Great

by Sara Benincasa

In Sara Benincasa's contemporary retelling of The Great Gatsby, a teenage girl becomes entangled in the drama of a Hamptons social circle, only to be implicated in a tragedy that shakes the summer community.

Everyone loves a good scandal.

Naomi Rye usually dreads spending the summer with her socialite mother in East Hampton. This year is no different. She sticks out like a sore thumb among the teenagers who have been summering (a verb only the very rich use) together for years. But Naomi finds herself captivated by her mysterious next-door neighbor, Jacinta. Jacinta has her own reason for drawing close to Naomi-to meet the beautiful and untouchable Delilah Fairweather. But Jacinta's carefully constructed world is hiding something huge, a secret that could undo everything. And Naomi must decide how far she is willing to be pulled into this web of lies and deception before she is unable to escape.

Based on a beloved classic and steeped in Sara Benincasa's darkly comic voice, Great has all the drama, glitz, and romance with a terrific modern (and scandalous) twist to enthrall readers.

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Retellings, Fiction, LGBT, Romance, Queer

263 pages, Hardcover

First published April 8, 2014

About the author

Sara Benincasa is an author, actor, and TV writer.

Reviews

[Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies · Rating 1 out of 5]

To be honest, Great...wasn't. If you loved The Great Gatsby, you're going to hate this book. If you hated The Great Gatsby, you're going to hate this book. If you have no idea what The Great Gatsby is, you're probably going to hate this book, too, because it's about a bunch of spoiled brat "summering" in the East Hamptons. And absolutely nothing happens in in it.

But if you read The Great Gatsby, you might have already predicted that.



The teens in this book are fucking dumb. At least the characters in The Great Gatsby have some depth, because they're adults. The main characters in this book have brilliant conversations over shit like a fucking swimming pool.

“It looks like it’s got a current,” she said with wonder, looking at Jacinta.
“It does,” Jacinta said. “You should come over to swim. Or just to float.”
“I’ll come every day,” Delilah said, and she almost sounded as if she really meant it.

And they cry over fucking Hermès bags.

On the shelves was a series of similar-looking handbags in a rainbow of colors. Delilah seemed bowled over. She stared at the bags, her blue eyes filling with tears.
“They’re—they’re so beautiful,” she said softly, her voice catching a little. “They’re all Birkins, aren’t they?”

To make it worse, I felt like this book uses gays and lesbians as a plot device. This book is The Great Gatsby with a lesbian twist, and it is completely pointless in that regard. There was no reason to include the lesbians other than shock value. There was no relationship between them, everything that happens between the couples was presented to us as an insider joke, of which we're the outsiders, not understanding what the fuck has just happened between two shared meaning-filled glances. Furthermore, the main character has a hateful lesbian best friend who's not so much as friend as it feels like the "friend" is merely an extension of the main character, used to deliver the scathing words and bitterness and hate that the main character will not say. The best friend is a "butch" lesbian who wants to be called "Skags." Skags is judgmental, she is horny, she is cruel. Skags is an offensive caricature of a lesbian character.

The thing is that The Great Gatsby is a pretty horrible book to begin with (my humble opinion, of course), because it's about a bunch of overindulged, greedy, pampered adults. There's really no getting around the fact that the characters in The Great Gatsby are pretty unlikeable. The book itself wasn't well-received when it was written, it only became popular two decades later during the midst of WWII austerity because people wanted some frivolity in their lives. It's not a premise that translates well.



So why rewrite it? Why make it about a bunch of wealthy, spoiled as all fuck teenagers who spend their entire summer fucking and getting drunk and snorting coke. What's the point? It's like remaking the worst movie in the world, Showgirls, the film. You COULD, but why?! I'm not supposed to like the people in the book, but the book shouldn't make me want take a chainsaw to their face, either.

Except this book is worse, because you can't even get any street cred for reading it. Tell someone, "I fucking hated The Great Gatsby," and you might be met with an eye roll, or a nod of sympathy, because hey, at least it's considered a classic. Tell someone "I read Great," and you'll be met with a blank stare. So you won't even get the bragging rights by reading this book (and really, the bragging right is the only reason for which The Great Gatsby is worth reading). Can you tell I didn't care much for it? I read this hoping to at least be entertained by a modern adaptation.

I wasn't.

The Summary:

I came home from Chicago like a raw-nosed girl crawls sickly and gratefully to her bed at 7 a.m. after a night-long coke and booze bender, wiping snot off her face and bile off a pair of lips she can’t feel. And if you think I’m too young to know what that looks like, you’ve probably never been seventeen years old and spent a summer in the Estate Section in the Hamptons.

This book mirrors The Great Gatsby, using a bunch of alcohol-drinking, coke-snorting trust fund brats. Naomi (~Nick Carraway) is the new-money daughter of a Martha Stewart wannabe (she hates her mother). Doomed *sigh* to spend the summer in the East Hamptons, or the wealthiest stretch of land in the US where the ultra-rich spends their summers, or rather, "summers" as a verb. If only we were all so unlucky.

The reluctant Naomi gets the beautiful and influential Delilah (~Daisy Buchanan) pushed on her by her social-climbing mother. Delilah is the...

...Republican senator’s ridiculously beautiful (but, I’ll admit, shockingly nice) fledgling model daughter.

...her boyfriend Teddy (~Tom Buchanan), and their friend Jeff (Jordan Baker) joins their merry band. Jordan eventually meets Jacinta (~Jay Gatsby) at one of her parties. Jacinta...

"I guess she’s famous? Like she writes this famous blog?”

...is a fashion blogger, who is oddly enamored with Delilah. For no fucking reason, they start developing a relationship.

At times I’d catch them staring at each other with what I could only describe as longing. Something was developing between them that went beyond friendship.

Which proceed to an extent where Jacinta starts making dumb fucking romantic plans the way only silly pampered teenagers who can't see beyond their surgically-enhanced noses could.

“...and we’ll have a garden in the backyard to grow some of our food, and of course, if she wants to go to college, she can go to NYU or Columbia, and I’ll keep up with my blog and I’ll be much closer to the designers, being in New York instead of Florida.”

Honestly, the events in this book pretty much parallels The Great Gatsby, with similar characters. There's the girlfriend on the side, Misti (~Myrtle Wilson) a Jersey (or rather, Joisey) girl, and her husband Giovanni (~George Wilson). There are similar events. There are similar revelations.

You will find nothing new in this book besides the newfound urge to commit murder on the characters.

The Characters: No surprises here.

Naomi -> Nick :

“Um,” I tried again. “Isn’t—I mean—we usually go the other way. To East Hampton. When we drive there. I don’t mean you and me, because this is the first time I’ve met you. I just mean, you know, me and whoever is driving me. Which is usually someone I’ve never met before."

Meet Naomi, our narrator. She is an idiot.



She supposedly has straight A's, and "wants" to spend her summer studying for the SATs, but naturally she never fucking gets around to it. She's supposed to be Nick, and she is just the most boring fucking thing in the world. I can't really say much about her at all because she is so fucking dull. She acquires a boyfriend in the book, Jeff. Together, they are the dullest couple in the world.

Naomi is not terribly likeable, either. She hates her mom, and it's a kind of irrational teenage hate of which I can understand, but I can't sympathize. Her mother is a self-made woman. A millionaire who made her way up from the very bottom, and Naomi hates her mother the way only a rebellious, selfish daughter can. Everything her mother does is criticized, from the way she gets Botox, to her social-climbing ways, to her "cougar-like" ways, to how she doesn't eat. Get the fuck over it, your mother is funding your life and your education, you spoiled little bitch.

Jacinta -> Jay Gatsby :

“I heard she’s a distant cousin of Prince William."
“She’s definitely not American—you can tell she’s trying to hide an accent,” a boy in a peach bow tie said to his date (a boy with whom he was holding hands).
“She’s soooooo thin,” a tiny girl in pink ballet flats said to her friend. “I mean, like thinner than L.A. thin.”
“Her parents are dead,” a drunk guy announced to no one in particular. “She’s this orphan heiress.”

Jacinta is our mysterious Jay Gatsby. The wealthy girl with a secret. Gatsby, with all the artificiality and none of the charisma. Jay Gatsby is famous for being a millionaire, Jacinta is famous for being a fashion blogger on her website, thewanted.com. She's pretentious, we can smell her artificiality a mile away. She refers to everyone as "love," and there is zero depth to her whatsoever.

“Well, that’s the whole point, love,” Jacinta said. “Fun. I want everyone to have the most fun they’ve ever had in their entire lives. I want it to just be the most perfect party, the most perfect summer. For everyone.”

Her background is unclear (GASP), and there are really obvious hints that Jacinta's not who she says she is. The hints are as subtle as pairing red plaid leggings with a blue-and-white navy striped top.

“So where did you grow up?”
“Oh, everywhere. All over. Too many places to name,” she replied, and I immediately felt the ember of suspicion in my mind. Given my question, most people would proudly rattle off a list of cities to prove how well traveled they were. Either Jacinta was just humble or she was lying.

Hints. All over the fucking place. And our dumb-as-dirt narrator never fucking trusts her instincts.

Jacinta gets involved in a lesbian relationship, and there's no point to it, because there is absolutely no chemistry between her and the ditzy Delilah.

Delilah -> Daisy :

She is a walking, talking, living, sexy Barbie doll, if Barbie enjoyed skiing in Aspen, shopping in Paris, and smoking copious amounts of marijuana.

In The Great Gatsby, Daisy is a lovely, effervescent character. In this book, her version is less effervescent than well, constantly high. She may be beautiful and nice, but Delilah is as smart as pile of poop excreted from a Kardashian. Those quotes from the beginning of my review? That's from Delilah.

She's not a mean person at all. Delilah is truly nice, despite her depiction as a "Montauk Barbie," but there is zero personality. She is so rarely in the book that it felt like there was no point to her existence and no point to her relationship with Jacinta other than shock value.

Teddy -> Tom Buchanan :

Six feet tall with light brown hair, broad shoulders, and one of those heroic square jaws, Teddy was the kind of thick-necked handsome that starts to get paunchy in college unless it is continually worked out by university-level athletic competition.

Pretty similar to Tom. He's a former child-star who's also the heir to a wealthy oil family. He's a rude ass, a philanderer who cheats on the lovely Delilah with cocktail waitress Misti.

Jeff -> Jordan : I don't have a quote for him, because he's the dullest character in the world. I can't even remember what he looks like. He's completely inoffensive. I just can't remember him at all. In 10 years, after they get married, Jeff and Naomi will be one of those 20-something couples who walk their dog every morning in matching workout gear, have missionary sex on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, and watch Law & Order: SVU marathons on Monday nights before their once-weekly oral sex session (no swallowing).

Overall: Yawn. Skip it.

[Tiff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read The Great Gatsby quite a few times, so I'm coming at this knowing a lot about the source material. Because of that, this review is kind of different, and I'm breaking it down to the good, in-between, and not-so-good parts of this novel.


The Good: 

The writing, the setting, the mood: All of these things felt so much like the feeling of The Great Gatsby. The lavish parties. The lustre of the Hamptons, always with a dark current of tension and not quite right-ness. Benincasa nailed the mood of the original, and for me, that's the most important part of any writing by Fitzgerald (but especially Gatsby).

The relationship between Jacinta and Delilah: As dumb as this sounds for someone who has a masters in English with a concentration in modern fiction (meaning I read and studied Fitzgerald a LOT), the way that Benincasa approached the main relationship made my understanding of The Great Gatsby that much stronger. I really felt like I understood Gatsby and Daisy a lot more because of their counterparts, Jacinta and Delilah. In a lot of ways (and without spoilers), the reasons for their relationship and the way it's set up made WAY more sense in this book than it did in the original.

The uncliched LGBTQ-ness: One of the biggest surprises of the book for me (I hadn't read a synopsis) was the gender-swapping of Gatsby for Jacinta. As soon as I figured that out, I realized that the book would probably involve a girl-girl relationship (in fact, it involves two lesbian relationships). What I liked about this relationship was that the book wasn't focused on fact that it was a lesbian relationship - there was no coming out or fanfare about it. It simply was, and the characters reacted accordingly and appropriately.

The ending: The ending deviates from the original quite a bit, and I liked it a lot. I don't want to spoil anything, but suffice to say, it's a bit open-ended and it REALLY suits the material. I loved it. Reminded me of Cruel Intentions (click on the link if you don't mind having an idea of the ending...but that's all I'll say about it!).


The In-Between: 

The characters: While I thought Benincasa did an admirable job with making most of the characters feel authentic, I did not like the characters. But then...I don't know if I liked the characters in The Great Gatsby either. I like the original for it's stunning writing and mood - but I'm pretty sure that I hate the characters and I'm supposed to. In both the original and this retelling, pretty much everyone is a vapid, snobby socialite, people who play at life and can get out of anything because of daddy or mommy. And yet, they have this lustre that only comes with living that charmed life...in Great, I felt the same way, so I guess Benincasa did a good job making her characters just as unlikeable.


The Not-So-Good

The disconnect: The main character, Naomi, is supposed to be the everyman through which we enter the story. But for me, she felt a little shallow. She's honest about the fact that she starts out hating the Hamptons society and then as she slips further in, she realizes what it is to be accepted and gets a little wrapped up in it. That seems natural. But somehow, I never really got her, and as the only eyes that we see through, I think I needed to care about her more than I did.

The retelling: This, to me, was the biggest issue in this book: it just felt like TOO much of a retelling and not enough of a unique story. I guess I like my retellings to be more adaptation than straight retelling? Everything in The Great Gatsby, from the "eyes" to the heat of the day that ends in a car crash, to the green light, to the lavish parties...it all lined up just a little too perfectly in GREAT. I was left with a feeling that I'd just read,  a 2010 synopsis of The Great Gatsby, not that I'd just read a great book.


Bonuses: 

Gossip Girl Fashion: Jacinta is a fashion and party blogger, so it's obvious from the beginning that we're going to get some crazy outfits - and I loved it. Benincasa did a great job describing the outfits and, as a former fashion blogger, they always seemed right for her character and for that scene. And yeah, there's totally a white party in the book.


The Final Word: 

GREAT was an enjoyable read. It definitely felt a little too similar to The Great Gatsby for me, but it completely captured the mood and setting of Fitzgerald's original. I think this would be a great classroom read as a compare-and-contrast, and it's definitely interesting as an LGBTQ read that doesn't involve cliches. This is one for people who like unlikeable characters and a little big of tension and darkness in their reads.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

How you feel about Great is going to depend heavily on how you feel about The Great Gatsby. If you dislike the original, this is unlikely to change your mind. If you haven’t read the original, I can’t really help you because it’s impossible for me to separate this book from the source material, so I’m going to go with it’s a good story, you should check it out. If you love the original (the camp I hail from) then Great is pretty damn great.

.
(I had to and I'm not sorry)

Read the full review on Cuddlebuggery.

[BookChic Club]

Sounds good. But what is up with the low reviews/ratings already? Some Russian guy and then one with no review? WTF? Half-tempted to just do a 5 star now to make the overall rating better.

[Dahlia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this book without any specific expectations, and ended up enjoying it quite a bit. I do think its strength is in its execution as a retelling rather than its own story, and I'm not sure I'd recommend it to someone who isn't familiar with the source material. That said, having read THE GREAT GATSBY several times, I thought Benincasa did a clever and compelling job bringing it into the modern age, and I particularly loved that only some of the characters were gender-swapped, turning this into a F/F romance.

I have to admit that as a devotee of Gossip Girl, I found much of the slower-moving first half of the book had me distracted, thinking about how *that* series had so many Gatsby parallels - newcomer suddenly finds a way to use social currency to infiltrate the old money social circle to which his flighty blond love belongs - which in turn made GREAT feel pleasantly enough done but overly familiar even in its contemporary YA incarnation. It's in the second half, as the source material itself picks up, that GREAT does as well, and then truly shines.

Even knowing what was coming, as it *is* quite a close retelling, I still found myself completely hooked, compelled by the way Benincasa imposed the original characterizations on her created counterparts in a way that felt successfully contemporary and adolescent to me. (This does include what felt to me to be a rather flat main character in Naomi, but I can't even fault the author for this because just thinking about the original Nick puts me to sleep, so, well done?)

As for characters, while my heart did bleed for Jacinta, my favorite was definitely Skags. Possibly as a result of my having blocked Nick from my memory, I have no recollection of whether Naomi's best friend actually corresponded to a character from the original, but she might just be in my pantheon of favorite YA BFFs. I don't begrudge Naomi for getting distracted from their friendship over the course of the novel, leaving a large gap between communications, but I was very happy to have her back when she returns.

Having written a close retelling myself, I do have empathy for the issue of working so hard to stick to the source material that you miss the opportunity to take it further in its new incarnation, and I think GREAT suffers from that a bit; it doesn't do nearly as much on a social commentary front as it could have, and feels far more focused on carrying out Fitzgerald's story than creating a world of insight for Naomi and, by extension, the reader. The visceral discomfort and outsideriness and depth of observation just isn't there. That said, if you're familiar with the original work, I think you'll find a lot to appreciate here. And if you're not...get familiar. Then read this. Either way, everybody wins.

[Journey · Rating 2 out of 5]

so it wasn't bad, but it also wasn't.... great. i feel like this is a decent ya retelling of gatsby, and i liked jacinta. however, two main problems for me (these aren't really spoilers if you're familiar with gatsby and can draw some conclusions about what happens, but just in case):

1) let's talk about lesbians. the relationship with jacinta and delilah is very sudden and shallow, which, partly because it's not from either of their povs but still, you're not an old dude classic anymore, you're ya, and i want more! also, this is probably something i should have realized on my own, but a lesbian retelling creates A TON OF ANXIETY because we know what happens and i'm just waiting for the inevitable death of the lesbian (tm). and that's definitely HEIGHTENED on purpose when the boyfriend gets angry and starts throwing around the word "dyke."

1.5) speaking of, i thought it was cool at first to have naomi's bff back home be a (butch) lesbian but idk, it seems like it's actually just to exist in contrast to all these nice girly-girly lesbians? to be remembered as looking and dressing like a guy, to make disparaging comments about girliness, to tell naomi that jacinta and delilah aren't *really* together. but then she ~scores~ a cheerleader. blech.

2) things i hate: books that throw in references to feminism to make what a character is doing okay "is it okay to walk a feminist home?" "this feminist is okay with it, heehee" *later, oblig fight over 'pms' remark* how about instead of name-dropping feminism every chapter you show me it with your story? nahhhh

[Debbie · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a person who's read the Great Gatsby just a fee months ago, I honestly didn't have very high hopes for this one. Its not that I completely hated that novel but it just didn't wow me. This one did nothing but make me want to take a long ass nap. think about the worst teenagers you can. think about them partying and getting made at each other. that is all this book is. there's not hing deep about it, there's nothing even remotely moving and its all told in the most boring way (fucking info-dumping). I do not wish this novel on anyone who loved the great gatsby because this novel will piss you off.

full review to come.

[Hayden Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

More excited for this than I thought possible.

You guys,

THIS IS INSPIRED BY THE GREAT GATSBY.

I will read this.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

“You see I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me.” - The Great Gatsby

I’m so glad F. Scott Fitzgerald isn’t around to read this, because I don’t think he’d like it one little bit. When an author retells a classic, particularly a classic I love and cherish, I’m going to be hard on it. And unfortunately, this book was far from the bees knees.

It's an annual tradition for Naomi Rye; every summer she is forced to spend her summers in the Hamptons with her mother. Ann Rye is the domestic goddess queen of the moment, and she loves to alternately show Naomi off to all of her rich friends while making her life miserable in the process. So once again, Naomi is trooped off to New York. But this summer is different; she can feel it. It starts with Naomi's tentative friendship with Delilah Fairweather, Delilah’s boyfriend Teddy, and his best friend Jeff. Then the arrival of her mysterious next door neighbor Jacinta Trimalchio, founder of the popular blog The Wanted.com throws her even further into a loop. Soon, Naomi will be sucked into the world of the rich and fabulous, and she might not like what she sees.

”’That place at the beach with all your mother’s fancy friends- it’s another world. I’m not saying it’s a bad one. It’s just different. But whether you’re in this world or that one, you still have to live with yourself. Remember that you can’t be one person in one place and a totally different person in another place. Right is right and wrong is wrong, no matter where you are.”

A sizzling, contemporary retelling of F. Scott Fitzgerald's timeless classic The Great Gatsby, emotions come to head, secrets will be revealed and betrayal runs rampant under a scorched, hot Hampton summer.

A friend who read this book said that if you loved (or hated) The Great Gatsby, you'll hate this book. And boy was she right. While somewhat faithful the most of the important plot lines of the original novel, the way it was executed and the lesbian twist was not. Somehow, I don't think F. Scott Fitzgerald would be particularly happy with this either. Sure, the original novel has mindless characters you wanted to strangle because of their stupidity and a plot that seemed to trivial. But there was just something so magical about that time period, something about it that just swept you away. But this time around, there was nothing except poor little rich girls and boys snorting their cocaine, drinking themselves in a stupor (hey, at least the people in Gatsby were of legal drinking age, even though it was banned), and constant whining over problems that were insignificant. And THAT'S IT. You could count the romance, but And I appreciate the author's sense of humor she tried to bring into the novel, but it didn't work at all. It just made the characters seem more pretentious.

The characters in this book are terrifyingly dumb. The kids in remedial classes at my old high school were smarter than these bunch of rich kids. If I had to pick who was the dumbest of the bunch, I'd have a hard time choosing. So we'll start our way down from least dumb to most dumb.

Naomi Rye (Nick Carraway) wasn't TOO bad, but unappreciative and a too snarky for my tastes. The author herself is hilarious as a comedian, and she tried to impart some of her personal humor into Naomi. But it felt like Naomi wasn't really talking to us, the reader. She was more interested in talking to herself a lot of the time. Subconscious trains of thought would be floating out of her head and onto the page, and it seemed she forgot that she was really telling the story. And for a smart girl who is in all honors classes, makes straight A's and wants to go to Harvard, she's incredibly naïve. She wasn't the least suspicious of Jacinta at all. Hey, at least Nick kind of sort of knew Gatsby was a fake. And for the love of God, does she REALLY not know what a PI is?

”’What’s a PI?’ I asked, even though I didn’t really want to find out.”

Has she not watched any crime shows? Read any newspapers?

Jacinta Trimalcho (Jay Gatsby), Naomi's mysterious next door neighbor who doesn't have a bad bone in her body ,is this mysterious, pixie-like entity with her childlike innocence.

”What I remember most about Jacinta is her eyes- those enormous green orbs flashing joy and pain and longing from that impossibly delicate face. They were always so full of hope- irrational, astonishing, sometimes even irritating hope. ”

Jacinta Trimalcho doesn't have the same ring to it as Jay Gatsby, for starters. Too much of a tongue twister for one thing. The best way to describe Jacinta? A blonde pixie like version of Kim Kartrashain (without the ginourmous butt or watermelon boobs). All she does is post photos of herself on the internet for all her followers to see. And apparently that makes her rich. Exciting right? Snore... where's the exciting illegal activity? The author could have really capitalized on that and made it more reflective on modern times. Like, I don't know, illegal cocaine or drugs or something like that.

Jeff Byron (Jordan Baker) is Naomi's temporary boyfriend and Teddy's best friend. And he's a golfer. And he's excruciatingly dull, albeit condescending.

”I thought he had the peculiar feigned ease of a rich person talking to a less-than. It’s not condescension, exactly. It’s like there’s this knowledge hanging in the air that one person has more power than the other, and we’re supposed to pretend everything is nice and normal and equal, but in reality, lack or chance has showered benefits on one person that the other person couldn’t dream of.”

I don't know what Naomi saw in him that made him so desirable, but she must have seen something. I sure didn't. Other than the fact that he's Teddy's right hand wingman. The very least the author could have done is brought a little of the Hampton's scandal into his life. Like cheating at a golf game. Haven't heard of that one before :cough: Jordan Baker :cough:

Teddy Barrington (Tom Barrington) is Delilah's boyfriend and former child star of the TV series Oh, The Masons!. He is a hulking brute of a man like Tom was, but unlike Tom, he was about as terrifying as a baby panda bear.

”Teddy was the kind of thick-necked handsome that starts to get paunchy in college unless it is continually worked out by university-level athletic competition.”

I didn't feel scared or intimidated; I just shook my head at the amount of stupid it created to create Teddy.

And I've saved the dumbest for last, and that would be Delilah Fairweather (Daisy Buchanan).

”Delilah is a walking, talking, living, sexy Barbie doll, if Barbie enjoyed skiing in Aspen, shopping in Paris, and smoking copious amounts of marijuana.”

Daisy was dumb to the point that it was almost adorable. Delilah was dumb to the point that I wondered if we have failed as a human species.NOTHING that came out of her mouth was intelligent. She was a walking, talking life size Barbie doll. She was the Paris Hilton of the Hamptons, and if I ever had the displeasure of being her best friend, I would come back four times less intelligent than what I was before. She's that dumb.

Other characters include Misti (Myrtle), Giovanni (George), Naomi's mother (an airhead), and Skaggs (no idea who she was supposed to represent. Nick didn't have a close personal friend).

The lesbian romance plotline and the portrayal of lesbians as a whole really threw me off with this novel. In this instance, it felt contrived and just misplaced in a story like this. I thought Skaggs (the BFF of Naomi), was miscast as the best friend character and gave a bad rap to the LGBT community as a whole.

”Skags and I have been best friends since we were in kindergarten. She’s this boyish lesbian (she says she rocks the ‘boi’ look, but that spelling really annoys me.)”

The author write these subtle putdowns of lesbians and makes them into absolutely horrible stereotypes. Even the very last line of the novel is a putdown of the LGBTQA+ community. She may have thought that was humorous, but I feel that the portrayal of lesbian characters in this book was incredibly insulting.

But wait… there’s more. Because when you write such a bad retelling over one of my beloved classics, it’s going down. There are plenty more cons in this book, but here are my top five:

1)The Green Light: The green light in the original novel is supposed to represent the thing that Gatsby so desperately wants but feels is unreachable (Daisy). In this book, the green light is.... a computer light. And only appears one time. And Jacinta doesn’t reach out to it. The symbol that held such a powerful meaning in the original has now been reduced to a computer light. Tragic.

2)The Eckleburg eyes: Again, a symbol so crucially important in the first book, and it's been replaced with a billboard of a plastic surgeon. The Eckleburg eyes represent the fact that ‘God sees all’ and is a silent witness to the events of the novel. How on earth do you feel replacing those eyes with the billboard of a plastic surgeon (operating on someone’s breasts), is an improvement? And again, it barely gets any time in the novel. WTH?

3)The Romance: Let's talk about Jacinta and Delilah, shall we?

”Something was developing between them that went beyond friendship. It was like they got high off each other, and every mutual encounter was another chance to feel some sort of pleasure that was very specific to their union.”

I appreciate what the author was trying to do, but it failed miserably. Why? There was absolutely zero chemistry between the two. They make Bella and Edward look like the Couple of the Year. My posters of Benedict Cumberbatch, Theo James, and Dylan O'Brien would have a better three-way makeout session than these two. It was completely unnecessary to even include that plot device. If the author was planning to do a retelling, I would have recommended to not to the lesbian twist in the first place. And if the author WAS going to keep the lesbian plot twist, than at LEAST give us some chemistry between the two lovers. Not to mention the whole backstory between the Delilah and Jacinta and how they knew each other made no sense whatsoever. Is she trying to tell me they've loved each other since they were five? It just felt so out of place.

4)The Confrontation: Not nearly dramatic enough and done very poorly, in my opinion. It had no excitement and not nearly as much drama.

5) The Ending: What the fuck was that ending all about? We did not get the dramatic final showdown of the original. Instead, we got Jacinta committing suicide. WHY, BENINCASA?!!! In hindsight, the plot was so devoid of romance that the jealous lover thing wouldn't have worked out, but still.

I was highly disappointed with this book. I think F. Scott Fitzgerald would have been disappointed with this book. Heck I think even Gatsby would have been let down with this book. There were just so many things that went wrong here. With dumb as cardboard characters, a twist that wasn't necessary, and a romance that felt out of place, this book will not achieve the greatness of it's classic counterpart (no pun intended).

[Giselle · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Electronic Advanced Reader Copy was provided by the publisher via Edelweiss for review. Quotes have been pulled from an ARC and may be subject to change.

Naomi Rye has a famous baker mother and when she ends up spending her summer vacation in East Hampton with the rest of the wealthy affluent children, she realizes that a wealthy lifestyle truly doesn’t make a great person.

This is a wonderful retelling of one of my favourite classic books The Great Gatsby with a modern and LGBT twist. I really enjoyed how Sara included the entire cast of characters and switched them around. Making Gatsby, Jacinta instead. The contemporary setting also worked very well and I thought it still held true to the Roaring Twenties theme because teens do party with elaborate ways too. I thought the pacing was on par even though there were many instances that an explanation for things was deemed unnecessary.

As for the characters know and love they’re all there. Even Naomi who is the main protagonist who sees everything from the sidelines. Who isn’t the same as them all, who haven’t been brought up with such lavish luxuries. You are transported into the lifestyles of the fabulously wealthy. The drama that was evident in Great Gatsby is also touched upon in Great as well. I liked the green light symbolism that was kept in the book too. I really enjoyed reading this take on the classic and I hope others can learn to appreciate the classic as well as the retelling. The lesbian twist was also a wonderful touch and it worked just as well. I also liked how Jacinta is a blogger who made a name for herself.

Overall, a wonderful Great Gatsby retelling set in modern day times.

[Jay · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know how to start with this book because I seriously have no feelings towards it. Great was such a weird book.. with the way the story progressed and the actual plot line. It is only 270 pages and almost 200 of those pages felt like a total filler for me. I was waiting for the actual point of the novel but I only really got there towards the end of the book when all hell and psychos broke loose. They are saying Great is a retelling of The Great Gatsby.. I was initially interested in checking out The Great Gatsby but I'm not sure I will right now because the storyline was seriously screwed up.. in a bad way. The main protagonist, Naomi is a child of divorced parents. Her mom lives in East Hampton ($$) while her dad is a high school coach. Every summer she spends it with her mom and this summer is no exception. She goes to East Hampton, meets Delilah and starts hanging out with her and Jeff, a guy who is interested in her. Then we've got Naomi's neighbor who seems to be creepily obsessed with Delilah, but for some reason everyone doesn't seem to notice it. We've also got Naomi's stereotypical homosexual friend, and literally every time she enters the picture we are reminded of that. Do we really need a reminder? I don't know why she didn't point out every time Jeff entered the picture that he is straight. I just don't get that. Also, I was not a fan of how everything went down the last 30 pages. There are 270 pages in this book.. why would the author do that? And Naomi.. Naomi was so annoyingly trustworthy and naive.. I disliked how she kept horrible secrets of people and wanted the bad person to redeem him/herself by confessing when we know that won't happen. Grr.. I really really disliked how everything was forced in this book.. from the 90210 luxurious life that we are always reminded of like "OOH this costs 5,000$, they are RICH" yes.. we get that.. the first 10 times it was mentioned to how all the characters seemed fake and stereotypical. I do not recommend this book to anyone.

[Jolene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expected to be very annoyed by this retelling of The Great Gatsby, but I found it quite charming. I think the characterization--especially of Delilah (Daisy) and Jeff (Jordan)--could actually be clarifying for a high school student reading Gatsby.

The main flaw is that some of the narrator's voice a bit tryhard, which pulls you out from the story, but the parallels to Gatsby's plot and Fitzgerald's writing style are subtle enough to surprise--and delight--you. I looked forward to finding them. Even Jacinta's quirk of calling everyone "love" grew on me. At first I found it forced and annoying, but then I remembered that it's SUPPOSED to sound forced and annoying. "Old Sport" sounded forced and annoying, too; it's just that I've read it so many times that it seems natural now.

Overall, it was a cute read. I'm excited to tell my students about it (but only after they've read most of Gatsby).

[av · Rating 1 out of 5]

BAD. I cannot stress how much I despised this book. There was no balance between the parts that called back to the Great Gatsby and original themes. The main character is nothing like Nick Carroway. Some important themes of Gatsby are completely missing and there were parts that were too obvious a nod back. Benincasa’s attempt to write social anxiety and LGBTQ+ characters and allies is abysmal. There’s really no chance to look deeper into this story because everything is given to us at face value. We don’t get to truly analyze or wonder if Benincasa is going to change something or keep it the same. This book is so slow, there is so much unnecessary filler garbage. Character arcs all fall flat, there is no growth. The ending is the best part because there was no more book after that. I only finished this book because it was required reading, no part of me enjoyed this. This reads like a poorly written Wattpad novel. This gets one star because for some reason you can’t give negative stars. I wouldn’t recommend this book to my worst enemy, it was painful.

[Zoe Pramuk · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was so poorly written. There were inconsistencies in every chapter. The connections to the original source material, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, were nonexistent. There was no character development, and any relationship growth that happened just ended how they were in the beginning. There was no closure in the end and I just hated reading it.

[Courtney · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not Great at all. The amount of inconsistencies between this book and The Great Gatsby make it very hard to enjoy. The writing style sucked soooo much. If your are going to do a modern retelling of an amazing story make sure you actually know what you are talking about.

[Jenni Arndt · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a weird book this was. I have to be honest and preface everything I am about to say by letting you know that I have never read The Great Gatsby. I know nothing of what it is about, all I know is that Leonardo DiCaprio recently starred in a movie version about it that I have not seen. Naturally I won’t be able to compare GREAT to the source material at all but I can talk about the book for what it is. So what was it? Well, it was a contemporary tale about richie rich Hamptons kids who use “summer” as a verb and it had little vines of mystery snaking into the story here and there. I had fun reading it, but I am not too certain that I necessarily liked much of what I read.


Naomi has spent her summers with her mother in the Hamptons ever since her parents got divorced. Living in Chicago with her father she leads a regular life; her dad is a high school basketball coach and they don’t lead the most lavish of lifestyles. Everything changes when she goes away for the summer, she flies in helicopters, eats at the fanciest of restaurants and lives in her mother’s giant house. In the beginning of the book Naomi is pretty much anti-anything-to-do-with-her-mother and I liked that about her. She went to this fancy place and didn’t care what anyone thought, she stayed true to herself and was above all the bullshit. But somewhere in the novel that changed, she did a complete 180. She started wearing Marc Jacobs, getting into vehicles with drunk people and dating a guy that was an ass. I think that was one of my main issues with this novel. Naomi’s character began to contradict who she was presented to be so often, it was a constant back and forth with this girl and I felt like I never got a feel for who she was. One could argue that this book was about her delving into that life and realizing that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, but she was thinking one thing and doing another so it just felt like lacklustre character building to me.

While on the topic of character building I want to talk about Naomi’s best friend from back home, Skags (yeah, why would anyone choose to be called that, right?) She wasn’t that prevalent in the story, Naomi would just call here now and then and was constantly thinking about how she would react to things that were going on. What bothered me about her addition to the story was the fact that I felt like all that defined her was that she was a lesbian. I’m not sure how I felt about the novels handling of homosexuality at all, it seemed like it was something people did for fun? I don’t even really want to go into this because I don’t represent the group that was being misrepresented here at all but every time Naomi thought something about someone being gay or other people said stuff about it, it really rubbed me the wrong way. Now, this isn’t usually something that bugs me and maybe it was just because so much of the book had already bugged me but looking back on my reading experience with GREAT this was a real sore spot for me.

Not much happens in the novel until the last 30 pages really. What kept me going was my fascination with reading stories/watching movies & TV shows about the rich and famous. I love seeing the drama unfold and I knew there was something really weird going on with Jacinta from the very beginning. The big grand finale left me underwhelmed as we are left still not really knowing who to trust. I don’t think this is one you should be sad about missing this spring, if you really want to read it go for it, but I’m sure there are much better books on your TBR.

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For more of my reviews, visit my blog at Xpresso Reads

[Krys · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great is a 2014 Young Adult release by Sara Benincasa. It is a contemporary retelling of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. While I am far from an ardent fan of the original story I was curious to see what could be done with it in a modern setting. I’m very pleased with this adaptation. It was a fantastic one-sitting read.

17-year-old Naomi Rye is the daughter of a baked goods mogul Anne Rye(!). Normally she lives with her father in Chicago but she is spending her summer with her mother in the Hamptons. Naomi is determined to study for the SATs but her mother has other plans for her and encourages and berates her to widen her limited social circle. Being a social climber herself Anne points Naomi in the direction of Delilah Fairweather, a daughter of her own acquaintance. Delilah is dating Teddy, a former child actor who is seeing another girl on the side; Misti. And through the group Naomi meets Jeff, a boy she becomes very close with. Naomi is unused to the murky social dynamics of the privileged and the wealthy and can only barely navigate the unruly waters. This all changes with the appearance of Jacinta; an eccentric fashion blogger who moves in next to Naomi. Jacinta is obsessed with meeting Delilah, who is a budding fashion model, and she begs Naomi to introduce them. Before she knows it Naomi has agreed to bridge the gap between the two socialites.

For those who have read The Great Gatsby this formula is familiar. What I appreciate about retellings, and what Benincasa has done spectacularly well, is when an author frames the story with the original skeleton but then tweaks and twists everything else. And Benincasa has done just that. The simple decision to change the genders of a couple of principal characters works remarkably well. It adds a dynamic to the original content that makes more sense to a modern reader who may not understand the gravity of the social structure from the period. We have to remember that the source novel was written in the 20′s and things were different then. People were different. It’s not enough to show people sitting around drinking to imply them having a “wild” time. You have to go bigger with the content to make today’s reader understand. You have to throw in a social element that still holds weight – and in this day and age two women attracted to one another (sadly) still has the gravitas to invigorate the story.

At times this story reads like satire, but when it does its the best kind of satire. Benincasa hits upon the major themes of The Great Gatsby with a deft touch of both humour and heart. She nails the story and she achieves something that even Fitzgerald did not – sympathetic characters. Everyone in this story is a shell. Everyone has something that they are hiding. We watch these husks meandering through this story. In the past it evokes nothing. In this book it evokes everything and I am so happy that Benincasa got it right.

There are a couple of other key plot point changes that also work well, but I won’t go into them because they’re spoilery. Rest assured that Benincasa manages to capture the essence of this novel in a brilliant way that translates well to a contemporary audience. It’s one of those books for the fans of April Lindner, Marissa Meyer, and Diana Peterfreund… fans who like to see the stories told completely differently.

5 out of 5 stars.

- review courtesy of www.bibliopunkkreads.com

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huge thank you to the publisher for letting me read an advanced copy of this. I'm writing this honest review to say thank you!

DISCLAIMER. I have not seen or read The Great Gatsby in any form so don't hate me or think I'm lame or ~uneducated~ or whatever. It was just never something that was forced upon me in school and never something that I felt the need to read on my own. THAT SAID I cannot compare this to the original so I have NO IDEA how it holds up as a remake. This review will be about this book and the story that I read ALONE.

I love 'rich white people problems' books. I love 'ugly-pretty-people' books. I love especially love 'tragic, dramatic, rich teens with rich people problems' books. So this was perfect for me. DON'T ASK ME WHY I LIKE WHAT I LIKE I JUST DO. So this fit the bill. A normal girl from Chicago with a super rich, famous mom who lives in the Hampton's, goes to spend the summer there just like she does every year. Naomi kinda hates her mom and the life she leads and the people she's around. But this summer is different. Next door to Naomi's mother's house lives Jacinta, a gorgeous young blogger who blogs about the rich and gorgeous teens of Manhattan. And Jacinta drags Naomi into her world with hugs and kisses and lies. Naomi usually avoids these people all summer, hanging out in the fringes, pretending to get along, just to get it all over with. But this summer she joins their fun, their parties, and even their scandals until, of course, tragedy strikes.

This book is short, but the pacing is perfect. There are just enough parties, just enough drama, just enough sweet moments and sad moments and heartbreaking moments. I ate this up like bad reality TV. I never really LIKED any of the characters, but they all served their purposes. And I did like Naomi. I've seen a lot of reviews bashing her for slut-shaming, but I never really saw it. I saw a typical girl-out-of-water reacting to her surroundings. And she called others out on their bad behavior, which I really liked. I also liked her best friend, who is depicted as a ~stereotypical butch lesbian~ but I think it worked. I think these types of things are difficult to write because you have to be so damn PC all of the time and then if you're TOO PC you get accused of stereotyping. So yes, Skags was a bit of a stereotype, but I thought she was also balanced out enough that she WASN'T at the same time. And I liked how Skag's kinda acted like Naomi's conscience whenever Naomi's own moral compass started to spin in the wrong direction.

I also really enjoyed the fashion blogging aspect of this book. I used to be a fashion blogger and sometimes I really miss it. The way that blogging was used in this was pretty well done and I liked the ending, it seemed to fit Jacinta's character very well.

This reminded me a bit of We Were Liars in subject matter and tone. So I think if you enjoyed that book you'll like this. I actually almost didn't read this because I had no interest in The Great Gatsby, but I decided to pick this up at the last minute and I'm SO glad I did. Def. don't let this pass you by if you like scandalous stories about the rich and famous.

[Stellan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started out really enjoying this one - loved that Benincasa included homages to Fitzgerald such as starting the novel with advice from the narrator's father and of course the use of the name Trimalchio. In terms of characters, Teddy especially stood out to me as EXACTLY what Tom Buchanan would be like as a contemporary, douchebag teen boy. Jacinta and Delilah, on the other hand, nowhere near captivated me as much as they are intended to - at least, to the extent that they represent Daisy and Gatsby.

As an intense fan of the original, I was excited to hunt for more clever nods to Gatsby as I read on. Unfortunately, the coy, deftly-inserted references seemed to grow thin as the story moved forward. Especially in the book's second half, I noticed that key scenes were borrowed almost directly from the original, when I'd been hoping for a different telling of events resulting in same consequences and tensions.

In taking on a classic such as Gatsby, obviously reader expectations will be high, especially those who have already read Fitzgerald's signature work. I suppose I'm just a tad too picky to take Great for what it is!

As a side note, I was hoping for more of an LGBTQ presence in this book, based on what I'd heard. As a self-proclaimed member of her schools LGBTQ-Straight Alliance and as someone with a very close friend who falls within the queer spectrum (bestie Skags!), Naomi reads more as disoriented-straight-girl than "ally" in terms of how she regards Jacinta and Delilah's relationship, as well as that of Skags and Jenny. Her general outlook seems dismissive at times, and otherwise indifferent or confused. On the whole I didn't feel like the inclusion of these characters and their relationships provided a grounded sense of diversity or representation in this particular book. It was easy to skim over and remain disengaged with their dynamics, be it between each other or between themselves and Naomi.

[Jen Ryland (jenrylandreviews & yaallday)]

It takes guts to do a retelling of a book that just about defines "Great American novel." While Great does have its strengths -- the gender-switching of many of the characters and the LGBT romance -- I'm one of those people who adores The Great Gatsby. For me, teen angst can never replace the exquisite blend of hope, melancholy and despair that runs through the original story.

I always like checking out choices made in a retelling. At first, I was worried about things like Nick Carraway becoming Naomi Rye -- as in caraway seeds and rye bread? Oy! -- and about the green light at the end of the dock becoming the glowing green light of Jacinta's laptop.

As I already mentioned, I also don't think the Gatsby set-up works nearly as well with teens as adults, since much of the underlying emotion of The Great Gatsby has to do with regret and longing for the past. For that, Great substituted superficial teen drama set against a backdrop of Hamptons excess, which a) has been done a lot in YA and b) didn't convey a fraction of the emotional weight of the original.

That said, there were things about this book that really worked for me. Turning Daisy and Jay's ill-fated love story into a fragile, furtive romantic relationship between two teenage girls works surprisingly well. I just wish the rest of the story had been as poignant. Turning war-weary Nick into a bland goth girl from the Midwest with a Martha Stewart wannabe mother and Jay Gatsby into a fashion blogger with a trust fund didn't quite do it for me.

Not sure if people familiar or unfamiliar with the source material will enjoy this more, but I tend to think the former. If you haven't read the original, what are you waiting for? And if you have, give this a try and see what you think.

[Erica Alyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay it wasn't great.. I knew it was a story about Great Gatsby but it really was a retelling with a little modern twist. It wasn't enough for me. It is hard to redo a classic, and I may be picky because that is one of my favorite books, but I wish it didn't stick so much to the story line and became more of its own book.

There was no air of mystery or suspense because you know what is going to happen. I didn't find much symbolism like I did in the first book.

I don't want to compare them but when it retells the story I kind of have to.

There were certain themes that were overdone. We know the are homosexual characters which is find but it doesn't need to be mentioned so much it was a little over they top.

All in all a good book but not great.

[Jana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just absolutely loved it! This is a retelling of the Great Gatsby, with a girl taking Gatsby's place and an LGBT+ element. I really loved it for those reasons, but also because it was a retelling in the way that it was obvious what it was inspired by and if you've read the original work you can predict some major plot points, but in the end Sara Benincasa took Gatsby as an inspiration and formed her own story, and despite knowing what was to come, it made me emotional nonetheless and I ended up with a lot of feelings after finishing this book.

[Laura Martinelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Great Gatsby is one of the few books from high school that I actually liked reading even after we analyzed it half to death. Maybe because it’s the most accessible and uncomplicated of Fitzgerald’s books. Or that the narrative of desire and the noveau riche in America’s mobile class is still relevant in the current economic situation.

When I found out that there was going to be a YA retelling of The Great Gatsby, my immediate thought was “Well, at least they can’t screw it up as much as Baz Luhrmann did?” Which is saying something, because the 2013 film is half spot-on (particularly with the visuals) and half heaping hot mess that sails so far away from the point. But the idea of a YA retelling of this book did hold some interest for me, plus the fact that nearly all the roles except for Daisy were going to be gender-flipped. Jay Gatsby is now the mysterious blogger Jacinta Trimalchio (I see what Benincasa did there); Nick is now Naomi Rye, a Chicagoan girl who’s stuck summering with her wanna-be socialite mother, and so on and so forth. Even the setting has been updated to the much more current East Hamptons.

And admittedly, I was really hesitant when I started this book, thinking that it could either be a half decent retelling that tries, or a hot mess that just fails. And while there are ridiculous moments at certain points, it’s more because Benincasa is replacing the most well-known images of the book with their modern day updates. Like the iconic green light in here is now the charger of Jacinta’s laptop. Or even more narmatastic, the All-Seeing Eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleberg has now been replaced with the leering gaze of Doctor Zazzle, Plastic Surgeon. The original symbolic billboard was already anvilicious, and the replacement in Great only makes it more ridiculous.

That said. This is a lot better than I expected or even had thought when I first started reading the book. Once the plot moved into the meat of the Gatsby story, Benincasa gives her characters a life and motivations of their own, and actually manages to update the story quite skillfully for the 21st century. Making Jacinta into a lesbian with a desire to be reunited with Delilah Fairweather gives it an even more interesting angle, although problematic elements arise given what novel that’s been updated.

The beginning of the book does take its time to find its footing and pacing, which is where a lot of the more awkward parallels with the original novel happen. Once Naomi meets the enigmatic Jacinta, the plot moves forward more naturally, instead of trying to match Fitzgerald’s plot points one for one. There are still points where certain moments are updated or changed to fit the updated setting and the change of characters. (Gatsby’s beautiful shirts are changed to Birkin purses, for example.) What does help is that Naomi does have a subplot of her own, dealing with her mother’s social climbing in to the East Hampton set and pushing Naomi to be a part of it as well. Naomi is already more cynical of the upper classes than her Jazz Age inspiration, but she’s still easily charmed by Jacinta, and becomes more curious about the tangled past between Jacinta and Delilah.

Although the relationship between Jacinta and Delilah does come off as problematic in regards to portraying LBGTQ characters, it does work within the setting. I do really wish that Jacinta’s sexuality was further explored, as opposed to being obsessed with Delilah, but given the nature of the book, I understand why Jacinta’s history isn’t fully delved into. Delilah’s characterization throughout the plot is really well done. Being that she’s the daughter of a conservative US senator, Delilah is charming and polite to Naomi, and when her true colors begin to show, we see how ruthless Delilah can be towards Jacinta.

But what’s interesting about Jacinta’s and Delilah’s relationship is that Benincasa keeps the class division at the forefront of the plot. The idea of the newly rich being considered as trying to buy their way into the upper class may not seem important nowadays, but it is actually still a thing. And especially when you get into the very old money attitudes of the Hamptons set.

It’s not even with Jacinta’s past and how her family made their fortune, it’s sprinkled in throughout with the other characters. Naomi’s mother changed her last name from Gryzkowski to Rye to fit in better. Misti and Giovanni, two country club staff members, are from Staten Island and are regularly abused by Teddy and his friends. Jeffrey’s (the Jordan stand-in) father is a white owner of a hip-hop label, and his Jewish background is seen as funny and charming by his friends. Nowadays, we tend to think of these things as antiquated and only acceptable in period novels, not a book that talks about fashion bloggers and cell phones. Even though there is a major discussion of the class division in the United States going on right now, there’s probably teenagers who don’t realize that this sort of thing still exists. Even Delilah, who starts off charming and being nice to Naomi, nearly ends up with getting away with involuntary manslaughter. (This is one benefit to setting The Great Gatsby in the modern day—there’s more of the idea that the upperclass characters will get punished for their actions. We never see the fallout, but it’s unlikely that Delilah will be able to take off to Europe until the whole investigation blows over.)

There are some moments in the book that don’t work—as I said, most of the times Benincasa goes one-for-one against the original book, it draws a lot of attention to the obvious parallels. But I think that Benincasa does an admirable job of not only updating a work of the modern –era literary canon (especially as one as iconic), but also recasting the characters to the versions here. It’s a fascinating exploration of not only the characters, but present-day attitudes of the class divide. And giving Naomi more of a plotline rather than just blithely observing and commenting on the hypocrisies of the upper class adds a lot more to her character and endears her more to the reader. Although the pacing is off—the beginning feels awkward, and the ending’s a little too rushed and too neatly tied up—Benincasa’s prose is still strong enough to engage and pull the reader in. It only took me a day and a half to get through the whole thing, because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. Even knowing all of the plot points and reveals, I wanted to see how they were going to work in this setting.

This had the potential to be a complete mess of a book—an ambitious mess, I’ll grant you, but a mess all the same. I’m really happy that it wasn’t, and I really enjoyed it, despite the problematic elements of the main relationship. (At the same time, though…look, when you make the Daisy character sympathetic, you’re missing the point of the original book, Luhrmann.) And by drawing attention to the economical discussion rather than solely focusing on the romantic relationship, I think Benincasa is able to hold her own in regards to this being a YA retelling. I really enjoyed reading this (despite the occasional groan or eye-roll), and the fact that Great was much better than what I was expecting going in definitely deserves a toast.

A digital review copy was provided by Edelweiss.

[Carlie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a laughing stock compared to The Great Gatsby. The author didn’t portray LGBTQIA+ characters good at all. The book was poorly written, had many plot wholes, and the characters were flat and had no development. You can clearly tell this is Benincasa’s first YA novel.

[Alexa (Alexa Loves Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

FIRST THOUGHTS:

You know that terrible things will happen, but you just cannot turn away. Great twist on The Great Gatsby.

REVIEW:

It is absolutely fascinating sometimes to read stories infused with heavy drama and intense emotions, enveloped by a heady debate about the reality of it all. Great, a contemporary YA retelling of The Great Gatsby, delivered on all three fronts. I was riveted to the page, even though I knew what was bound to happen by the end of the novel. Sara Benincasa has succeeded in breathing fresh life into a classic tale, sweeping me up completely with her debut novel.

Benincasa stuck closely to the main details of the original tale, particularly with the character profiles and the series of events. I, having seen The Great Gatsby reboot within the last year, knew exactly what would happen and to whom. This in no way diminished my interest in this story, proving that there is something essentially interesting about watching what happens to these characters, entitled and persuasive and destructive as they were. In fact, drawing similarities between the original and this novel was fun to do!

This is not to say that there is no originality to Great, because there is.

Naomi Rye is our central character, the girl who feels out of sorts leaving her full-time home in Chicago with her dad to spend summer in the Hamptons with her famous mother. Uncomfortable with her mother’s need to be a part of the elite crowd in their community, Naomi usually shies away from any interaction of that sort and buries herself in books. But this summer is different, because she has a new neighbor in the amazing house next door: Jacinta.

Jacinta is a fashion blogger, well-known for her lavish lifestyle and her odd eccentricities. She’s the kind of gal everyone feels like they should know or make an effort to be known by, compounded by the general niceness she displays. She only has eyes for Delilah Fairweather, however, one of the rich, elite, model-debutante girls of the Hampton crowd. Delilah is also a nice girl, but riddled with insecurity, passion and a delicate presence. Delilah is involved with a boy named Teddy, who is one of her crowd.

These are the main players in the story, but really, it’s mostly about Naomi. She wasn’t expecting her summer to be any different from the ones in her past, but it winds up being just that. She starts to change a little bit to fit in with this summer crowd, everything from the way she dresses to what she does with her time. It’s a little unnerving because she feels like she needs to be different to be accepted. But then again, who of us hasn’t felt that way before?

There’s something tragic about this change in her, honestly, and you could just sense that nothing good was going to come out of it. At first, it seems like it might be wrong to think so: she gains a boyfriend (one of Teddy's friends), gets invited to all the parties and hang out with Jacinta and Delilah, and everything seems peachy. But things start falling apart when Jacinta and Delilah start to shut her out, her boyfriend shows some less than desirable qualities and her mother continues to drive her crazy with her insanely business-focused mindset.

Obviously, there’s a ton of drama here because everything that happens in the original story also happens in some form or fashion in Great. Even though I knew that it was going to get crazy, I still held out hope that it wouldn’t – naïve, positive person that I am. Still, there’s something about the train wreck of Jacinta’s story (as seen through Naomi’s eyes) that you cannot turn away from. Call it a morbid curiosity, call it naïve hope – it is what it is. This kept me glued to the pages until the early hours of the morning. How exactly does it end? Well, you’ll have to read and find out, won’t you?

I liked Great, because it toed the line between retelling and reinvention. Pulling recognizable elements and themes from The Great Gatsby, Benincasa has managed to create a novel that’s entirely her own too. Interesting details (like Jacinta’s fashion blog! And Naomi’s mother being a food personality! The fact that there were even parents involved at all! Naomi’s lesbian best friend from Chicago, who sadly doesn't wind up playing much of a role!) managed to make Great fascinating. It’s a well-done YA contemporary, and makes me wonder what else Sara Benincasa will let loose into the world of books in the future.

{If you liked this review, check out Alexa Loves Books for more!}

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Folks, this right here is how you re-tell great literature.

My favorite classic that I ever read was the Great Gatsby. Admittedly the last time I read it was in high school, which was a long time ago, and the specific details escape me now, but the general tone of the novel stuck with me. Sara Benincasa did a fabulous job drawing great parallels between the classic novel and her re-telling of Great Gatsby.

Naomi has been sent to the Hamptons to “summer” once more with her mother, who is on the cusp of breaking into mega-fame as a famous baker. She hates summering in the Hamptons and she doesn’t particularly care for her mother, who is mostly just a social-climber more concerned with Naomi making the right kind of friends than good grades. Naomi prefers her down-to-earth life with her basketball coach father in Chicago (and I don’t blame her).

But this summer proves to be different: she becomes closer with Delilah Fairweather, daughter to a congressman and socialite, Delilah’s boyfriend Teddy Barrington and Teddy’s friend Jeff His-last-name-escapes-me. The four of them sort of become the odd double-daters: Delilah and Teddy fight in restaurants, while Naomi watches uncomfortably and Jeff pokes fun at the situations.

Enter Jacinda Trimalchio (nice nod to one of Fitzgerald’s original title ideas!), fashion blogger extraordinaire. Jacinda is mysterious, wealthy and without her parents, a sure-to-be-hit in that town. She’s also very interested in getting to know Delilah Fairweather, and while she seemed very nice throughout the entire novel, it was obvious she had an obsessive quality.

There is so much in this story that depicts the darker side of being wealthy and rich: people want to know you, they want to get close to you, you date individuals based on their pedigrees and not because you particularly like them. GREAT showed rich talking down to the poor, even when they were being nice. I don’t mean this to sound preachy at all, but the protagonist’s point of view called out often how she noticed these things. And if I remember correctly, these themes were in Gatsby as well.

The characters are all vibrant, not flat, and when I think of them, I think of someone I would see on an outrageous TV show or movie, somewhere I would say to myself, “this can’t be real life.” But things like “Hinge at the waist!” mockery does happen. Ultimately, the darker side prevails, which you can guess if you’ve read Gatsby. It was fascinating to see the parallels, and the LGBT twist as well.

GREAT is fab. Even when I loathed the characters, I still really liked them, because Benincasa writes them so well. And I think I’d drown myself in a lazy river pool if I had a mother like Naomi’s. Between the parties, Naomi’s self-reflections as she gets sucked further into the rich-kid world while acquiescing to her mother, the drama between Delilah, Teddy and Jacinda, I just couldn’t put it down. I did want to know what happened “after”, but I guess that’s sometimes just left to the readers’ imaginations.

Well done, Sara Benincasa.

[Collin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even as I was reading the last few pages, I struggled with how I was going to rate this book. As I do ratings, it wasn't quite bad enough for the "ugh" factor usually implied with a two-star rating, but it's not quite high enough on the "could potentially read again" scale to go for a three-star.

So I opted for Goodreads's definition of a two-star rating: "it was ok."

And I guess it was okay. But it wasn't good.

After being really excited for a retelling of The Great Gatsby, I was let down by Great's lack of piercing insight, careful examination, confused system of morality, opaque symbolism, and compelling writing style. Is that all a lot to ask of a YA sort-of romance novel? Um, yeah. But that's the baggage you get when you try to retell The Great McFricking Gatsby.

Great was... muffled. It was too tangled up in following the bare plot of TGG without ever injecting the new story with a life of its own. Things that work the first time around don't work the second time just because they happen almost exactly the same way.

Double standards also irritate me. Teddy: definitely an a-hole, definitely wrong for cheating on Delilah. But Delilah cheated on him. She was also doing a wrong thing. She didn't deserve to get off the hook for that, to be rooted for.

Skag was really annoying. Just really, really frustratingly portrayed as Manic Pixie Dream Lesbian Best Friend - the kind of best friend that says a-hole stuff to their friend but gets away with it because she's the only friend the MC has. She reminded me a little of Vee from Hush, Hush in her levels of "why are you here"-ness.

The ending was... not good? Abrupt? Weird? A little disrespectful?

Through the writing of this review, I have come to realize that two stars is exactly what I want to give this book, both by Goodreads's standards and by mine.

[Liviania · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confession: I don't really like THE GREAT GATSBY. I find Scott Fitzgerald's prose overly self-conscious and I found the love story off putting. But when I heard about a lesbian YA retelling, I couldn't resist. GREAT transplants the original Jazz Age novel to the modern Hamptons and keeps the plot almost wholesale while eliding or confusing some of the themes.

I didn't expect the original themes to be kept intact; I expected the modern, lesbian update to play around and perhaps comment on them. I didn't feel any commentary though, just a sort of remainder of rich vs. poor, upper class vs. low, without any sort of old money vs. new money remaining. Narrator Naomi's new money mother is pretty accepted in the Hamptons, as is Naomi herself.

GREAT also didn't feel like it lived up to the promise of being a lesbian THE GREAT GATSBY. Naomi, the narrator, is straight. GREAT takes almost half the novel before Jacinta (Gatsby) and Delilah (Daisy) meet. When they do, it is a case of obsessed meeting self obsessed. Even the characters point out that it isn't much of a love story. Neither Jacinta nor Delilah like or love anything about who the other really is. At least there was some sense of requited love in THE GREAT GATSBY. The main change Delilah's bisexuality and Jacinta's lesbianism add to the novel is a chance for Teddy (Tom) to add homophobia to his suite of unattractive attributes.

It's hard for me to judge GREAT on its own. As I said, I don't like THE GREAT GATSBY, but I thought I might enjoy something playing off of it in a modern way. I felt like GREAT kept most of the elements I didn't like and made changes that just made me less likely to dislike the novel. Jay Gatsby might have been a little nuts, but he was also a force of nature. Jacinta Trimalchio is definitely a little off, and I just wanted someone to help her find a good therapist. Delilah's sole redeeming quality is that she's nice to Naomi.

I did like Sara Benincasa's style. I'd be willing to try a different book by her. I'd even read the book about Skags, Naomi's butch best friend back home in Chicago, romancing the head cheerleader over the summer. That rarely referenced sub-subplot intrigued me far more than a rehashing a novel that never quite manages to make me thing that the updates to the original work. GREAT was a touch too faithful, instead of finding its own voice.

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very early review! Click here -
(Source: I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to HarperCollins and Edelweiss.)
17-year-old Naomi is off to spend the summer in the Hamptons with her desperate-to-be-famous Mother, but is about to get more than she bargained for.

Jacinta is the author of a popular fashion blog called ‘The Wanted’, and is renting the house next door to Naomi’s mother’s summer house. She’s nice, and asks to be introduced to Delilah – the daughter of one of Naomi’s mother friends, and also an up-and-coming model.

Jacinta and Delilah seem to be becoming more than friends though, and Naomi isn’t sure how Delilah’s boyfriend is going to feel about that when he finds out.
What secrets is Jacinta hiding though? What is going on between Jacinta and Delilah? And what happens when everything is revealed?


This was an interesting YA tale of one girl’s summer in the Hamptons, and the ending was really surprising.

Naomi was a simple girl, who cared about the things she cared about, and didn’t spend ages obsessing over trends, or trying to make people like her. Even though she didn’t really want to spend the summer in the Hamptons, or wear designer clothes, or make posh friends, she did it to make her mom happy, but didn’t lose her own morals and ideas in the process.

I liked the storyline in this book. Initially I did wonder what the point was, but it was interesting to see the goings on of a group of teens in the Hamptons. When the big things started happening though, boy did they happen! The last 30% of this book was really surprising and good! And I really couldn’t wait to find out what happened.
I felt really sorry for certain parties by the end of this book, and in a way it was really unfair that things ended the way they did. It was also a little disappointing that we didn’t have some kind of epilogue clearing up what happened legally, but I suppose the point was supposed to be about how things turned out socially rather than legally.
Overall I enjoyed this book, and found it quite surprising compared to other contemporary YA stories.
7 out of 10.

[Rebecca (Unbound Pages) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is also on my blog, The Library Canary

***I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way changed my opinion of the book. The review below is my open and honest opinion.***

Confession time: I haven’t read Great Gatsby nor have I seen the movie (any of them). But if it’s anything like this book, I will totally be reading it soon. So I’m just going to tell you how I felt about this book, not how it compares to Great Gatsby.

I loved this book. All the characters were so interesting. Each one brought something different to the story. The main character was a bit judgmental, but also kind. She was intelligent and I loved reading from her perspective. Her best friend, Skags, was amazing. She was honest and funny. I was super sad that we didn’t get to see more of her since the whole book she was back in Chicago while Naomi was in the Hamptons. But the real star of the story was Jacinta, the mysterious girl renting the house next door to Naomi’s mother. There was something so complex and elaborate about her. She seemed so sad and lonely. I wanted to know more.

This book had a Gossip Girl feel to it. (All you people who have read Great Gatsby are probably laughing at me right now…) But that’s what made me love it. I love the whole outsider getting a glimpse of the elite inner circle. The fabulous parties, the scandal, it sucked me in and had me completely consumed in this book. In fact, I read this entire book in one sitting because I couldn’t put it down.

If you like Gossip Girl, you will love this book. I can’t say whether you’ll like it if you’re a huge Gatsby fan, but I have read a couple of other reviews that have been very positive from people who have actually read the original. If you’re looking for a quick, drama filled read with an interesting cast of characters this book is for you. Happy reading all!