Jillian Cantor does an amazing job with Beautiful Little Fools which is a retelling of The Great Gatsby.
It doesn’t matter if you have not read The Great Gatsby, as Beautiful Little Fools works well as a stand-alone. But if you have read the original then you’ll be familiar with all of the characters.
You get to see things from the female’s perspective.
Daisy Fay meets Jay Gatsby and he sets her heart on fire. Jay falls madly and obsessively in love with Daisy and makes it his life mission to be a man that is worthy of Daisy’s love.
After a family tragedy, Daisy feels that it is her responsibility to save her mother and their family home and her only way of doing this is to marry into money. Jay does not fit the bill so she marries Tom.
Daisy believes that Tom can and will make her happy, but it’s not long before she finds herself feeling trapped. Jay has never stopped loving Daisy and every single thing he does is for Daisy.
Will love win out?
This story has it all from war, sport, romance, murder, and mystery.
I was really delighted in this retelling and struggled to put the book down. I really wanted to read it all in one sitting as for me it was really engrossing. The perfect holiday read.
ISBN: 9781761105371
Copy courtesy of Simon and Schuster
A selection of our Beauty and Lace Club Members are reading Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor. You can read their comments below, or add your own review.
Im a Mum of 3 beautiful girls.
An avid reader that loves to travel but lacks the funds to venture far and wide constantly. A perfumeaholic with an addiction to beauty and skincare.
If not found with my head in a book or on a plane I can be found spending hours upon hour in Doctors and Hospital waiting rooms as part of my job as a Carer
Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor
Beautiful little fools follows the stories of three very different women who are all in some way connected to Jay Gatsby.
Daisy, Catherine and Jordan have all had their lives altered in some way due to meriting Jay.
When’s Jay is found shot dead in his swimming pool Private Detective Frank Charles is on a mission to discover the truth and solve the murder. Only he believes he is not hearing the truth from any of the women, his prime suspects!
I did not know the original story The Great Gatsby but I really enjoyed this book, the story line and characters were all very interesting and had me wanting to get to the end to find out the truth.
Thanks to beauty and lace book club for sending me this copy.
Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor is a brilliant adaptation to the novel The Great Gatsby. Cleverly she has retold the story through the eyes and thoughts of the three females in Jay Gatsby’s life.
Jay Gatsby is shot dead at his home in an affluent suburb. The body of George Wilson , a mechanic, is found nearby in the woods. To the police it seems like an open and shut case….murder -suicide .
Jay Gatsby’s boss offers Detective Frank Charles a large sum of money to make sure the police verdict is correct. He then re interviews the three women, as a diamond hair pin found at the scene would have belonged to one of them.
The story is told in chapters by Frank, Daisy Buchanan, Jordon Baker and Catherine McCoy.
Daisy met Jay when she was younger. How ever ,she chose to marry someone else.
Jordon is Daisy’s best friend and confidante. She has her own secrets to protect.
Catherine briefly meets Jay in a bar and after the war he has remade contact.
These three are all tangled together in Jay Gatsby’s love and obsession with Daisy. All the events leading to the fateful day of the shooting.
The women really come to life in this book.
You don’t have to have read The Great Gatsby or even liked it when you read it , to find this book engaging and brilliant.
It is essentially a “who done it murder mystery” , with a love story.
A great read.
I enjoyed Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor. Having never read the original Great Gatsby but having an idea of the story, I was open to this rendition.
It was an interesting story with the three women who meet Jay Gatsby in differing circumstances. I had no idea until the end as to who killed him.
Jillian Cantor’s Beautiful Little Fools is a wonderful murder mystery historic novel, focusing on the investigation of the death of Jay Gatsby and the women suspects – Daisy, Jordan and Catherine.
An adaption of the classic, The Great Gatsby, it tells the story of these women, as well as the thoughts of the private detective Frank Charles looking into Gatsby’s death.
I admit I didn’t know the storyline of The Great Gatsby, but that didn’t matter. It begins in 1917 and the years following, where women were not on equal footing to men. It was so well written that I was drawn into each of the characters and their stories, and I really felt for their struggles.
It was so easy to read and interesting which meant I wanted to progress through the novel to know more about their interconnecting lives and who was responsible for the murder/s. I think Beautiful Little Fools will appeal to a wide audience – especially women readers – there are themes such as love and betrayal; scandals and secrets; human rights; friendship and family. I very much enjoyed the novel and would recommend to others.
Thank you to Beauty and Lace and the publishers, Simon & Schuster Australia for this book.
Being familiar with the characters of The Great Gatsby, Beautiful Little Fools still sets the scene for love between Daisy and Jay!
Jillian Cantor tells the story of murders, secrets, friendship and love.
After a tragedy of death in the family, Daisy marries for money to save her mother and family home.
After Jay is murder the women are the main suspects. Worth reading to see where it leads.
Oh how I loved this one! As a fan of the era, the stage was already set. And what an interesting, compelling and beautifully written stage it was. Giving insight into the lifestyle of the women in Jay Gatsbys life really puts a different point of view across.
Thank you Jillian Cantor, you have made my holiday time more interesting for the read. Told by a women, for women, Im heading off to read The Great Gatsby!
Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor explores The Great Gatsby story from the perspective of the women involved. It tells us how the main women in the story became entangled with Jay Gatsby and how he affected their lives.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and found it difficult to put down. The chapters, all fairly short, are told from each woman’s perspective – Daisy, Jordan, Catherine and Myrtle. Also featured is Detective Frank Charles who is investigating the murder, he feels uneasy at the conclusion that it was Myrtle’s husband who shot Gatsby and he pursues the women in an attempt to get to the truth.
In addition to learning more about how the women became caught in Gatsby’s obsession it also highlights the situation for women in the nineteen twenties. How they are still seen as chattels, domestic violence is addressed, freedom to love who they want and lack of opportunities to live the life they want. This makes it easier to understand why they made the decisions they did, often they just had no choice.
This novel has inspired me to re read Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby and also to look out for other novels by Jillian Cantor. Thank you to Beauty & Lace book club and Simon and Schuster for the opportunity to read this novel.
Thank-you Beauty & Lace for giving me the chance to read & review ‘Beautiful Little Fools’ a book by Jillian Cantor.
The 1920’s was all about powerful men and their ability to make money and live their lives in the way they wanted. However, the really interesting stories are the ones about the women of these times who adapted to the challenges they had in terms of being considered less than a man. Three different women in this book take three different ways of living their lives.
Ultimately their lives come crashing together and are forever entwinned, will Jay Gatsby be the devastation of them all or the catalyst for real freedom of choice?
I really enjoyed this re-make version of the Great Gatsby, a different perspective but very entertaining. Thank-you ‘Beauty & Lace Bookclub’ and ‘Simon & Schuster’ for the opportunity to read ‘Beautiful Little Fools’ a book by Jillian Cantor.
I really enjoyed reading ‘Beautiful little fools’ by Jillian Cantor. It’s the summer holidays and was 39 degrees, so it was a good excuse to sit down and read and I had the book finished in a day. I read ‘The Great Gatsby’ many years ago in high school and didn’t see the recent movie, so I can’t remember the story apart from some of the names. It was still easy to read and I didn’t need the know the other storyline to enjoy this book (although I’m now thinking I might reread ‘The Great Gatsby’). I think this book would make an awesome movie, it will keep everyone guessing until the last second because there are so many suspects all with good reasons to be the murderer. But if you want to know who it was, you’ll have to read the book. Thanks Beauty and Lace for another great book to read >:o)
Thank you BeautyandLace for the opportunity to read Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor.
I’m not familiar nor read the book The Great Gatsby but that certainly didn’t affect my enjoyment of this book.
It caught my interest immediately and I couldn’t wait to see how this story unfolded.
This book has everything, drama, scandals, romance and a murder/ mystery to keep the reader captivated until the very last word!
Set in the 1920’s the lives of Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker are revealed to the reader. It made me think of what Daisy’s life could have been if her family hadn’t had the tragedy that lead her life in a different path.
Jordan Baker is Daisy’s best friend, she has a promising golf career that could be destroyed by a secret she has been keeping, even from Daisy.
The novel has a few twists and turns, it was suspenseful and I thoroughly enjoyed delving into the all the characters.
A great book that I would highly recommend, great holiday reading!