Beautiful Little Fools: A Novel

The Great Gatsby is a story told from one person’s perspective, Nick Carraway’s. We only see what he sees, through his eyes and his thoughts. The last time I read Gatsby, I thought it would be interesting for someone to retell the story, from a different perspective, maybe Daisy Buchanan’s or Jordan Baker’s. Jillian Cantor was way ahead of me! Not only had she already done that, she did it from the perspectives of four of the women in the story — Daisy, Jordan, Myrtle Wilson, and Myrtle’s sister, Catherine. And she added, in a way that gives the story a mystery twist, Detective Frank Baker’s investigation of Gatsby’s murder. The story is told in the alternating voices of the four women, starting with their own backgrounds and first encounters with Gatsby. It’s as if we were able to climb in behind the pages of the original story to see what was going on in each of their minds. And it is especially fascinating to flip the story and see it from the women’s side. In the Gatsby story, it is the men, especially Tom Buchanan and Gatsby himself who seem to be running the show. But are they really? The title of Cantor’s book is taken from Daisy’s remark when her daughter is born, “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” But somewhere in the middle of the book, we start to wonder really who the fools are. Yes, Daisy has married badly. Myrtle thinks Tom is going to take her away from George, “out west,” and give her an…

I really did enjoy the book however, it would have helped me a lot if the chapters were numbered as well as given a name! I got lost when I forgot which one I was reading about sometimes, especially if I couldn’t get back to reading for a few days when my days were full! It was also hard to keep up with or remember which gal I was reading about if I had to put the book down for awhile! Many times I had to reread chapters cause I couldn’t remember who had the hairpin or how they got the gun??? But all in all I really enjoyed the book, I just have a lot going on in my life and so can’t just kept reading straight through!

Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor I read the Kindle edition Focuses on the women in The Great Gatsby, before and after the events of that novel. Cantor delves into their complex, layered lives that resolve in a brilliant convergence of events and themes. Wow. Not mere echo, it’s more an expanded look at what went into the events Fitzgerald depicts so elegantly, and Cantor’s writing is clear, refined, and deadly, too. She examines convoluted repercussions that resolve in darkness that contains more than just a distant green light of hope. This is a historical mystery, an examination of an American literary classic, and a compelling story of people facing relatable lives and problems that have the capacity to spiral out of control ... if ever they had control in the first place. Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel, as Morrison sang. The future's uncertain and the end is always near. While not consonant with the time period of the novel, the 1920s, that Doors song captures some of the spirit found in the scenes. Recklessness, control, anxiety, and abandon inform every encounter between and among the people in this novel. By focusing on the women in The Great Gatsby, Jillian Cantor expands Fitzgerald's fictional world into a gritty complexity relevant to women, to everyone, to this day. Strongly recommended. / Gene Stewart

I didn’t like the characters in The Great Gatsby and telling the stories from the women’s points of view is not an improvement.

Another book that left me with conflicting feelings. I loved it. I really didn't like it. I keep going back and forth. I am just going to jump right into what I didn't like about this one. When doing fanfic or retellings of a classic (or any published book in general), I feel like these authors need to make sure they are keeping with the integrity of the characters as they are originally written. This book did not do that. And it let me feeling a lot of negative feelings. This author has told this classic from the females' perspectives. And in her retelling, she has painted all of the men in Gatsby's world as mysoginistic, controlling, evil people. All. Of. Them. She turned them all into people you can't possibly like. (The complete opposite of the original story. Sure, they had flaws in the original, but they were likable though.) I just wasn't feeling the recreation of the male characters in this book. With that out of the way, I liked the mystery and seeing someone's take on the female characters. I liked seeing their struggles for their indepence. I liked their struggles in trying to find their identity. The author created a very intriguing story for these women. Overall, I really did enjoy this story as a whole. The book is well written and kept me turning the pages.