The Pursued and The Pursuing by AJ Odasso starts where The Great Gatsby left off, except that Jay Gatsby doesn’t die but most people think that he did.
Nick helps Jay to recover and keeps his whereabouts a secret. Then they take whatever is left of Jay’s money and travel the world. Nick and Jay fall in love. Maybe their steamy romance wasn’t supposed to last but it did.
Review
It is a different take on what happened to The Great Gatsby character. I didn’t have trouble with the characters being men. I just couldn’t picture them as Leonardo DiCaprio and what’s-his-name. Blame what’s-his-name I guess. I just cannot picture him being romantic with anyone – not even Mary Jane in Spiderman. So I just imagined two anonymous handsome guys. It’s probably weird.
After traveling the world for a while, they settle down in Boston. Nick writes for a newspaper and Jay repairs old yachts. They have a nice life together. Then one day years after they left New York, Daisy calls Nick. She needs a bit of help with her daughter, Pam.
Pam has a fairly unique story. She’s very bright but Daisy thinks that something is not right. The doctors think that she has XY chromosomes instead of XX. The doctors want to do surgery. Daisy wants to let them. I’m not sure why they think surgery will help. She probably has Swyer syndrome – so she has female parts but will not go through puberty or have children without borrowing eggs and receiving hormone replacement therapy.
I think Pam identifies as being a female and a lesbian. She doesn’t seem interested in surgery to change her body. Nick is protective of Pam and refuses to allow the surgery. No one wants to tell Tom because he’s even more unpleasant than ever. He might love his daughter but he doesn’t understand her at all. Ugh. Tom.
Nick and Jay love Pam as if she were their own daughter. No one really likes Daisy. Why was Jay so obsessed with her? She’s not ever been likable. Sometimes I thought Pam was trying to deceive Nick and Jay. Can Pam be trusted? Her parents are liars so why should she be different? I like Pam but I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Recommendation
If you like steamy romances and a little bit of decadence, then you will enjoy The Pursued and the Pursuing.
Well, I guess if you aren’t a fan of LGBT romance or fiction, then you are missing out on a great book.
- I read this as part of the BookRiot 2021 Read Harder Challenge. #8 – Read a romance by a trans or nonbinary author
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