Crazy Rich Asians as been at the top of my TBR pile for ages and I was THRILLED to receive a copy from the Cannonball Holiday Exchange (I still don’t know who sent these so I say to the universe – THANK you, the Cannonball Book Exchange is always a delight!)
Rachel and Nick are a couple of college-professor lovebirds working at NYU who decide to spend their summer traveling around Asia as this is something that college professors do on the regular (no it is not). Nick is to be the best man at a wedding in Singapore so sure why not.
Nick however has told Rachel nothing about his family, including the fact that they are crazy rich Asians. Nor has he mentioned that the wedding they are going to is a bigger deal than the Met Gala and everybody there will be draped in diamonds and couture. Rachel has packed a nice sheath dress she picked up at Marshals because she has no idea she’s walking into this…
What you end up with is a fish out of water story with detailed descriptions of what exactly it means to be CRAZY RICH, and it’s juicy fluffy fun.
I can’t WAIT to see the movie because I want to see all the clothes, houses, food, etc. I want to go there and eat everything. I was fascinated by the lifestyle and the delicious scenes where some racist jerk gets their comeuppance when the crazy rich asians make a few phone calls then LOWER THE BOOM.
But over time the emphasis on all the luxury, descriptions of dresses, art, food, rooms, becomes repetitive. There are a variety of secondary characters who were written so thinly I would skim through their POV chapters.
And the story itself was threadbare. We keep getting TOLD how in love Nick and Rachel are but we never SEE it. They spend no time together so the dramaz at the end feels unearned. Also Nick is an ass – how could he not have told Rachel ANYTHING ABOUT HIS FAMILY? He hangs her out to dry at multiple points to the point where it’s hard to feel sympathetic.
I literally couldn’t care less about Rachel’s parent dramaz.
And the book ended abruptly. It’s like drama – drama – backstory exposition dump – kiss by pool – fin.
It’s a weird book because I found it compulsively readable but overall was…not great. The movie looks fantastic and SEEING all the things is more fun than READING about them. This will likely fill into the rare category of “the movie was better.”
I guess I can join you in this corner of not liking the book much – I didn’t really care about any of the characters, and found it all too shallow to be enjoyable. I was scratching my head trying to figure out why everyone was raving about it.
I think it’s AWESOME that it centers on POC and and their culture, and there is a certain fun of reading about the food and lifestyle. But I can’t muster the enthusiasm to continue with 2 more books of “who’s got the bigger airplane.”
Good review and I agree with you completely. That said, don’t rule out seeing the movie, because in a rare twist I enjoyed it a lot more than the book! There are some changes and some boring things left out. Plus the cast really brings the romance to life. Or maybe I just have a hopeless crush on the guy who plays Nick.
I’m sure I’ll LOVE the movie. Also in a visual medium so much of the endless description goes away because you are seeing it. Having just watched the trailer it seems the movie gives the characters way more spark and humor than the book did.
Jake was your gifter :)