⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5/5 Stars)

Nghi Vo delivers a mesmerizing and haunting reimagining of The Great Gatsby with Don’t Sleep with the Dead, a novella that takes Nick Carraway’s story in an entirely new, supernatural direction.

Set in the late 1930s, long after the events of The Great Gatsby, Nick has built a life among New York’s high society, mastering the art of pretending—pretending to be human, pretending to be straight, pretending he’s forgotten everything from that fateful summer in 1922. But memory is a tricky thing, and when an old, familiar face returns, it becomes clear that Gatsby—dead or not—isn’t finished with him.

The atmosphere in this book is absolutely intoxicating, blending Jazz Age glamor with an undercurrent of eerie, inescapable dread. The writing is sharp, poetic, and filled with an aching melancholy that fits Nick’s character perfectly. At first, I felt a little lost, but then the story hooked me so completely that I had to know how it all ended—and that ending? Brilliant. The way the final words literally trail off left me breathless, lingering on the edge of a cliffhanger that felt both frustrating and exactly right for the story.

The audiobook narration by Greg D. Barnett was just as phenomenal as the writing itself. His voice carried the perfect balance of nostalgia, detachment, and quiet longing that made Nick’s story feel even more immersive. His performance truly elevated the experience, making every haunting moment hit even harder.

This is a must-read for any Gatsby fan, especially those who love speculative fiction and gothic, supernatural twists. I need a physical copy for my library, and I can’t wait to read more from Nghi Vo. Highly, highly recommended!

Thank you to Macmillan Audio, Tor.com, and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

If you've read the original (The Great Gatsby) and Nghi Vo's retelling (The Chosen and The Beautiful), then this novella is for you! Taking place twenty years after Vo's take on the classic and told from the perspective of Nick, this continues the magical realism of the first, and brings back many familiar faces while upping the supernatural elements. For me, it was an attempt to "keep reading and it will all make sense" as I didn't quite remember enough of the first (and I've never read the original), and while I never did quite figure it all out, Vo's writing was beautiful and I enjoyed the process.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love the writing style of Nghi Vo and I love The Great Gatsby. I didn't love it when I had to read it for school but reading it again as an adult, it's just such a beautiful piece of work.
This story takes place years later and has the magic realism I expect from this author while still evoking the mood of the original novel. It felt sad and nostalgic but beautiful. Thanks to NetGalley for letting me listen to this audiobook. The narrator knew how to bring out those nostalgic feelings

1939, seventeen years after the frenetic parties and events of 1922, Nick Carraway has his comfortable existence jarred out of line when he sees the ghost of Jay Gatsby. Not all is as it seems, and Nick knows better than to take anything at face value.

Like Nghi Vo's other work, this is an intriguing novella. It's billed as a companion novel to The Chosen and the Beautiful rather than a sequel, which is why I picked it up, as Vo's debut is her only backlist book I have not yet read. I suspect many readers may feel more comfortable with picking up The Chosen and the Beautiful first, but I enjoyed the air of mystery presented in Don't Sleep with the Dead. We have a seventeen year gap in plot, and it's clear that Vo's paranormal spin had big implications, but we never get all the details. But the beauty of a novella is that you have to feel a little uncomfortable with the incomplete knowledge, whether you were given that knowledge in a prior book or not. But if you know the characters of The Great Gatsby, you'll be able to navigate this.

I enjoyed the audio and felt that the narration increased some of the mystery around the book. Just know that if you are listening, the book does not cut off at the end unintentionally. The last punctuation of the book is, in fact, an em-dash.

I love Nghi Vo - she is an auto-read author for me, but this one just didn't grab my attention. I enjoyed her original Gatsby re-imagining, but this one just lost me. I don't know - it wasn't for me. I wasn't invested in Nick's life, I felt like the story started with a cool premise and then didn't build on it, I just was very disappointed. I'm sure it will be perfect for the right reader; it just wasn't for me.

nick carraway is haunted by more demons than his own.

smashing! this was phenomenal. i very much enjoyed vo’s previous dip into fitzgerald’s seminal work, but this novella was utterly captivating. i love vo’s examinations of death and ghosts, and i think this was maybe her best work on the topic to date. i was reminded of the writing style of haruki murakami in this, and i mean that as a big complement given my personal love for his books. i especially liked that conjuring, given his own professed love for fitzgerald.

my expectations were absolutely exceeded with this one, and they were by no means low to start with. the audiobook narration was also stellar.

Don't Sleep with the Dead extends the characters of The Chosen and the Beautiful, focusing more on Nick. But Nick isn't really the Nick we think he is.

Nick is just going through the motions of life years after he published his book on Daisy and Gatsby. As WWII looms on the horizon, strange and weird things begin to happen in New York.

Like Vo's previous book, I just couldn't get into the story. Maybe a fully focused re-read is what I need. Her writing stands out with how dense she creates her sentences to communicate beautiful analogies. How she orchestrates her words is quite fascinating.

4 stars

This is a standalone novella - billed that way and technically formed that way - but readers will enjoy this so much more after having read _The Chosen and the Beautiful_, which is an excellent book, so no fretting necessary. If you're considering reading the novella and haven't devoured the novel yet start from the top.

The novella connects readers with a couple of ol' favorites from earlier classic and Vo texts, and it's clear immediately that neither has forgotten their past. In fact, the past *haunts* them...literally.

I absolutely loved _The Chosen..._ and was thrilled to see this addendum. It's very satisfying in many ways. As a greedy reader, my sole substantial complaint is that I wanted more. Vo does have quite the track record of killer novellas, so I'm hoping we'll get exactly that in future installments.

It's always a blast to go where Vo takes us, and this quick but engaging read is no exception. I'm always looking forward to the creative heights this author will expose us to next.

Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and Tor for an advance copy of the audiobook.

This said it was a standalone companion novella that you could read without The Chosen and the Beautiful and I’m undecided. Added context would have made this much easier on me. Nick was already an unreliable narrator so having an unreliable view of the surrounding events made it hard to lock down what was happening.

The narration was wonderful though. I’m not familiar with Greg D. Barnett yet and he felt perfect for this.

Of all of Fitzgerald's writings, the one that I was always least captivated by was Gatsby. Yet, I was piqued by the description of this novella. Fitzgerald's Nick was in such awe of Gatsby, the Buchanans, and all of their crowd; Nghi Vo's Nick is a bit more jaded with the aftermath. This revisit, for it is not a retelling, leaves the glitz and glamour of Jazz Age and shifts to a dark grim era before the second world war. The ghosts of the past come out to haunt our narrator in this eerily delicious revisit that was even more enchanting as an audiobook. This is the first time that I have read anything from Nghi Vo, but now I want to read more.
I received advanced access to this audiobook thru NetGalley (for which I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher, Macmillan Audio) for an honest review. The opinion expressed here is my own.