Margin Notes

The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Jay by Ryan Douglass may be one of my new favourite books. The book is beautifully written with plenty of unexpected twists, and it just so happens to be a crazy spin-off of The Great Gatsby. The book follows the story of 17-year-old Nick Corrington, an aspiring writer, and his struggle to overcome the loss of his father and the destruction of his community He brainstorms plans to address and put a stop to racism. The book also explores Nick coming to terms with his sexuality.

The story starts out with Nick living with his father in Greenwood, Oklahoma, and working with his mentor, Mr. Wallace, but when the police department massacres Nick’s community, he loses these important people. This results in Nick fleeing to Harlem, New York, to live with his Aunt Lorraine, Uncle Beat, and cousin Daisy. Nick hasn’t been to school in years, but in Harlem, he discovers a school that accepts boys of colour (West Egg Academy), run by Jay Gatsby Sr. and business partner Tom Buchanan.

During Nick’s short time at West Egg, he meets Jay Gatsby Jr., son of Jay Gatsby Sr., who Nick develops a close relationship with through writing letters to each other. Jay and Nick have very different personalities. Unlike Nick, Jay comes from a rather wealthy family; all Jay has ever known is a wealthy life. Jay’s father is White and his mother was Black, so Jay often feels displaced within both communities. Despite how Jay feels inside, he acts very confident wherever he goes. He lets everything roll off his back and pretty much attracts conversation wherever he goes, unlike Nick, who tends to hide in the shadows.

As if enough things hadn’t already happened to Nick, his life now literally goes up in flames. Nick comes back to his room ransacked and discovers items stolen, and then the blue dorm house is burned down, leaving the residents with no place to go. Nick doesn’t seem to think this was an accident and spends time investigating the incident with friend Zihan, Jay, and his cousin Daisy to find out what or who actually started the fire and why there has been no action to rebuild.

I truly love this book. It’s one of those books that I felt like I never wanted to end. It was heartwarming and heart-wrenching. I truly would love to read this book forever. I really enjoyed the slow burn between Nick and Jay. The whole time I was reading parts with Jay and Nick, I was on the edge of my seat praying for something to happen between them.

Even though the slow burn had me feeling wickedly impatient, I was still very much consumed in the book. There were points when I was actually upset when class was over because I wanted to keep reading, and I often had to hide my face so my classmates couldn’t see me reacting with tears or my goofy smile. In my opinion, I think this was an excellent writing strategy on the author’s part. It really made me want to keep reading and see what was going to happen next.

I would recommend this book to high school students and young adults who are into historical fiction books. I haven’t read any books like this one before, but another book by Ryan Douglass is The Taking of Jake Livingston, which has really good reviews from what I’ve seen. If you’re looking for more historical fiction, a book I really enjoyed was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which was recommended to me by my Grade 8 English teacher, and it was so good! Another good historical fiction book is Iceberg by Jennifer A. Nielsen.

The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Joy is a wonderfully written book, and I hope I convinced you to read it because it really is fantastic. The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Joy is probably the best spin-off of a book I’ve ever read. It is based off The Great Gatsby, and it has lots of similarities, but it is wildly different as well. The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Joy will leave you longing for more. If you’re a book lover like me and are looking for a bit of a different read, this is the book for you.

Claire Mullin is currently 16 years old. She has always loved reading from a young age and still enjoys books to this day. Claire lives with her mom, dad, younger sister, and two cats, Cleo and Ruby, who she can’t imagine her life without. Another passion of Claire’s is cheerleading, for which she has been competing competitively for four years and, with the help of her amazing team, has won multiple competitions, including first place and the Golden Buzzer in Montreal. During this past year, Claire has also discovered a love of writing. She enjoyed writing a book review for her English class and her first-ever essay for Civics, and now writes for fun in her spare time. Claire just attended her first ever concert, Machine Gun Kelly, and will now be making it her whole personality.