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emotional
funny
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Kevin Kwan doesn't write romance books. He writes Asian political intrigue– that is to say, he writes about family drama so intense that it makes you personally uncomfortable in your own house.
Good read if you like drama and if you care about other people than the protagonists.
“Nonsense! Matchmaking is still the custom in half the world—think of the billions of Indians that are matchmade every year. And especially in great families like ours, unions have always been entered into with great intention and great strategy. You know Rufus cannot just marry any girl he wants—he must marry someone that fits all the necessary criteria. And I’ve found the girl that checks every single box. "
After reading the Crazy Rich Asians series, I've been trying to find similar books that hit that particular tone of uncomfortability, but none of the Reddit or Tumblr recommendations hit the mark. They all featured richness, craziness, and occassional asians, but not in the way that CRA mixed it all in one pot. The recs were all too focused on either the romance (which is never integrated well with the context of the characters background– secret heiress/cinderella stories have a particular key they have to tune into and it sounds obvious when the author can't sing), or the money (which, if not used for charitable works in story, were extremely hammer-headed anti-capitalist metaphors– which is a great genre in of its own, but not what I want to read at the moment).
Rich people ARE laughable, and no one gets that better than Kwan. They are funny because they are too absurd to actually fathom in real life, but people are saying the same things that these characters have said out loud for real, because these are people and stories from Kwan's real life. These people are funny only to us, the great pooritas of the world. Their absurdity is prime for dramatic beats, and it makes for some real good reading.
“I was supposed to land at Exeter, but somehow I’m in Paris. You realize this is kidnapping.”
Rosina laughed merrily. “Only little children get kidnapped. You’re too big to be kidnapped.”
“But you diverted my plane!”
“It’s my plane, dear, or did you forget that?”
I've read Sex and Vanity before. It got the rich asian part, but there were only very brief flashes of the crazy and unhinged in Lucie, particularly at the end of it all. I wasn't sold on it as a romance book, and at the time I've written off Kwan as just making his most interesting characters once and then never again. I was so bored, even though the two characters in that book had better chemistry than Rachel & Nick or Rufus & Eden here.
I think it was because Kwan writes one particular voice very well- that of the pent-up girl who is a pressure cooker of stress in following the codes of the stratified society she's in. You read it in glimpses of Astrid's caprice channeled into fashion and spending, of Lucy (Lucie? Oh, I forgot her name already) constant revolving-door of feelings and passionate letters, and in here with the two daughters barely holding on to their whimsy.
There's the Asian silk-hiding-steel, grace under pressure stereotype that typically gives most girls in stories like these that mark them as being more dignified or nobler than the other girls in the narrative, but Kwan makes sure to point out the unsavoury parts of these girls' extreme natures as well. It makes for complex humans.
I never want to sympathize with rich people. But if all of them here are rich, and they are using all of their resources at their disposal to cause Bugs Bunny level catastrophe unto each other, then I am here for it.
“My dad was one cruel skullfucker. He wouldn’t let my mom see me—he called her a bad influence and tried to show me a sex tape that he’d secretly recorded of her. Can you fucking believe that? He slept with my first girlfriend and then he told me she was only after my money and he was trying to teach me a lesson. Everything with him was a lesson, it was about toughening me up and preparing me to manage his great and glorious fortune after he was gone. And now look what he’s done. I put up with his torture for twenty-three years of my life, and now he’s trying to fuck me from the grave with this whole trust bullshit!”
It pains me that I can't put any of Arabella's quotes on here because I want people to read it by themselves, but her and Eleanor (and Su Yi) are exemplary versions of narcissistic mothers/women that I have seen and met in real life.
I like that this book explores nuance and background reasons for why everyone IS so crazy, but also narratively doesn't forgive or punish them for their unlikeable actions. It happens. People suck, and they exist in the world, and most times we can't do anything about them because they're just like that.
Asian women, and specifically the Arabellas and Eleanors of the world, are powerless on a material, patriarchal field. They get married into families, they change their name, their bodies are social bombs, the future is dependent on them and how they act, they save face desperately like people with toilet paper during lockdowns.
But here, in the world of rom com and familial political intrigue, they cause the most damage through others not by enacting physical pain or limiting material resources like funds. They are emotional terrorists. They prey upon your guilt mercilessly and act the victim when you point anything out. They cry, squeal, and weasel out of accountability for emotional damages as much as they poke, prod, and pinch other people into behaving exactly like what they want.
And it's not limited to their daughters! They do it to friends, family, and they do it because they're not wrong, but no one else is right either.
In telenovelas and asianovelas it is always the mother in law who is evil. Of course she is. She is the most hostile threat to individualized peace the same way that she is the person-in-charge of maintaining the collectivist stability.
Asian women in the family are scary– motherhood is the only position of true power, really. Because their children and family (including in laws) are an extension of themselves, it is the only thing they can control. Like a badly behaved extra limb.
I love how Kevin Kwan writes women I met in real life that I don't ever want to see or talk to again ever. And for that, I forgive him that the romance in this book was so boring, because the other parts of it was so, so good.
Good read if you like drama and if you care about other people than the protagonists.
“Nonsense! Matchmaking is still the custom in half the world—think of the billions of Indians that are matchmade every year. And especially in great families like ours, unions have always been entered into with great intention and great strategy. You know Rufus cannot just marry any girl he wants—he must marry someone that fits all the necessary criteria. And I’ve found the girl that checks every single box. "
After reading the Crazy Rich Asians series, I've been trying to find similar books that hit that particular tone of uncomfortability, but none of the Reddit or Tumblr recommendations hit the mark. They all featured richness, craziness, and occassional asians, but not in the way that CRA mixed it all in one pot. The recs were all too focused on either the romance (which is never integrated well with the context of the characters background– secret heiress/cinderella stories have a particular key they have to tune into and it sounds obvious when the author can't sing), or the money (which, if not used for charitable works in story, were extremely hammer-headed anti-capitalist metaphors– which is a great genre in of its own, but not what I want to read at the moment).
Rich people ARE laughable, and no one gets that better than Kwan. They are funny because they are too absurd to actually fathom in real life, but people are saying the same things that these characters have said out loud for real, because these are people and stories from Kwan's real life. These people are funny only to us, the great pooritas of the world. Their absurdity is prime for dramatic beats, and it makes for some real good reading.
“I was supposed to land at Exeter, but somehow I’m in Paris. You realize this is kidnapping.”
Rosina laughed merrily. “Only little children get kidnapped. You’re too big to be kidnapped.”
“But you diverted my plane!”
“It’s my plane, dear, or did you forget that?”
I've read Sex and Vanity before. It got the rich asian part, but there were only very brief flashes of the crazy and unhinged in Lucie, particularly at the end of it all. I wasn't sold on it as a romance book, and at the time I've written off Kwan as just making his most interesting characters once and then never again. I was so bored, even though the two characters in that book had better chemistry than Rachel & Nick or Rufus & Eden here.
I think it was because Kwan writes one particular voice very well- that of the pent-up girl who is a pressure cooker of stress in following the codes of the stratified society she's in. You read it in glimpses of Astrid's caprice channeled into fashion and spending, of Lucy (Lucie? Oh, I forgot her name already) constant revolving-door of feelings and passionate letters, and in here with the two daughters barely holding on to their whimsy.
There's the Asian silk-hiding-steel, grace under pressure stereotype that typically gives most girls in stories like these that mark them as being more dignified or nobler than the other girls in the narrative, but Kwan makes sure to point out the unsavoury parts of these girls' extreme natures as well. It makes for complex humans.
I never want to sympathize with rich people. But if all of them here are rich, and they are using all of their resources at their disposal to cause Bugs Bunny level catastrophe unto each other, then I am here for it.
“My dad was one cruel skullfucker. He wouldn’t let my mom see me—he called her a bad influence and tried to show me a sex tape that he’d secretly recorded of her. Can you fucking believe that? He slept with my first girlfriend and then he told me she was only after my money and he was trying to teach me a lesson. Everything with him was a lesson, it was about toughening me up and preparing me to manage his great and glorious fortune after he was gone. And now look what he’s done. I put up with his torture for twenty-three years of my life, and now he’s trying to fuck me from the grave with this whole trust bullshit!”
It pains me that I can't put any of Arabella's quotes on here because I want people to read it by themselves, but her and Eleanor (and Su Yi) are exemplary versions of narcissistic mothers/women that I have seen and met in real life.
I like that this book explores nuance and background reasons for why everyone IS so crazy, but also narratively doesn't forgive or punish them for their unlikeable actions. It happens. People suck, and they exist in the world, and most times we can't do anything about them because they're just like that.
Asian women, and specifically the Arabellas and Eleanors of the world, are powerless on a material, patriarchal field. They get married into families, they change their name, their bodies are social bombs, the future is dependent on them and how they act, they save face desperately like people with toilet paper during lockdowns.
But here, in the world of rom com and familial political intrigue, they cause the most damage through others not by enacting physical pain or limiting material resources like funds. They are emotional terrorists. They prey upon your guilt mercilessly and act the victim when you point anything out. They cry, squeal, and weasel out of accountability for emotional damages as much as they poke, prod, and pinch other people into behaving exactly like what they want.
And it's not limited to their daughters! They do it to friends, family, and they do it because they're not wrong, but no one else is right either.
In telenovelas and asianovelas it is always the mother in law who is evil. Of course she is. She is the most hostile threat to individualized peace the same way that she is the person-in-charge of maintaining the collectivist stability.
Asian women in the family are scary– motherhood is the only position of true power, really. Because their children and family (including in laws) are an extension of themselves, it is the only thing they can control. Like a badly behaved extra limb.
I love how Kevin Kwan writes women I met in real life that I don't ever want to see or talk to again ever. And for that, I forgive him that the romance in this book was so boring, because the other parts of it was so, so good.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Classism
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Death
Minor: Drug use, Eating disorder, Misogyny, Racial slurs
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was a fast-paced read, but the footnotes throughout annoyed me. Also, Arabella was an absolute monster and I hate that there were zero consequences for her.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Death of parent
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Drug abuse
Minor: Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Abortion, Death of parent
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Cancer, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Colonisation, Classism, Deportation
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Bullying, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Classism
Moderate: Death, Racism, Terminal illness, Medical content, Death of parent, Sexual harassment
Minor: Cancer, Infidelity, Vomit, Abortion, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Lies and Weddings is not normally a book I would read, but it was a fun one (also the cover is *muah*). It centers around two well-off families and a big wedding coming up, but something comes up that causes everything to go wrong. Something I really like he did was write the rich people in a very over the top manner. So many names for clothes and such, describing how fine and gorgeous, so wild and crazy, and yet still manages to make them look so stupid and petty and toxic. I can see why some would grow tired of that in his writing, but I get its part of the satire. He does have quite a few characters, however, so sometimes I would lose track of who was who. Still, it's funny, it's sad, and I love Eden and Rufus.
Fuck Arabella though, even in the end, she is gross, abusive, and an unbearable c**t.
Fuck Arabella though, even in the end, she is gross, abusive, and an unbearable c**t.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Drug abuse, Racism
Moderate: Addiction, Death, Death of parent
Minor: Eating disorder, Infidelity, Abortion
adventurous
emotional
funny
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Medical content, Medical trauma
Moderate: Death of parent
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A pretty average read for me. When the book finally started picking up (~250 pages in), I was able to flow through it quickly but other parts felt like a bit of a slog.
I also felt like there were way too many sections where I asked myself why does any of this matter...and it didn't really. The main twist was really obvious and I saw it coming from a mile away.
My main enjoyment came from the unhingedness of basically every character (but especially Arabella).
I also felt like there were way too many sections where I asked myself why does any of this matter...and it didn't really. The main twist was really obvious and I saw it coming from a mile away.
My main enjoyment came from the unhingedness of basically every character (but especially Arabella).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Cancer, Drug abuse, Drug use
Minor: Death, Death of parent
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Death of parent
Minor: Alcoholism, Death