Crazy Rich Asians

Genre: Fiction

This is the story of Rachel Chu, a college professor and daughter of an immigrant mother who worked hard to help her daughter get an education and make a better life for herself in America. When we first meet Rachel, she is dating Nick Young, a college professor himself. Nick has invited Rachel to come to Singapore (where he is originally from) with him to attend his good friend’s wedding and to meet his family. What Rachel doesn’t know, but soon finds out, is that Nick is a part of a familial empire of wealth and extravagance, all in great opposition to how Nick lives his life away from his family, in NYC. Rachel meets Nick’s family and friends and attends the wedding festivities. But will Nick’s family and friends accept this new woman in his life who is not of wealth (quite the contrary) and is American born? This is the first of three books in the series, and the first one has been turned into a successful box office hit.

Are you sitting down for this? This is probably the only time I will ever say this: the movie was better than the book! I watched the movie first, which I always try to avoid. See, my husband and I don’t have many date nights, and I was on a wait list for the book from the library when we had a date night scheduled, so I threw caution to the wind and watched the movie first.

The movie is sweet, has a fairy tale quality along with a strong female character, sprinkled with quirky characters and charming moments. The book doesn’t have any of that. What the book does have is interesting insight into Chinese culture, Singapore wealth, how the traditional Chinese see Americans and what tremendous wealth looks like. So, that was interesting enough, but, really without the charm, the book was just OK.