China Rich Girlfriend: A Novel

3.5 stars I requested an ARC of China Rich Girlfriend because I saw that it was written by the "bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians." When I started reading China Rich Girlfriend, I realized that I had confused Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians with Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, a 2014 Tournament of Books contender which I found shallow, but amusing. (Give me a break; they both have "Rich" and "Asia" in their titles.) Part One of China Rich Girlfriend is just shallow, with a ridiculous amount of brand-name-dropping and irritating footnotes. Here's a representative example from the Prologue: . . . Eleanor, discreetly dressed in a chic camel-colored Akris pantsuit, racing green MaxMara swing coat, and her signature gold-rimmed Cutler and Gross sunglasses [fn] . . . [fn] Eleanor, who normally didn't wear pricey designer clothes and made a point of bragging that she "started getting brand-name fatigue back in the seventies," kept a few choice pieces reserved specifically for special occasions like today. Now imagine 130 pages of that. I almost gave up. I continued reading, however, and discovered that Kwan can be a decent writer when he focuses on his characters and their relationships, rather than their clothes. I enjoyed reading about the complex social hierarchies; I thought the Deep South was bad enough, but it's got nothing on the staggeringly rich society of Hong Kong and Shanghai. The chapter entitled "Social Impact Assessment," in which a consultant advises a nouveau riche bride on how to alter all aspects of her appearance and life to fit in with Hong Kong society is particularly funny; who knew (other than Kwan, apparently) that the appropriate uniform for domestic helpers is a navy blouse and white cotton slacks from J. Crew? I could have used a few family tree diagrams to keep everyone straight, but even without them, China Rich Girlfriend ended up being a light piece of chick lit fluff, good for a read on the beach. I received a free copy of China Rich Girlfriend through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Entertaining, looked forward to reading it each night. Crazy how rich some people are and what they do with all of their money!

I got tired of waiting for the sequel of the movie to come out and decided to just go ahead and buy this book. I was so surprised at how similar it was to the movie! This was an absolute blast to read and this will probably become one of my favorite series. Absolutely fantastic from beginning to end. 10/10