Eekind’s Reviews > The Chosen and the Beautiful > Status Update
Eekind
is 63% done
Nit picky since this trope has kind of been popularized and dropped since this book was published in ‘21, but having Daisy know that Gatsby wants to meet with her at Nicks house in order for her the be “more active” in the plot just feels insecure. A woman can not know things and the framing can still be feminist. It’s fine for characters to be caught off guard, that’s how you build tension in a story.
— Mar 26, 2026 06:58AM
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Eekind’s Previous Updates
Eekind
is 90% done
This latter half is fine. I am still stuck on having Daisy basically say “Tom can keep Pam, He was the one that wanted her anyway”. Because it feels like it’s either supposed to be a parallel to the Beautiful Fool scene that is in GG but not here. Or it’s just supposed to be a record scratch moment to shock the audience. Either way it feels like character assassination that Vo isn’t even going to commit to
— 15 hours, 31 min ago
Eekind
is 43% done
I think it’s interesting that Vo writes Jordan and Daisy to be super close companions as debutantes which is not the vibe in GG. I feel like it’s meant to beef up and mirror Jordan’s experience of the outside world parallel to how we see Nick experiencing Tom’s Apt and Wolfsheims Bar+Biz. But it does end up fixating a lot on Daisy and giving her characteristics that just don’t exist in GG and conflict
— Mar 25, 2026 11:30AM
Eekind
is 41% done
I will say having Jay Gatsby be physically violent to women and flip about his sexuality seems really shortsighted for a reimagining. Like, in GG his main issue is that he is delusional in an extremely peaked in high school way IE wanting your 19 year old crush to fall back in love with you. That delusional behavior is keeping him from being well adjusted and he’s so single minded he’s constantly spiraling.
— Mar 19, 2026 08:21PM
Eekind
is 19% done
Vo’s reimagining of Nick as some Rambo Shell Shocked War Hero feels really dumbed down for the reader. That’s not to say that F Scott’s Nick is some Everyman but you can appreciate Nicks characterization being pulled from anecdotal experience with actual WWII vets and then abstracted by a writer that spent his own military service stuck on base in Alabama, skirt chasing the locals debutante balls
— Mar 19, 2026 07:18AM
Eekind
is 7% done
I like some aspects of the retooled “We are all Nordic here” Tom speech. I did think it was dumb to have a fake immigration bill that’s I guess a placeholder for the 1924 Johnson Reed Act. Especially since you had the 1917 Barred Zone Act or the 1875 Page Act that specifically targeted Asian immigrants coming to America. Like the racist laws are there for you to invoke without inventing one
— Mar 18, 2026 07:16AM
