Great Gatsby Remix 

Trans Rep 

Insta Love 

 

 

While this is a Great Gatsby remix, I felt like the Great Gatsby premise could have been dropped and it would have made a much better book overall. I felt like making the characters likable does a disservice to the retelling. Though, I did enjoy the diversity changes as well as the LGBTQIA rep we get throughout this book. 

 

I really enjoyed the trans gay rep as well as Daisy turning out to be a lesbian, however, I feel like this would have been much better if these weren’t teenagers and were actual adults. There was a lot of backstory and expectations for characters that were supposed to be 15-16, or maybe 14? Very unclear about the age. Overall it was difficult to believe and I had to keep reminding myself they were children and not adults. 

 

Overall, all the relationships felt very flat. They were not built up in a way that felt realistic, which is a shame considering the author had created some great characters (though drastically different from the original characters). Even Nick and Gatsby’s relationship felt very insta love and the obstacles that were put between them felt like things the author added to the plot to drag it out. 

 

The gay club did make my queer heart very happy though. 

 

Through the descriptions, you can tell the author really did their research on fashion for this time period which was really exciting to learn new tidbits. 

 

I do want to read something else from this author that isn’t a retelling because I think I could really end up enjoying their writing.