Plunging back into the early 1920’s world of Fitzgerald’s Gatsby was the treat I didn’t know I needed. We’re reintroduced to this world through the feminine voices of Daisy, Catherine, and Jordan; all of whom are intertwined with Jay Gatsby and his stop at nothing goal of winning back Daisy. We venture back to their first meeting, and his journey to reconnect with her once again and create a life she longed for. All readers know it ultimately ends in the murder of two original characters, Jay and Myrtle, but maybe the circumstances surrounding their deaths aren’t what we’ve always thought.

Beautiful Little Fools gives voice to the women of The Great Gatsby, rotating through their POVs in this iconic story of power, secrets, and betrayal. It also expands upon the original by adding a detective who isn’t satisfied with apparent murder-suicide of Gatsby and George, so he investigates the women involved.

It was refreshing to get in the minds of characters who didn’t get the focus in the original. But you can understand this story even if you haven’t read The Great Gatsby! The author gave wonderful depth to Daisy, Jordan, Myrtle, and Catherine that I think readers will appreciate whether they “know” the characters already or not.

I wish this either leaned into the investigation layer more or left it out. It wasn’t prominent, so sometimes the detective’s POV felt out of place. Beautiful Little Fools also lacks the lyricism of the original, so those who love Fitzgerald’s writing might miss that here.

Pick this up if you’re a Gatsby fan, enjoy stories set in 1920s New York, or appreciate a retelling!

The Great Gatsby told from another perspective. I personally loved it, although my disclaimer is that I haven't read or watched The Great Gatsby in about 25 years so I cannot speak to it in relationship to the original story line.

Thank you @netgalley and @harperperenniaI for this advance reader’s copy.
I was so excited about the premise of this book - a retelling of The Great Gatsby from the women’s perspective. I had expectations of a fresh perspective with all the glitz, glamour and drama of the 1920s. The first seventy percent of the book was a deep dive into the lives of Daisy, Jordan and Catherine. We see their struggles as they come of age in a time when women were yearning for independence but society wasn’t ready to yield. I think I was a little disappointed because I wanted this book to be a change from the original, but it was more of an addition to the original - providing extra story to the characters, but not really changing the story itself. Even though it wasn’t quite what I hoped it might be, I’ve seen great reviews from other readers.

I totally enjoyed this take on the Gatsby story told from a feminist point of view. I'm sure all women who love the F Scott Fitzgerald work will as well.
The book tells the essential story but from the point of view of 3 women, Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and a new character named Catherine who was the sister of the woman hit by Gatsby's car. Catherine was the weakest character portrayal for me. Nick is here as well but as a sort of minor character. The detective investigating the case of Gatsby's death was a well drawn character.
It is always a little shocking to read about what little freedom and life options women had in the early 20th century and that is pervasive in the book.
I found the writing style engaging and this was a smooth quick read. The shifting points of view added a lot to the evolution of the story but at the end I still felt the same unresolved feelings about Jay Gatsby that I had from the original.
I certainly admire the author for tackling the "redo" of this iconic story and I think she did a great job!

Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for the advanced e-reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was very excited to dive into Beautiful Little Fools because The Great Gatsby is one of my most favorite pieces of literature. That being said, I do think it’s a tall order to play with such a classical and astounding piece of prose, but this was a fun read.

I liked seeing the novel from the perspectives of various women. I thought that the author really captured the personalities of Daisy and Jordan. Seeing the past events from their perspective was interesting to me and, in my thoughts, well done. Providing voices for these women is a wonderful idea and so interesting! However, I was a little put off with the storyline involving Myrtle’s sister and her relationship to Gatsby. It felt like it was a random way to add more of a shock value to the story and provide the reader with another suspect for the mystery. . A crucial component of Fitzgerald’s story is Gatsby’s immense loyalty to Daisy. Being his dream, I am not sure about the believability of that relationship as presented in this book. It confused me and unsettled me in regards to the clear passion and motivation Gatsby has for Daisy in Fitzgerald’s original novel.

I also would have liked to see a little more depth and time taken with the characters in each section so that I could fall in love with them even more so, or perhaps develop more of an emotional connection with them. However, given the readers are assumably familiar with The Great Gatsby, perhaps it was not necessary.

The one thing that was puzzling overall, is why this needs to be a murder mystery at all. I do think it was a fun element and added intrigue to the novel. However, the true murderer in Fitzgerald’s novel is made pretty clear. Maybe this was just for fun? A fresh twist? I’m not sure. However, if the reader is going to be familiar with the classic they will probably be confused as well with the plot element.

Overall, this was a fun and enjoyable read. I loved the new ideas and the different perspectives. It was engaging and interesting. I certainly recommend it to anyone who loves the classic novel and wants to enter that glamorous world all over again.

Review on Instagram will be forthcoming @ivy.haunts

The best part about The Great Gatsby coming into the public domain is that we can get more and more books like this. Beautiful Little Fools takes the female characters of The Great Gatsby and puts them at the forefront of the story. Jillian Cantor takes Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Catherine (Myrtle Wilson's sister who only appears once in the original book, at the party at Myrtle's apartment) and gives them a fuller story.
I have to say, that The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books and Fitzgerald is one of my favorite writers. I think Cantor handled taking such a famous book and making it her own very well. She didn't try to copy Fitzgerald's style of writing but instead used it as a launch-off point for her own style. You see the echoes of famous lines and I really enjoyed the moments where the book gave you another version of scenes we all know.
What I wish is that the book spent more time before the events of the original novel. Juggling all the POVs meant we never really spent time with one character for long. It also felt rushed in moments. I could have done without the Detective chapters. They didn't add much to the story and since we spent the most time with women before Gatsby's murder the suspense just was not there.
Overall I enjoyed the book.

I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley.

I loved entering this glittering world of 1922 where the money never seems to stop and there's a party for all. Yet....there's more to the story, and this book slowly unravels the truth behind the scenes that leads up to the famous story of The Great Gatsby and the murder that ensues.

I really enjoyed each womans story and life evolve and I became attached to each of them. I was rooting for them as they all had their own trials and struggles as life is for all. I felt like the book was slow, in the sense that it shared all the background stories of each woman, but nothing big ever really happened until the very end of the book.

I had no idea how it was going to pan out and what the real story was until I read it on the pages. I always love that in a book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for the advanced e-reader copy in exchange for my review.

I received this ARC from Netgalley and I was not expecting to like it as much as I did! The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books so I was a bit hesitant to read it from a differing perspective, but wow, did Ms. Cantor nail these characters! She really brings the women to life!

Daisy is similar to the way she is portrayed in the book, though a bit less vapid and a bit more tragic, her backstory gutting me to my core. Myrtle Wilson is a bit more developed and has a tragedy of her own. Her sister, an original character, is a "free woman Suffragette", who finds herself thrust into the drama. And my favorite character from the original, Jordan Baker, is really given her time to shine here. Jordan's story is beautiful and I love her reimagination of Daisy's best friend. I did not realize how much depth was missing from these women unti I read this book. I only wish their perspective had come into play a bit more in the Fitzgerald book.

This book is part historical fiction, part mystery as a detective finds a mysterious diamond hairpin in the yard where Gatsby was shot and he tries to prove Gatsby's death was not a murder/suicide. Each woman had motive and each was a believable suspect. I really enjoyed going back into their pasts through the fateful summer in West Egg.

Beautiful Little Fools was a wonderful recreation of the Gatsby story and I wish to read more from Jillian Cantor soon. Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial and Paperbacks for my advanced copy!

I'm somewhat at a loss as to why we need to re-imagine this story as a whodunnit. Nevertheless, The Great Gatsby is one of my all time favorite books and I couldn't pass up a chance to read a retelling that gives Daisy and Jordan their voices. I found this to be a well-written, emotional, and overall enjoyable take on the classic.

The Plot
Taking place before, during, and after the events of TGG, Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor follows the enigmatic Daisy Buchanan; the independent Jordan Baker; minor Gatsby character and sister to Myrtle Wilson, Catherine McCoy (who once declared she "feels just as good on nothing at all" when offered alcohol in the original novel and who can be found later on, drunk as a skunk); and entirely new character Detective Frank Charles, who began investigating Gatsby's murder after it came to his attention that George Wilson may not have killed him after all. It is very much a backstory of the three women, interspersed with the later timeline where all three are suspects as far as Detective Frank is concerned.

The Good
I loved, loved, loved reading about Daisy and Jordan, their lives, and their friendship. In Gatsby we're introduced to the ladies in a way that has always left me wanting more of their interactions and personalities and this book did not disappoint in that aspect. I loved Daisy and Jordan so much and grew to appreciate Catherine as well.

The writing was very good and I appreciate the way the author made me despise Jay Gatsby whereas I'd mostly just pitied and vaguely disliked before. New takes on ambiguous characters are always fun when done well and this was done very well. Not to mention, the ending was overall pretty satisfying; I did want better for Daisy but Cantor had her hands a little tied as to the immediate fates of the characters and she did what she could.

Oh, and making Jordan queer was absolute perfection and every single one of her chapters just made my queer little heart feel so many things.

The Not-So-Good
This book is really trying to be two separate, incongruous books, and since the detective's chapters are so occasional they just end up being kind of weird and jarring. "Myrtle Wilson's sister was secretly tangled up in the life of Jay Gatsby and may have actually been his true killer" would've made a great book. Likewise, "the lives and friendship of Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker" would've also been a fascinating read. But Beautiful Little Fools is trying to be both a backstory of the women from Gatsby, and also a reimagining of the book as a murder mystery, and as a result it's scattered.

There were some inconsistencies in the story as well that I really only picked up on because I just did a reread of Gatsby before I started this. Some of them could be explained by the propensity of every single character to lie and stretch the truth, but usually it felt more like the author wasn't careful enough with continuity.

Although parts of this ended up not working for me, all in all I really enjoyed Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor and will definitely read more from her in the future.

I loved how the book focused on the women from Great Gatsby, and how they were all woven into Jay’s life. Throw in the roaring 20’s time period and a murder mystery, and I’m a happy reader.

I want to start by saying that I LOVE The Great Gatsy. The storyline, the love and loss, prohibition, parties, and the ROARING 1920's.

Now for the Warning... this IS NOT The Great Gatsy reimangined, this IS NOT a love story.

And now, for the amazingness that was this book of love, loss, wealth, suffrage, power, and manipulation.

Beautiful Little Fools is a reference to the original Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald when Daisy Buchannon hopes that her little girl grows up to be a fool, a beautiful little fool. This story is composed of alternating viewpoints of 4 beautiful little fools and a detective looking into the details of the murder of The Great Jay Gatsby.

Jillian Cantor takes her times diving into the lives and history of Catherine, Myrtle, Jordan, and Daisy. She puts their love, loss, and hardships on display for readers. No one is who you really think they are based on the original story and the retelling is extremely well done. You see sides of characters that you didn't before. Sides of them that were hinted at in the original but are now laid out before you. I felt the love, heartbreak and loss of Daisy Buchannon. The passion and will power of Jordan Baker. The hope and defeat of Myrtle Wilson. The protective nature and dedication to women rights presented by Catherine. The underlying story of women's rights and the desire to be their own person instead of someone else's property was commendably written in a way that did not bog down the storyline. Cantor presented this information scattering it throughout the story at the precise moments to make the impact of those feelings leave a mark on the reader.

The flow of the story itself was smooth and very seemless. This was not necessarily a quick read, but I couldn't wait to pick it up everynight before bed. Cantor did an excellent job reimagining the world of The Great Gatsby through the eyes of the women, and developed a backstory for each of the characters before moving to East & West Egg/New York.

Pause for a second, and look at the cover of this book. It perfectly captures all of the Great Gatsby vibes, and I'm kinda in love with it. Now on to the story itself.

We are all likely at least a little bit familiar with the story of The Great Gatsby. Nick Carraway moves to West Egg and becomes neighbors with the mysterious Jay Gatsby, who is famous for hosting extravagant parties at his Gothic mansion. Nick gets involved with Gatsby, Jordan Baker, Daisy Buchanan, and Myrtle Wilson (Daisy's husband's mistress), eventually learning that Gatsby is borderline obsessed with Daisy. Fast forward through a lot of drama, and (spoiler alert) the story ends with the death of Gatsby, Myrtle, and Myrtle's husband George. Now, with this book, we get the same story, but told through the eyes of Daisy, Jordan, and Catherine (a new character who is Myrtle's sister).

I must say that I am impressed by how much Cantor was able to add to the original story without changing many details. We don't get much of the characters' backstories in the original, and this really fleshes out each of the main characters, enabling us to understand the motivations behind their actions. She did an especially good job with the ending, keeping it the same as in the original but with a whole new layer added to the mystery shrouding the three deaths. Even though I read The Great Gatsby, this felt entirely new and I still had no idea how it was going to end.

My only disappointment with this book is that - going into it - I was really hoping that it would help me like the characters more than I did in the original. I wanted to root for them, but I felt like it kept in line with the original, proving the corrupting power of wealth, and that pursuing the "American Dream" and happiness has really just turned into trying to obtain more wealth and power. While I admire Cantor's ability to further illustrate Fitzgerald's point, watching characters be continually unhappy wasn't the most enjoyable to read. In all fairness, though, I said this about the original, as well as other books written in that era. I'm also a die-hard "everyone gets a happily ever after" person, and no one really got one here.

Overall, I loved the writing style and how Cantor interpreted the original, and as a piece of literature it deserves five stars. As a pleasure read, though, it wasn't as enjoyable to read as I was hoping. If you loved the original or are into the tragically meaningful style, though, then you're in for a treat!

The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books that I have returned to over and over again throughout the years. I thought that Jillian Cantor did a fantastic job of illustrating that backstories of the women who fell under Gatsby's spell. I felt the dialogue and descriptions were well done and I could imagine myself in the roaring 20's along with these women. Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC!

I really wanted to love this book, based on the synopsis and the time in history in which it is written but it just wasn't for me.

I’ve not read The Great Gatsby so this novel was a new story for me. Daisy, Jordan and Catherine alternate in telling how Jay Gatsby entered their lives, his effect on them and what lead up to his murder. This novel includes innocent young love, friendships, secrets, infidelity and secrets.

First off, I absolutely LOVED The Great Gatsby retelling via motion picture. This is what drew me into this story. What I majorly loved about this story is seeing through the eyes of the women from the story. Daisy, Jordan, and Catherine are our leads and you will enjoy reading on the backgrounds of the women. Daisy was always a personal fave and she was truly done a great justice in the book. I was not disappointed and I was taken back to the fantastical time of the Jazz and mystery. I was able to envision all of the girls' lives as they were brought to life.

Thank you for the advance copy!
I give it 4.5 stars!

A few years ago, I did a thorough solitary study of the Great Gatsby. It easily became one of my favorite classics and still is. So, when I read the synopsis to this novel, I was so excited to read it and transport back to 1922, to that summer, to that pool. Erasing George Wilson from the narrative as the murderer, I instantly loved the mystery as to who pulled the trigger and killed Jay Gatsby. The quest of the missing hairpin was mysterious and kept me guessing. This novel was a easy read. I flew threw the chapters. The character portrayal was perfectly done to flow from Fitzgeralds work. The prequel stories fit nicely and as it was an easier read, it was lots of fun. I loved revisiting the story in this thriller meets historical fiction. I highly recommend this novel. 4.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for a eARC copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. I can’t wait to share it when it is published!

This book was a 4 star read for me. There are a few things I thought before going into this book:
- It's been over 15 years since I read The Great Gatsby in high school, is that going to hinder the book for me?
- I love mysteries and this one was never answered so this will be exciting!
- Tackling a classic book is difficult, I hope Cantor's story succeeds.

First off, this book did succeed! I was a little nervous because I wasn't quite sure what kind of story I was getting. Is this going to be similar to a sequel? Will this pick up where we left off? I loved that the book had alternating chapters between the three women (ahem... suspects) and the Detective. With each women's chapter we learn more backstory and how they are connected to Jay. The Detective's chapter was present time while trying to figure out who killed Jay.

Since it's been a minute since I read the Great Gatsby, that didn't hinder the story at all! Cantor did amazing added more story to each woman, fleshing them out a little more. It reminded me of when we see a movie remake; we expect it to be exactly as the original but sometimes we get more backstory. The only girl I had a really hard time connecting with was Jordan's chapters. I sped read those so I could get back to Daisy, Cath and the Detective.

The only thing I would say was a bit of a downer for me was the mystery aspect. This was barely a mystery book but rather women's fiction with the question of "who did it" thrown in. I think if I had know this, I would have enjoyed it more.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor.


“I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

I loved this line uttered by Daisy in the original and was so excited to find out that this was the direction this retelling went.

When I saw a murder mystery rendition of The Great Gatsby switching POVs of the different women I had to get my hands on it! It’s like Big Little Lies in the Roaring Twenties!

The story takes place after Gatsby’s death when a detective reopens the case.
The POVs switch from Daisy, Jordan, and Catherine (Myrtle’s sister) with the events leading up to the murder. Though the relative structure is similar to the original, the author added so much character development and backstory that it was easier to understand who they were.

What I loved about the book was that the theme centered around gender inequality in the 1920s. Each woman was pushed to act a certain way due to their surroundings. There was also LGBT representation in the book which was a great bonus! The ending was a bit rushed and not really sure how I felt about the result, however, it ties nicely with the theme of the story!

So old sport, if you are a fan of The Great Gatsby and mysteries, I would definitely recommend this book!

Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor comes out on February 1, 2022.