Author: Kevin Kwan
# of Pages: 527 (paperback)
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Romance
Rating:★★★☆☆
Synopsis: When New Yorker Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and quality time with the man she hopes to marry. But Nick has failed to give his girlfriend a few key details. One, that his childhood home looks like a palace; two, that he grew up riding in more private planes than cars; and three, that he just happens to be the country’s most eligible bachelor.
Review: This is another shameful instance where I watched the movie before I read the book.
While both the book and the movie were entertaining, neither wowed me. Rachel, our protagonist, and Michael, Astrid's husband, are the only two characters many readers can relate to as they are the sole non-crazy-rich asians. However; there's third person point of view switching, which, while better than first person POV switching, is distasteful in its execution for this book. Many times, the reader must perceive the story through the eyes of characters such as Eleanor (Nick's mom), Astrid (Nick's cousin who loves to blow hundreds of thousands of dollars while shopping), and Eddie (an extremely unlikeable character who's purpose in the story is still unclear). All of these characters are the crazy rich asians, aka too different from the common reader to be relatable.
There were only two points of view that I cared about reading: Astrid's (because of her struggles in her marriage with Michael) and Rachel (because of her struggle to understand Nick in context with his family). Everyone else's point of view made reading this book take longer than it had to.
Of course, since I was reading this book after watching the movie, I couldn't help but compare. This is one of the few times where I feel the movie made changes to the plot line that made it better than the book. For example, the cause of conflict between Michael and Astrid is much more realistic in the movie (although Michael definitely seems like a better guy in the book than he does in the movie). The ending of the book that focuses on Nick and Rachel's relationship (aka when the big conflict is resolved) had a messier execution than in the movie. Perhaps it's because there are two other books in the series, but it still feels like there is a lot of unresolved conflicts between Rachel and Nick's family.
If you are interested in reading this book then yes, I would recommend it to you. However, if you are on the fence about reading it or are searching for a book to read about asian culture in general - you may want to look elsewhere.
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