"Lies and Weddings" by Kevin Kwan (2024)

"Bea glanced at Solene.  'Didn't you just have a big show in Miami?'

"'She sure did!'  I bought one of her paintings,' Freddy proudly declared.

"Solene looked surprised.  'Did you really?  Which one?'

"'Just Shut Up and Blow Me.'

"'That's a bit rude, Freddy!' Bea scolded.

"'No, no, that's the name of her painting,' Freddy explained.

"Solene nodded.  'Yes, it's part of my latest series.  It's my examination of toxic masculinity, based on actual words my exes would say to me.'"

Kevin Kwan's books have been discussed here several times already.  He's the author of Crazy Rich Asians and its two sequels, and also Sex and Vanity, which is the one book by him I haven't read.  He's something of a latter-day Anthony Trollope, poking fun at the rich, famous and powerful while at the same time bringing his fiction into a very modern context.

If you've read his other books you won't find Lies and Weddings that surprising, though it is one of his funnier books.  In this contemporary fairy tale a young female doctor becomes romantically entangled with a wealthy British family's only son, and even though the ending's extremely predictable both the humor and characterization are flawless.

I'm assuming I missed Sex and Vanity because of COVID.  I've never even seen it for sale in a bookstore.  If I ever come across it I'll be sure to give it a go.  Lies and Weddings was a very enjoyable read, and I'd be glad to say that I read all of Kevin Kwan's books.

Related Entries:

"The Redbreast" by Jo Nesbo (2000)

"Mecca" by Susan Straight (2022)

"Human Acts" by Han Kang (2014)

"Intermezzo" by Sally Rooney (2024)

"China Rich Girlfriend" by Kevin Kwan (2015)

"When I feel you are ready, I will introduce you to Hong Kong's most exclusive church, which you are to begin attending on a regular basis.  Before you protest, please not that this is one of the cornerstones to my methodology of social rehabilitation.  Your true spiritual affiliations do not concern me - it does not matter to me if you are Taoist, Daoist, Buddhist, or worship Meryl Streep - but it is absolutely essential that you become a regular praying, tithing, communion-taking, hands-in-the-air-waving, Bible-study-fellowship-attending member of this church.  (This has the added bonus of ensuring that you will be qualified for burial at the most coveted Christian cemetery on Hong Kong Island, rather than having to suffer the eternal humiliation of being interred at one of those lesser cemeteries on the Kowloon side.)"

For a biographical introduction to Kevin Kwan please refer to the entry for Crazy Rich Asians.  China Rich Girlfriend is the second book in the series, followed by Rich People Problems, which I've also read.  More background to this book can be found in those entries.

In China Rich Girlfriend Nick and Rachel are about to get married in California, and the same cast of characters is dealing with various personal crises and attempting to realize various ambitions.  Shortly after her wedding, Rachel discovers she has family in China that she was previously unaware of, and her attempt to become better acquainted with this family forms the backbone of China Rich Girlfriend.

It's an entertaining book but it's all over the place.  Even the title is an indication of this state of disarray.  Is the "China rich girlfriend" Rachel?  Or Kitty Pong, former TV star?  Or Colette, the spoiled socialite?  It's never clear in the book, and the back and forth between these three characters often threatens to overwhelm the novel.  To put it another way, China Rich Girlfriend could have done with some editing.

I also found the author's depictions of China less than convincing.  He's on firm footing when he writes about Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, but the further he gets from those three places the more the settings used in his novels seem like backgrounds or props.  There's no real feeling for those places.  It's all just names and secondhand trivia.

This said, China Rich Girlfriend is definitely the funniest of the three books, and I would recommend it for this reason alone.  There's a scene in the Hong Kong church mentioned above that had me laughing out loud.

One thing though - and this is curious for a series of books attempting to encompass all of Asia - why is there no mention of Japan or South Korea in any of them?  The author namedrops SO many places, but in all three books not a single mention of Japan or South Korea.  I could understand the omission of Myanmar or Vietnam, but no Japan?  No South Korea?

Related Entries:

"Rich People Problems" by Kevin Kwan (2017)
"Crazy Rich Asians" by Kevin Kwan (2013)
"The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi (2009)
"Mission of Gravity" by Hal Clement (1954)

"Rich People Problems" by Kevin Kwan (2017)

"...What kind of Asian is this?  In descending order of importance: Chindo, Singaporean, Hong Konger, Malaysian Chinese, Eurasian, Asian American living in New York or Los Angeles, Asian American working in private equity in Connecticut, Canadian Asian from Vancouver or Toronto, Australian Chinese from Sydney or Melbourne, Thai, Filipino from Forbes Park, American-born Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Mainland Chinese, common Indonesian."

I read this book right after finishing Crazy Rich Asians.  You can read about the author and that book in that entry.  Those who've read the series will already know that I've skipped over China Rich Girlfriend, which I couldn't find in my local bookstore.

Rich People Problems follows the blueprint laid out in Crazy Rich Asians.  Super rich Asian people deal with various romantic entanglements, countless designers and travel destinations are mentioned, and in the end someone finds true love and the wicked are punished.  Now that I think about it, Kwan's formula is also very similar to what Anthony Trollope was doing in his books, albeit on a much smaller, much more British scale.

Rich People Problems is a good book and at times it's quite funny.  It's a lot more uneven than Crazy Rich Asians, which is unsurprising given that it's the third book in the series.  By this point Nick and Rachel are married, Colin Khoo and his wife Araminta have a son, and Astrid and Charlie are on the verge of getting married.  The rivalry between Kitty Pong and her daughter-in-law Colette frames most of the funnier parts of the book, and Nick's grandma's hospitalization frames the serious bits.

I'm sure I'll read China Rich Girlfriend when I can find it.  This series is pretty good, and I still plan on watching the movies eventually.

Related Entries:

"Crazy Rich Asians" by Kevin Kwan (2013)
"The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi (2009)
"Mission of Gravity" by Hal Clement (1954)
"R.U.R. and War with the Newts" by Karel Capek (1920 and 1936)

"Crazy Rich Asians" by Kevin Kwan (2013)

"Francesca Shaw cut in.  'Isabel, I'm going to tell it to you like it is, because everyone here is wasting your time being polite.  You can't afford to fall in love with Simon.  Let me break it down for you.  Let's be generous and assume that Simon is making a measly eight hundred thousand a year.  After taxes and CPF his take-home is only about half a million.  Where are you going to live on that kind of money?  Think about it - you have to factor a million dollars per bedroom, and you need at least three bedrooms, so you are talking three mil for an apartment in Bukit Timah.  That's a hundred and fifty thousand a year in mortgage and property taxes.  Then say you have two kids, and you want to send them to proper schools.  At thirty thousand a year each for school fees that's sixty thousand, plus twenty thousand a year each on tutors.  That's one hundred thousand a year on schooling alone.  Servants and nannies - two Indonesian or Sri Lankan maids will cost you another thirty thousand, unless you want one of them to be Swedish or French au pair, then you're talking eighty thousand a year spent on the help.  Now, what are we going to do about your own upkeep?  At the very least, you'll need ten new outfits per season, so you won't be ashamed to be seen in public.  Thank God Singapore has only two seasons - hot and hotter - so let's say, just to be practical, you'll only spend four thousand per look.  That's eighty thousand a year for wardrobe.  I'll throw in another twenty thousand for one good handbag and a few pairs of new shoes every season.  And then there is your basic maintenance - hair, facials, mani, pedi, brazilian wax, eyebrow wax, massage, chiro, acupuncture, Pilates, yoga, core fusion, personal trainer.  That's another forty thousand a year.  We've already spent four hundred and seventy thousand of Simon's salary, which leaves just thirty thousand for everything else."

Kevin Kwan is a Singaporean author who lives in the States.  Crazy Rich Asians was his first published novel, and is in many respects autobiographical in nature.  Kwan's own life in Singapore bears many similarities to the character Nick's background in Crazy Rich Asians.  The book has been adapted into a movie, but I haven't seen the movie yet.

In the novel Nick, a Singaporean living in New York, takes his girlfriend Rachel to visit Singapore on the eve of his friend Colin's wedding.  Rachel, a Chinese-American, is unaware of Nick's wealthy background and the snobbery of his relatives.  She spends her time in Singapore tortured by both these relatives and rivals for Nick's affections, all the while transfixed by the opulence in which Nick's friends and family spend their daily lives.

It's probably a novel that heterosexual women will connect with most readily, given that it's essentially an update of Cinderella.  Greed and lust have their day, but eventually the evildoers are undone by their evil deeds, and true love conquers all.  I'm not saying this to demean the book or those who like it, because to me the fact that it's resonated with so many people speaks for itself.  Those looking for a more serious, more literary examination of what it means to be Asian in modern times, however, would probably be better served elsewhere.

For my part I enjoyed the book immensely, and I'm sure I'll read the two sequels in the near future.  The author has a wonderful light touch with his characters, and the story flows seamlessly from beginning to end.  I could complain that all the male characters are one-dimensional, I could complain that the author's version of Singapore seems to depart from reality, but what we're dealing with in Crazy Rich Asians is a fairy tale, and a rather uninteresting (if handsome) prince, inhabiting a fantastic setting, is to be expected given the genre.

Crazy Rich Asians certainly isn't the best book I've read this year, but it's surprisingly entertaining and I look forward to seeing the movie soon.

Related Entries:

"The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi (2009)
"Mission of Gravity" by Hal Clement (1954)
"R.U.R. and War with the Newts" by Karel Capek (1920 and 1936)
"McTeague" by Frank Norris (1899)