by Chris Cole
Publication
Date: July 23rd 2013
Publisher: Disembodied Poetics
A copy of this book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.
The book was really interesting with the HTML code and just the way it was written before even getting into the plot. The modern take made it an easy read and really enjoyable. I honestly think it's a great young adult book, taking a classic and putting your own twist on it. The book was short and to the point, while still having all the details necessary without making the book boring.
I should probably point out that, as of now, I haven't actually read the Great Gatsby, so I have no comparison. Without that bias, I thought it was a great book. Charlie Middle is Maisy's cousin and he's from the Midwest. He moves out to Silicon Valley (Maisey'e house) for his internship when some crazy stuff goes down. Maisy is married some super old, super rich guy named Reed Graft because her father told her to, even though she loves Joss... Even though she only talked to Joss on the Internet for 6 weeks... It switches back and forth between the present and the past, to kind of show that Joss is still stuck in his past with Maisey (at least thats how I interpreted it?) The initial switch was a bit confusing because it wasn't exactly obvious, just all of a sudden it was Joss's perspective, but it was a quick adjustment. Anyway, Joss has the beginnings of a program called Remake that could very well change the social network world and is set on finishing it to become rich to be with Maisy. He calls up his hacker friends to help him out and do their best to make the program super hard for others to hack. Maisy's dad won't have it though and will do everything in his power to keep Maisy with Reed.
He buys a huge mansion near Maisy and while he finally gets to see her again, he's not himself. Somewhere on his journey to that moment, he's become a different person, and by the time he realizes it and becomes his old self, it's too late! As far as I know it doesn't really follow the Great Gatsby plot so there are quirks that should make it fun for anybody to read :D
It wasn't the BEST book in the world, but I thought it was a great start and after I picked it up I found it hard to put back down :)