardo’s worldbuilding steadily grows more fascinating across the pages.

But I was really there for the characters. Fajardo manages to remain true to the characters’ original molds whilst also imbuing them with a new life. The only problem is how am I supposed to explain all the wild shipping going on in my brain for characters that people will immediately tie back to the 1925 classic American novel The Great Gatsby? Like, how am I supposed to talk about how NICK CARRAWAY is being rotated in my head on a microwave plate.

I also wanted to talk about what stayed versus what shifted in this retelling. In Local Heavens, Nick and Daisy are Filipino, a detail that is also used to open the door to conversations around micro-aggresions and racial identity. This came to a head with Tom in the last 100 pages in ways that had me shook. The build-up to that confrontation was a well-laid path, but it was such a good choice on Fajardo’s part to show how insidious racist behavior can be.

Another interesting detail was the murders at the end of the book. If you’ve read The Great Gatsby you know. You know. But the slight twists that Fajardo includes strengthen the themes of Local Heavens. I could writes essays on this. I could write fanfiction. Just trust when I say it was so good.

I think maybe I set my expectations too high for this book. I am a fan of Fajardo's YouTube channel and so I've heard about this book for a while now and was excited to see how it turned out, I think my biggest problem with it is that, for a retelling, it did not expand on the original story enough. I found it both impressive and disappointing how well Fajardo captured Nick's/Fitzgerald's voice. My reason for disappointment is because as this is Fajardo's debut novel, I want to know what HER voice sounds like, not her trying to copy someone else's style. I also found that the cyberpunk elements, while atmospheric, did not really change or contribute to the story that much.

“Well, I’d rather do something real. Build something good out of everything that’s been broken.”

This is one of the only four books to ever make me shed a tear. What a masterpiece.
I have never read the original Great Gatsby, and though I plan to, Local Heavens made me feel like I somehow already knew it—like it was already in my soul. Fajardo’s love for this story shines through the gaps like sunrise through closed curtains.

The prose was excellent, the world-building unbelievably awe-striking. This is the modern 'roar' of our 20s, the ultimate vision on where our present-day is heading. From AI to Memories, to cheating death and sport.
This is irreplaceable modern literature.
I could sit and marvel at the craft for an hour but what would I achieve doing that when I could just pick this up all over again from Page One?

It’s a tragedy that this a debut because I need more!!!

Local Heavens was a slow starter, but once I got going, I could not stop reading. The world is complete, the characters are complicated and the more that I read, the more I wondered what was really going on.

One of the greatest things about it was that nothing in the book really does what you think it's going to do. Whether it's the characters, their motivations, or even the universe as a whole being in the future, there is always something else beneath the surface. Who is really telling the truth, and what aren't they telling you?

Overall, Local Heavens is a slow burn that is worth it completely. It's a clever, well-crafted book that encourages you to question your assumptions and has you pondering long after you've closed the final page.

I found this book to be an enjoyable read. The story kept me engaged from start to finish and had some moments that really stood out. Overall, it offered an entertaining reading experience.

LOCAL HEAVENS is the queer, cyberpunk gatsby retelling of my dreams—a feverish, sensual, and decadent hover car ride through the american capitalist nightmare. fajardo's debut captures the spirit of fitzgerald's classic perfectly, mirroring the beauty of his language and dreamy severity of his characters, while effortlessly moving the story into a plausible, technology-ruled future that's as harrowing as it is promising, ripping open the chest of late-stage capitalism and performing an autopsy on its rotten, glittering heart.

the 2070s of fajardo's new york city is a world of surreal body modifications, billionaire corpos, disillusioned celebrities, and all the ordinary people whose lives are crushed by capitalism as those at the top thrive off their misery, exposing the blood that keeps america running—asking if you can see it, asking if you care. in LOCAL HEAVENS, nick carraway is a filipino-american corporate hacker, jay gatsby is an elusive billionaire, daisy fay is a filipino-american retired star of technological dream simulations, and jordan baker is a nigerian-american bullet-golf champion. a love square connects the four of them, and fajardo uses the beauty and tragedy of their relationships to explore humanity on both intimate and grand scales—from the delicate dance between strangers to exploring proof of life beyond earth.

LOCAL HEAVENS retains the spirit of fitzgerald's novel while imagining it anew in clever, revelatory ways that will redefine what it means to take a timeless classic and transmute its heart for the future it gazed into. the essence of the great gatsby is more relevant than ever in fajardo's hands: her world is the one we're already living in, but with our fears and dreams dialed as high as possible. it's a prophetic scream from a hacked security system, set to a jazz number. fajardo has written a gorgeous, sleek, and unforgettable debut right on time for the great gatsby's centennial anniversary, and i can't recommend it highly enough. LOCAL HEAVENS is going to haunt me for a very long time, and ensured that i'll follow fajardo anywhere in the world.

LOCAL HEAVENS hits shelves on october 14! it's available for preorder now, and if you needed a literal green light to convince you, here it is! go forth, old sport.

Local Heavens follows the narrator, Nick Carraway, who reminisces on a gilded summer in a cyberpunk New York City. What had started as an assignment to ensure the corporate acquisition between two corporate entities succeeds turns into being faced with lies, corruption, and desire. All because Nick has to investigate one Jay Gatsby.

I do love a cyberpunk setting. The interplay between the different social classes, cultural identity, and the role of body mods really kept my interest. Nick's stumbling through it all felt genuine enough. However, many of the beats borrowed from the original The Great Gatsby felt forced and frustrating to read, given what was established in the world built around the story. I wasn't a fan of the pacing, as the narrative wrestled between being a retelling and wanting to do its own thing as a cyberpunk story.

It was a fun story to annotate. There were lines of dialogue that made me feel things. Set pieces that I could see adapted into film. Identity crisis in which many readers could relate. Yet, this is supposed to be a cyberpunk retelling of the Great Gatsby. I can't say if it achieved its goal, but I can say it came close. If you're looking for a man trying to find out for himself who he wants to be, instead of what others think he should be, then it would be worth a read.

I must admit, it took me way too long to realize that this is a retelling of The Great Gatsby.

That being said, it means I did not already know where the story was going and was able to enjoy it as it is.

What stood out to me, is that people looked, talked and behaved in the way I would have expected people in the past to do. This did not harmonize with the fact that the story is set in the future. But of course, now that I know this is a retelling of a classic, it makes a lot more sense.

I appreciated the world building and the fact that the main character had Filipino roots. Plus all the queerness!

I'm not sure how much needs to be said about the plot, since I have basically already revealed where this is going.

Still the ending left me feeling vulnerable and emotional and frankly that's what I expect from a good book.

Hmm…complicated feelings about this one (so I wrote an essay).

So first, I did my self-imposed homework and re-read The Great Gatsby right before diving (lol) into this one. Consequently, all similarities and differences between the two narratives were immediately obvious—which led me to question: how close should a retelling be? We retell fairytales, but fairytales are archetypal and so firmly stamped in the cultural landscape that we associate crumbling towers with princesses, red cloaks with wolves, gingerbread with evil witches, and so on; they’re made to be retold. But this isn’t a fairytale. In fact, it’s the antithesis of a fairytale. Any hope to be found is in the margins, in what we take away as Nick reflects on the futility of it all, on the dreams that are always a little out of reach, but that we as humans can’t seem to stop trying to grasp.

Gatsby is a strange one. 100 years old as of 2025, and arguably Fitzgerald’s magnum opus, it marks a shift in his philosophy from his first novel This Side of Paradise. While disillusionment permeates both novels, there’s a certain maturity to Gatsby that reveals the change in his internal dilemmas, and it’s strange and beautiful to witness a century later.

Some classics hold their relevance for decades, others for centuries. It’s too soon to know for certain how long Gatsby will endure, but it’s safe to say a century on that everything Fitzgerald said (and with such brevity!) is just as important and accurate now as it was then. And in 180 pages, that disillusionment and insight wrapped in gossamer packaging is something I doubt we’ll ever see again. (I, sadly, am a cynic, but I hope to be proven wrong.)

All that to say, adapting a new version of Gatsby is a tall order to fill.

While I can’t speak for those who never read The Great Gatsby, for me Local Heavens doesn’t quite stand up as its own story simply because it leans so heavily on the original. I wonder what someone who read Local Heavens first and Gatsby second would have to say about the similarities, because to me they were at best distracting and at worst a crutch. So where do we draw the line? Where does a story become its own story, an homage to the original and not just a pale imitation? Truly, I’ve no idea. (As I’m drafting a very loose Wizard of Oz retelling, I’ve thought about this A LOT.)

The prose is overall good, and I sensed the author trying to imitate Fitzgerald’s style, but unfortunately, I didn’t feel as immersed in this world as I did in Fitzgerald’s, and I attribute this to the writing not being quite as evocative or sensory, but rather flatter and more distant, though there are times when I found it very effective (mainly in scenes between Nick and Gatsby). I think also at times the metaphors felt not necessarily bad, but out of place. (I also just read some amazing prose writers on a semi-regular basis and compare everything to them, so most newer books just don’t scratch that itch, and I admit I’m super picky about it. Thy mileage will vary. This is still better writing than I’ve seen from many recently published books.) Still, it’s harder to picture this world, which feels in some ways a bit generic sci-fi and less unique to the story than it should (I watched two episodes of Andor a day or so before starting this and felt as if I could interchange the landscapes). But then, I’m not as well-versed in Cyberpunk and my favorite sci-fi tends to lean to the weird. (Again, thy mileage will vary.)

On setting, I didn’t get a great sense of what it was like to dive into cyberspace, or the war that apparently involved a lot of this(?), or why it’s so dangerous; glimpses, yes, but no stakes aside from one scene with Owl Eyes (a character I didn’t enjoy much here, sadly). It’s difficult at times to follow the ‘tech talk’ and to be honest, it’s probably the least interesting part of this book. I’m not sure how much of that is just me (a modest reader of this genre) or if it’s something that will be an issue for a lot of people, so…mileage. Nick is also supposed to be a corporate spy, but this storyline feels flimsy by the midway point and lacks tension for its entirety.

The dialogue is at times word for word from Gatsby, and aside from that it feels a bit mixed in how it melds with the world. Likewise, there are times when it becomes too expository. I was also surprised that certain characteristics, like Gatsby’s habit of calling everyone ‘old sport,’ were not replaced with terminology more fitting to the setting. This comes off as a missed opportunity.

There’s also a tendency in the writing to explain where no explanation is necessary, rather, to tell something that’s already been shown via subtext. I love subtext. It lets the words breathe. It pirouettes what’s said into something new and meaningful that will look just a little different to every person. Gatsby is full of it, and here we are a century later still obsessed. Subtext holds just as much power as the words themselves. Unfortunately, there were so many times where what could have been a really impactful scene ended up falling flat because of explanations tacked on.

As for characters, it’s a mixed bag. I generally enjoyed the changes here, but I had a hard time buying some of the flip-flopping that goes on in the second half of the book with who has feelings for who (also some of the behavior in general just didn’t add up to me by the last quarter and devolves into melodrama). I’d say the buildup to these things is decent, but not great, and so I questioned it several times. I believe the issues I had here are a byproduct of keeping some of the same dialogue, same plot points, but making tweaks—sometimes it works smoothly, and sometimes it doesn’t. Nick as a character is a bit static here, and while that's not necessarily bad (I'm happier when I see the ways a retelling tries to be its own thing), I can't help comparing him to OG Nick, who becomes more cynical as the plot progresses (and thus the ending hits harder thematically). This Nick feels cynical from the get-go, which makes his reactions to later events fall flat in some ways. While I don't think they should be the same character--obviously--I also don't always get the sense that this Nick (or any of the other characters) are as well rendered and dimensional as they could be. It seems like they're halfway who they were in the OG version and halfway new characters, but that crucial blending (how they exist in this specific world at this specific time) isn't always there. That said, the highlight of the latter half is definitely the developing relationship between Nick and Gatsby, and I’ll admit…the ending kind of got me, even if part of it felt off in the very last bit (maybe too close to the original, and I think it could have bloomed into something new there; or hell, maybe I just want them to have a happier ending).

I keep thinking of this comment I read in a review (for a totally different book) about the writing being nice but lacking substance. It’s sort of how I felt about This is How You Lose the Time War, word salad thrown together to sound cool but hiding flat characters and an incredibly shallow story that mostly comes off as generic in the end. Contrast that with my favorite read this year, Roadside Picnic, which has competent, raw writing that doesn’t try to be pretty but does manage to unsettle and immerse. Not only is that book one of the best and most subtle commentaries on commodification I’ve ever read, it’s also emotionally devastating, and I still think about it almost daily months later.

For me, Local Heavens resides somewhere between Time War and RP (notably, all three novels are sci-fi) in its writing and what it seems to be trying to do. It’s more coherent and readable than TW but lacks the raw beauty and philosophical depth of RP. It suffers a bit from a trend where so much of the narrative seems to be carried by vibes and aesthetics, but doesn’t probe beyond the surface, or gives the most obvious commentary that we’ve all heard before, ad nauseum. Yes, corporations are exploitative. Yes, the rich tend to get richer at the expense of the poor. In the instances where Nick is talking with Owl Eyes, the revolutionary/rebel talk felt like something I’d seen before many times. Tale as old as time, as they say. Tell me more, make it unique, make it something I haven’t seen or heard before, or at least give me a remix that I can really believe in. I admire the effort, but we’re only scratching the surface here. And I’ll say here that what I enjoyed most thematically (and imo, what carried the most depth) was the use of names (that scene!), false names and true names, and names we use like armor or cloaks to conceal our innermost selves. That aspect was lovely.

It feels like this is attempting to be in conversation with the original, but the author mentions not needing to read Gatsby to understand this. So I’m a little confused about where it all stands. Its very existence and how much it borrows from Gatsby kind of demands comparison, which is unfortunate, but even if you write the loosest retelling ever, you’re going to invite that. It’s as inevitable as taxes. And I think what it comes down to is that a lot of this feels like a futuristic aesthetic superimposed over the same story that still comes off very 1920s so that at times it’s easy to forget this is the 2070s (the last quarter was the most futuristic to me and where I felt most immersed). To bring in my handy old metaphor, it’s like the author threw Gatsby and various sci-fi elements in a blender but rather than a smooth, well-blended concoction, there are a lot of chunks floating around. People are still using the same curse words, the same mannerisms…and I guess it’s plausible, but just think how much those things change between one decade, let alone fifteen. It’s possible to look perpetually in your 30s but Alzheimer’s hasn’t been cured? Bodies are modified, but what effect does that have on hunger, on the desire for intimacy? Time and circumstances alter people on more than just the individual level. We make fun of each other by the generation for a reason, characterize ourselves by what we do or don’t care about as a collective, but that only occasionally feels touched on here.

So…I definitely didn’t dislike this book (like I said, the ending got me, and I enjoyed the name part), but I also didn’t like it as much as I wanted to, as I’m sure others will. Gatsby is one of my favorites, top 5 easily. And while fantasy and lit fic are my most-read genres, I like and occasionally love sci-fi. I was primed for this. And like I said, it’s readable, and there are some lovely lines and beautiful thoughts to be found in the pages. I just wanted more of that.

But in the end, I come away thinking just a little more about what it could have been rather than what it is, and I guess that means I’m floating in the margins, suspended by the potential.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bindery for the ARC

thank you to netgalley and bindery books for giving me access to the e-arc in exchange for an honest review! all opinions are my own.

** mild spoilers ahead **

local heavens is a queer, cyberpunk retelling of the great gatsby - one of my favourite classics reimagined through a cyberpunk lens AND it's queer? yes, please.

nick carraway, a corporate cyberspace hacker, is tasked with investigating the elusive billionaire jay gatsby, whose existence seems shrouded in secrets. despite his best efforts, nick can't seem to resist the allure of gatsby's charm and slowly becomes entangled in the world of society's elites.

local heavens is primarily a contemporary critique of late-stage capitalism - the rich are thriving, the working and middle classes are living on the brink of society, the environment destroyed, and workers replaced by androids. i love cyberpunk as a way of addressing these issues and, despite being set in the year 2075, this novel feels very relevant in 2025.

the writing is gorgeous, and the characters feel fleshed out and realistic. the main plot beats of the great gatsby are replicated in this novel, but turned up a few notches, with interesting tech and worldbuilding. i wish we had learned a little more about diving, or been with nick in those moments - it's such an interesting concept that i wanted to explore further than the explanations went.

if you enjoy the great gatsby, the cyberpunk genre, and toxic gays, i highly recommend checking out local heavens!

This is a futuristic, queer, cyberpunk retelling of The Great Gatsby. I've read TGG at least twice, but it's been many years, so it isn't super fresh in my mind. I thought the setting is this version was unique, I haven't read other cyberpunk stories, so not much to compare to there, but it was interesting. I liked the writing, I liked Nick as the narrator, I liked that the focus of the story was a bit more skewed to Nick's experience overall, and I liked getting to know Jordan more than in the original. I'm not sure if this would stand on its own for someone who has no reference of the source material. Some of the dialogue and references felt out of place in such a futuristic world. Gorgeous cover art! A very cool debut!

Local Heavens ☁️
•Spoiler-free review•
5 ⭐️

And my first five star read goes to Local Heavens! This novel is a queer retelling of The Great Gatsby, but set in a cyberpunk universe that entwines the original themes with more modern ideas.

I was absolutely gripped by this book— in a way that grasped my attention and refused to let go. I read The Great Gatsby in high school and knew the basics, but this rendition allowed the characters to really shine. They were complicated and frustrating and relatable all at the same time.

I’ve been loosely following @krismfajardo journey with this book, and I’m so glad it got published under @bindery_books! Seeing an “unmarketable” book get the spotlight if deserved is amazing!

Overall, I recommend this book for classic lovers, and highly recommend even if you don’t like sci-fi. Thanks again to @netgalley, Bindery Books and Kris Fajardo for letting me read the e-arc!

Release date: October 14th

#booksbooksbooks #scifibooks #classicbooks #bookretellings #thegreatgatsby #localheavens #bookreview #netgalleyreview #earc #debutebook #binderybooks #inkyphoenixpress

Local Heavens is a bold, electrifying reimagining of The Great Gatsby, set in a vividly dystopian 2075 New York. Filipino American Nick Carraway is no longer just a bystander—he’s a hacker navigating the corporate underbelly of a fractured society, drawn into the enigmatic orbit of a tech-augmented Jay Gatsby. This version of the classic tale pulses with fresh urgency, blending class critique, cyber-noir intrigue, and moral ambiguity. With sleek prose and razor-sharp commentary, Local Heavens asks timeless questions about desire, deception, and the cost of truth in a future that feels all too plausible.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC!

Local Heavens is a queer cyberpunk retelling of The Great Gatsby where Nick Carraway, the main character, gets the assignment to move to New York and investigate Jay Gatsby.

Like The Great Gatsby, Local Heavens is a commentary of class but also delves into race, sexuality, and sexism. The prose is beautiful and also reminiscent of Fitzgerald’s at times in a way that seems purposeful but not overdone, as the novel still has a distinct voice to anything I have read before.

Because I have a lot of thoughts, I will be breaking it down into pros and cons:
Pros:
The characters: I absolutely adored the characters! Well, mostly, not all (looking at you, Tom).
- Nick: Nick is a really interesting (the forbidden word for English majors ik) main character, and without spoiling anything, all I can say is that I loved his character arc and him grappling with how other people see him vs how he sees himself.
- Jordan: If there’s one thing about Jordan, it’s that she will always be a baddie in every iteration. The commentary on women in sports and women “aging out” of things were really well done, and I enjoyed that part of the novel a lot!
- Owl Eyes: An unexpected favorite! Sure, she sucks at her job, but she is speaking facts.
- Daisy: I have very mixed feelings about Daisy, but I love her complexities and seeing how she deals with motherhood and her (shitty) husband. I always love it when books deal with flawed characters.
- Gatsby: Another character who has a lot of flaws. He is positive to a fault, naïve, believes in miracles, and I love his conversations with Nick (his complete opposite in the way they view the world) about optimism and pragmatism.

The relationships
- Whether platonic or romantic, I think the relationships really just sold this book for me! They were all done really well, and it never felt like any of the platonic relationships were pushed aside for the romantic relationships, which I really enjoyed! It’s definitely a character driven story, and platonic relationships are, in my opinion, very important for those kinds of stories.

The prose
- I already mentioned the prose, but I just have to mention it again because it is stunning! I will absolutely be buying the physical copy when it is released and underlighting so many lines.

The social commentary
- This had a lot of layers of social commentary, as mentioned before. Because I have read The Great Gatsby, I was expecting the commentary on class, and Fajardo delivered! There were a lot of parallels to our world that probably veers into spoiler territory if I talk about them too much, so all I’m gonna say is that it all makes a lot of sense for the cyberpunk genre!
- I love the way Fajardo tackled racism, both in 2075 when the novel takes place but also in the lives of Nick’s family members who lived years ago, showing how racism has somehow survived throughout all these years despite there being so many bigger issues to worry about (sounds familiar?).
- I also loved the discussions on what kinds of “fighting the system” actually work. It’s similar to a lot of conversations being had today too. Can you fight the system using the very system you’re trying to fight, or do you have to fight it from the outside?


Cons:
The retelling aspect
- I don’t mean that I dislike it being a retelling, not at all. I just think it, at times, leaned a little too much into the retelling aspect, and I know it is a retelling, but it doesn’t seem to leave much wiggle room (which probably sounds like a wild thing to say about a book that reimagines The Great Gatsby in a cyberpunk setting). What I mean is that there are events and conversations that happen at certain times in the original that also happen in some way in this book, and it sometimes felt like they’re here just because they were in the original.

Underdeveloped side plot
- There’s a side plot that is introduced early on in the book that’s kind of just… not talked about for like 100 pages and then suddenly it’s brought up again and said to be a huge part of everyone’s daily lives, and it’s said that everyone talks about it and it’s on the news all the time, except… we’ve only seen it on the news once and we’ve only heard people talking about it once. It wasn’t a huge plot point, but I’d still have loved to see it talked about more to see how people actually felt about it instead of just being told that people talked about it.


I will also say, there was a moment before the beginning of the second part where I got really confused about what was happening because I had no idea what year we were in (I don’t know if this was mentioned earlier in the book and I just forgot about it?), but then I read the blurb again and remembered it’s 2075 and then it made sense, so that might just be on me. But other than that, I really enjoyed the worldbuilding and didn’t find it confusing, so I didn’t want to put this as a con.

Overall, I could talk a lot more about the things I loved about the book than the things I liked less (and there wasn’t really anything I disliked), and I cannot wait to get my hands on a physical copy of this book when it’s released! It also feels like the kind of book that will be even better on a reread, so I’m looking forward to reading it again in October!

This just wasn't for me. Maybe if you love The Great Gatsby, you'll appreciate this more than I did. I didn't like the pacing or care about the story. The best parts to me were where it felt like there was a break in the story for them to have long conversations about the state of the world.