From the Bookshelf of The Toast…
Find A Copy At
Group Discussions About This Book
No group discussions for this book yet.
What Members Thought
the writing is clunky but the story sucked me in, and I would periodically stop to look up what the various foods looked like, or the real locations in Singapore on Google Maps. While some of the character motivations seem off to me (Nick's guilelessness, mostly), I don't have a chance of understanding the thinking of the astronomically rich, so I was able to suspend disbelief.
...more
This is an acceptable plane book (the excess is kind of fun to read about it), but it's so, so poorly written. Leaden dialogue; way too many characters (and, concurrently, way too many POV shifts to random people we see once and never again); tons of exposition dumps; incredibly forced emotional Moments; and a manipulative "cliffhanger" ending to try to force you to read the next one. No thanks! I bought literally one thing here, which was (view spoiler)
...more
A third of "Crazy Rich Asians" is just descriptions of food and people arguing about which foods are better than others. I have absolutely no problem with this. Kwan had me visiting the Lonely Planet page for Singapore, and googling local Singaporean restaurants.
Really, it's a perfect summer book: a fun, extravagant reading experience. Kwan's portrayal of the Chinese elite in Singapore is over-the-top, and breezy.
Sure, the characters can be flat, and there's some clunky expository dialogue. Sti ...more
Really, it's a perfect summer book: a fun, extravagant reading experience. Kwan's portrayal of the Chinese elite in Singapore is over-the-top, and breezy.
Sure, the characters can be flat, and there's some clunky expository dialogue. Sti ...more
The story is well constructed and it was fun literary tourism. I got tetchy about the overuse of adverbs, particularly the ones describing how things were said (dramatically, simply, angrily, etc.), but might not have noticed how very many there were if the reader of the audiobook had matched adverb to line reading more often.
The cast of characters is pretty giant, but the main focus was on a few people, and they were all likable and easy to feel for as their lives succumbed to pressures outside ...more
The cast of characters is pretty giant, but the main focus was on a few people, and they were all likable and easy to feel for as their lives succumbed to pressures outside ...more
This was...utterly ridiculous and, yet, just what I wanted on a long train journey (which is when I was reading it). As someone who grew up in this part of the world (though not "crazy rich"), I found the descriptions of life in Singapore almost comforting. The family dynamics, the relatives who are all in each other's businesses, the gossiping--oh the gossiping!--is so familiar. This book's like sipping a hot mug of coffee while wrapped in a lovely cashmere shawl.
...more
There was a point in this book when I almost considered bailing. The characters were driving me around the bend, everything was just too extravagant. And then at some point I realized I was mostly done. The wealth in this book is staggering, and that felt gross to me. Having said that, I'm still looking forward to the movie adaptation.
...more
http://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2017/06...
http://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2018/04...
OOOOH y'all, if you need some good summer reading, grab this book immediately. It had been on my (lengthy) to-read lost for a long time, but when I heard they were making a movie starring Constance Wu (and other awesome ppl), it shot to the top of the list. And it was SO entertaining! Soapy, but not trashy. It centers on a Chinese-American woman, a professor, who accompanies her boyfriend to a wedding in Singapore--o ...more
http://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2018/04...
OOOOH y'all, if you need some good summer reading, grab this book immediately. It had been on my (lengthy) to-read lost for a long time, but when I heard they were making a movie starring Constance Wu (and other awesome ppl), it shot to the top of the list. And it was SO entertaining! Soapy, but not trashy. It centers on a Chinese-American woman, a professor, who accompanies her boyfriend to a wedding in Singapore--o ...more
A very enjoyable trashy novel about the super-wealthy of Singapore - the overly explanatory footnotes about every single piece of slang and cultural references are irritating and unnecessary, but easy to ignore.
Fast-moving and interesting plot. I liked the use of Chinese slang within English - felt very natural, but more importantly the footnotes were hilarious. The ending felt VERY abrupt, and not in keeping with the rest of the book; I feel like the second book was written as part of this one and they were split and then the ending for this one was rushed - otherwise this would have gotten four stars from me for being hilarious and fast-paced.
Jun 17, 2013
Alexis Coe
marked it as to-read
Feb 07, 2014
J
marked it as did-not-finish
Dec 29, 2016
Jessica
marked it as to-read
Apr 05, 2017
Patti
marked it as to-read
Dec 20, 2017
G
marked it as to-read
Jan 28, 2018
Liz
added it
