Crazy Rich Asians (Kwan) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
When Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians has a mother in Singapore telling her girls to finish everything on their plates because "there are children starving in America," it’s O.K. to get the joke. There’s no need to dwell on what it really means. Crazy Rich Asians is this summer’s "Bergdorf Blondes," over-the-top funny and a novelty to boot. Mr. Kwan delivers nonstop hoots about a whole new breed of rich, vulgar, brand-name-dropping conspicuous consumers, with its own delicacies, curses, vices, stereotypes ("I hope she’s not one of those Taiwanese tornadoes!") and acronyms. According to Mr. Kwan, this crowd uses U.B.C., as the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, is known, to mean "University of a Billion Chinese." How rich and vulgar are the Anglophile Asians of this debut novel? Rich enough to throw a diamond of more than 30 carats into a snowdrift and not look for it. So vulgar that a Cirque du Soleil troupe has to show up to convey that things have gotten crass. So steeped in wretched excess that one man boasts about the precise temperature his climate-controlled shoe closet should be.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


Crazy Rich Asians is both a deliciously satiric read and a Fodor’s of sorts to the world of Singapore’s fabulously monied, both new and old.
Sherryl Connelly - New York Daily News


An entertaining and well-written book about the life of the Chinese super-rich, a new class who are keeping alive five-star hotels, restaurants and luxury shops around the world.... The wealth of the book is in the detail—of the personalities, the places, the clothes and the colours of Singapore, Kwan's native place.
Louise Rosario - South China Morning Post


Deliciously decadent.... Rachel, an American-born Chinese (ABC), has no idea what to expect when she visits Singapore to meet her boyfriend Nick’s multibillionaire family. There, she discovers mind-blowing opulence—next season’s couture, palatial properties, million-dollar shopping sprees—and the over-the-top bad behavior that comes with it.... This 48-karat beach read is crazy fun.
Stephan Lee - Entertainment Weekly


There’s rich, there’s filthy rich, and then there’s crazy rich.... A Pride and Prejudice-like send-up about an heir bringing his Chinese-American girlfriend home to meet his ancestor-obsessed family, the book hilariously skewers imperial splendor and the conniving antics of the Asians jet set.
People


Crazy Rich Asians is like Dynasty on steroids with more private jets, bigger houses, and a lot more money. It is the very definition of a beach read. I finished it over a weekend and by the end was longing to see the ridiculously extravagant and over-the-top world that Mr. Kwan had created.... I predict this will be the 50 Shades of Grey of this summer."
Michael Carl - VanityFair.com


It’s impossible not to get sucked into this satirical novel about the jet-setting lives of an enormous busybody family and its infinite Louboutin collection.
Glamour


Read Kevin Kwan’s debut, Crazy Rich Asians, on an exotic beach in super-expensive sunglasses.... [Rachel] encounters outre fashion, private jets, and a set of aristocratic values so antiquated they’d make the Dowager Countess proud.
Entertainment Weekly


With his debut novel, [Kwan] delivers an uproarious, comical satire about a jet-set life that most of us can only imagine. It’s a page-turner that will leave you wanting more."
Claudia McNeilly - Hello! Magazine (Canada)


Mordantly funny.… In Kevin Kwan’s winning summer satire, Crazy Rich Asians, a young woman discovers her boyfriend belongs to a milieu of unimaginable splendor—and snobbery.
Vogue


[A] fun, over-the-top romp through the… Asian jet set, where anything from this season is already passe and one’s pedigree is everything.… A witty tongue-in-cheek frolic about what it means to be from really old money and what it’s like to be crazy rich.
Publishers Weekly


Juicy stuffy that's culturally interesting for clarifying the difference between mainland and overseas Chinese; billed as Jackie Collins meets Amy Tan.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Jane Austen, or maybe Edith Wharton, goes to Singapore, turning in this lively, entertaining novel of manners.… An elegant comedy and an auspicious debut.
Kirkus Reviews