China Rich Girlfriend, the sequel to Crazy Rich Asians, was all over the place. It’s a testament to Kevin Kwan’s ability to craft interesting characters that this is getting 3 stars instead of 2. I think the makings of a great story are in this novel, but his editors needed to help Kwan focus the story more. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t read Crazy Rich Asians (the first book). It’s been two years since the end of book 1 and Rachel and Nick are getting […]
Richer Than God
This was one of those books that takes over your life for a couple of days while you speed through it. It was incredibly fun. Rachel Chu, an ABC (American Born Chinese), agrees to spend the summer with her boyfriend in Singapore, but she doesn’t know what she’s getting into. Her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, is from one of the oldest and richest families in Singapore. His family has plenty of opinions about his future wife so even though Rachel has a PhD in economics and […]
Two Amish dudes who just really love wood
Not going to lie, I totally started reading this book because with a name like A Forbidden Rumspringa, I thought it’d be hilariously over the top and I figured I’d be able to laugh about it with bookish friends later. Andrews managed to take a silly sounding premise and turn it into a well-written romance that takes its characters and their problems seriously. The story takes place in a small Amish community in northern Minnesota called Zebulon. Apparently there’s a lot of variation within Amish […]
Subtlety at its finest
This is my first Kazuo Ishiguro and I’m still mulling it over, always the sign of a book that is going to stick with me. There’s a light plot in The Remains of the Day, but most of it is a character study and an examination of what it means to give your life totally to a vocation. The narrator, Stevens, is a great English butler still recovering from his old employer’s death and trying to come to terms with moving into the last phase […]