I received this book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

This is my first Gatsby retelling, and I’m not really disappointed. I didn’t like The Great Gatsby when I read it for school, so I was cautiously optimistic for this book. I can say that I liked this more than Gatsby. I thought both the high school setting and the debate team both helped create an authentic Gatsby feeling, and made perfect sense for the characters. But I didn't care for the characters, and found myself a little bored while reading (Likely due to my Gatsby apathy).

Things I Liked:
-High School setting. I feel like the high school setting really helped it feel like a Gatsby retelling. I could buy people creating this mythos around someone and holding them up on a pedestal, or trying to get in their good graces. I could also buy Andrew crafting his James Dean persona pretending to be something he’s not - something he wants to be, to have a better status symbol in a time in your life when you feel like status is everything. It was also really believable that Tanner would be envious of Andrew and tempted into his world. The high school setting helped the impulsive and dramatic actions of the characters seem more believable also.
-Debate. I loved the debate aspect of the story purely for showcasing Andrew’s charismatic personality. It makes sense that he would be persuasive and charming, able to work a crowd and get others to see things his way. It was a perfect choice and worked very well.

Things I didn’t like:
-The Duke. Small personal issue, I hated Andrew’s nickname. I thought of John Wayne or people misquoting the Big Lebowski and not some mythic high schooler who had serious connections. It just made me roll me eyes every time I saw it. Where did the nickname even come from, did I miss that? If we had it's origins it might not have felt to dumb to me.
-Characters. All the characters were unlikeable, and I’m pretty sure that’s the point. They are selfish and entitled and awful people. I don’t mind that the characters sucked, it just made it hard for me to care about what happened to them or to sympathize with them in any way. So I never got really invested in them or the story.
-References. There were a few real world references (Twenty-One Pilots concert, World Series game) that just completely pulled me out to the story. There wasn’t anything wrong with them, they were well written and were used to show Andrew’s excessive wealth and influence, they just pulled me out of the story because I didn't expect them.
-Scene changes. There are scene changes in the middle of chapters that are abrupt and you don’t denote time or location changes very well. It happens pretty frequently, but it’s not too disorienting that you can’t follow the story, it just interrupted the flow of the story.

Not a bad reading experience overall, but not necessarily a memorable one. This was a terrific Gatsby retelling, I just wish I liked it more. I didn’t really care about the characters or what they were going through, so I never felt invested in the story, even though it was well executed. Would recommend for fans of The Great Gatsby and stories full of drama. ( )