Crazy Rich Asians

Author: Kevin Kwan
First Published: May 2014
Publisher: Anchor
Series: Crazy Rich Asians #1
527 pages (paperback)

Rachel Chu is an ordinary Chinese-American 30-something woman, a professor of economics at a New York University. For the past two years, she has been dating Nicholas Young, a fellow professor at her university. Their relationship has been fantastic. Now, Nick has invited her to attend the wedding of his best friend Colin in Singapore. Rachel is a tad hesitant at first, because traveling to Singapore certainly means meeting all of Nick's family as well -- but hey, maybe it's about time she did. And anyway, what could possibly happen, really?

Instead of an ordinary vacation, Rachel is wholly unprepared for the world of crazy rich Asian people. Turns out Nick comes from an extremely wealthy, multi-billionaire family. They are very old money and can trace their family tree back generations. Nick doesn't think it's a big deal, but Rachel is stunned. The wedding they're going to? The biggest, fanciest wedding in the Asian world, covered by magazines and newspapers! To make matters difficult, Nick's entire family, excluding a select few, are incredibly snobby towards Rachel. Rachel isn't rich and "doesn't come from a good family". The family plots to break up Nick and Rachel, while at the same time, Nick falls deeper in love with his girlfriend and plans to propose soon.

As an Asian person myself, it was so fun reading this book. I did not think any of it was offensive. Actually, it's clear the author really understands what very traditional Asian elders are like! This is not a book about "regular" rich Asian people. This is a book about the extremely, extremely wealthy, the kind who are just bordering on royalty; the old money types who look down on the nouveau riche. It's a crazy, humorous take on the super elite of the Asian world, with a culture that prizes sons and family names. If you've ever watched an Asian TV drama, this is sort of like that, with a lot of stinking rich people and brand names thrown around.

Though I found the story very entertaining, I did have a few qualms with the book. Now, I didn't expect any deep and profound characters or anything like that, especially since this book is classified as humor (?), but I really didn't feel much between Rachel and Nick. They're happy and in love, I am told, but I didn't feel like they were. Everybody else, I don't care, but since they are the main characters this story was revolving around, I did expect their love to feel more ... genuine? This may have something to do with the fact that for a lot of the story, the characters are not actually with one another (physically, not emotionally).

The thing I disliked the most was the ending. What kind of ending was that?! Absolutely nothing was resolved; in fact, there were several cliffhanger-type endings. It was all rather abrupt and left me very unsatisfied.

Regardless, I quite enjoyed this book and am glad that there is a sequel. Actually, that's probably why the ending was so sudden -- it'll all be continued in the next book, I bet.

My Rating: 4/5