Book No. 69 of 2020
Thanks to a mini home crisis, which was a distraction in itself and caused me to play Animal Crossing for hours on end to escape, I had a brief hiatus from reading, which this happily broke.
This book is classic Kevin Kwan—it has the same sharp snark and sense of excess that characterized the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy (the books, not the movie, which while dear to me is SUPER different from the source text). The characters aren’t particularly deep or relatable and the plot isn’t groundbreaking, but that’s not what you’re reading Kevin Kwan for imho.
What made this book almost hurt to read was its lush, decadent, loving descriptions of Capri, which in quarantine has been a favorite topic of reminiscence. (And also luxury vacation life in general—I miss you, fancy hotel breakfasts.) Kwan name-checking specific spots I miss also, in this time of lockdown and travel restrictions, felt incredibly mean.
There is, of course, also the delight of literary rubbernecking at the excesses, idiosyncrasies, and whims of the ultra-ultra-ultra wealthy, delivered with Kwan’s signature snark. I also thought his observations of internal and casual racism were more pronounced here than in CRA, or at least it was more US-centric (after all, he was unapologetically real about intra-Asian racism in CRA).
The characters feel a little like recycled CRA people with new clothes, but imho characters in Kwan’s novels are either vessels for the reader to experience one-percenter-life or caricatures to cringe at. One very delightful aspect of this novel is that it takes place in the CRA universe, so little throwaway references to CRA characters are fun to catch, and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it explanation of what happens to Kitty post-RPP absolutely sent me. A movie-within-the-story plot point, within the context of CRA being a film phenomenon, also felt incredibly, winkingly meta.
Similar Reads
Obviously recommend Crazy Rich Asians as a similar book; personally I still think CRA is Kwan’s best novel, but this is still a fun, frothy read.
For more similar reads: see recs for Fleishman is in Trouble.