Crazy Rich Asians (2013)

Normally, if I’m going to read a book before the movie comes out, I like to read it a decent length of time ahead.  The movie is never going to be everything the book is, and if I read the book right before seeing the movie, I’m inevitably going to be tuned into the ways the movie falls short – better to leave a buffer of time between the two.  That didn’t work out with Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians, as it seems everybody wanted to read the book first; my library system had me on a two-month waiting list.  Luckily, it came just in time for my recent trip out of the country, and between airports, pools, and beaches, I got it read.

Rachel is nervous but excited when her boyfriend Nick suggests they spend the summer exploring Asia.  The trip kicks off at Nick’s best friend’s wedding in Singapore, where Rachel is poised to meet his family for the first time.  Little does she know, Nick is actually from one of Singapore’s wealthiest families, and she’s in for a shock at the outrageous displays of wealth/excess, as well as the suspicion of her as a no-name gold-digger who’s snared the most eligible bachelor in Singapore, in store for her.

Kwan does a fine job establishing the rarefied atmosphere occupied by his characters.  Every chapter is filled with sumptuous descriptions of designer labels, private planes, stunning jewelry, and other trappings of extreme wealth.  He covers both sides of the coin well – how commonplace all this is for Nick, his family, and their friends, and how bewildering it is for Rachel.  There’s no doubt that the book captures the specificity of the life of the Singapore jet-setting uber-rich, and the story is peppered with quick annotations to explain references to elite schools, decadent delicacies, and the like, along with words and phrases from several different languages.

There are definite Pride and Prejudice vibes in how Rachel is received by members of Nick’s crowd, jealous women playing the Caroline Bingley to her Elizabeth Bennet.  Girls/women especially are so often raised on stories of happily-ever-afters involving a handsome prince and/or millionaire seeing something special in an ordinary woman and sweeping her away, but it’s worth looking at just what’s involved in trying to fit into that life if it’s not where you’re from, and I like that the book doesn’t make it easy.  Even by the end, it’s not “solved,” just confronted – it’s the first of a trilogy, so I imagine the subsequent books continue to grapple with that question.

I enjoy most of the characters.  Rachel makes for a good everywoman heroine, and although I find Nick a little frustrating, it is interesting to see how he tries to reconcile the different sides of his life.  There are tons of supporting characters – encouraging, spiteful, and everything in between – and while I occasionally lost track of who belonged to who (the book contains a handy family tree at the front to keep all the Youngs, Leongs, Chengs, and so forth straight,) their personalities and quirks are pretty well differentiated.  I particularly enjoy Astrid and Ollie, two of Nick’s cousins, and Astrid’s ex Charlie makes a strong late showing.  I’m definitely looking forward to seeing them realized in the movie.

Warnings

Sexual content, language, drinking/drug references, and thematic elements (including references to domestic abuse.)