Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy, #1)

by Kevin Kwan

[Leah]

As soon as I heard about Crazy Rich Asians, I was so excited to read it! I loved the sound of it, and I do enjoy a novel that’s more out of this world than I normally read and Crazy Rich Asians promised that in spades! I was so pleased when I received a nice, fat proof copy and I couldn’t wait to get started on the novel, especially as it had such glowing endorsements from Plum Sykes and Jackie Collins, who better to endorse such a book than Jackie Collins! I started the book eagerly, and while I found the novel did start to slow down a bit in the middle, it more than picked up in the end and I did really enjoy it.

Crazy Rich Asians is absolutely insane, and that is putting it politely! It’s nuts, filled with such opulence and glamour it will make your head spin, especially since rich people and their fashions and their crazy ways really isn’t my forte. But I did enjoy the novel anyway, I enjoyed the Singapore setting, though I’m not sure I’d want to visit Singapore if it’s all about the rich and famous and they’re all so crazy like that (though I suspect they’re not). What was quite clear throughout the novel was how much the Asian people seem to value where you come from, and that’s the theme throughout the entire novel, and it made me feel so sad for Rachel. Rachel was such a lovely, wonderful character and to see her treated so poorly because she didn’t come from a “named” family was just awful. She was the shining beacon in the novel, and I couldn’t have cared less where she came from!

If there’s one thing I’d have changed about the novel, is I’d have had the Khoo wedding be sooner than it was, as that’s when things really kicked up a notch and it all sort of kicked off. Yes, the bits where Rachel and Nick first get to Singapore is enjoyable, but for what comes after that’s even better! Especially since the end of the novel then comes so suddenly, and I desperately would have liked more pages to fully resolve everything the novel threw at us, especially as there was no epilogue to tell us what happened in the future. Maybe of course there will be a sequel in the future, which I would very much enjoy, so we’ll see.

I thoroughly enjoyed Crazy Rich Asians. I’m not entirely sure I knew who everyone was at any one time – everyone in Singapore appears to be related on way or another and there are so many different Asian words used to describe everyone (most of which I found distracting, I’m not a massive fan of footnotes/translations, I much prefer that if you use a foreign word, you just make sure whoever speaks next uses that same word if that makes sense) and you will need to have your wits about you as your read because it is confusing! But I enjoyed the novel and I tried my very best to keep up with who everyone was and I did enjoy all the backstabbing that occurred, it was so funny to see everyone at each other’s throats and trying to out-do one another in any which way they can, especially because that stuff doesn’t matter so much in Western culture. It was a great look into a different world, but not a world I’d want to inhibit that’s for sure!