A first-rate satire, this fiction debut from writer, photographer, and visual consultant Kevin Kwan (I Was Cuba) manages to skewer the habits of both the discreetly and the conspicuously wealthy while posing serious questions about class divides and infusing the narrative with the trials and romanticism of young love. This hilarious send-up of the Asian jet set features good guys and gold-diggers, steely matriarchs and ruthless socialites, all with a heaping cup of opulence and a soupçon of Austenian sensibility.
Meeting your significant other's family for the first time is often a nerve-wracking experience, but for Rachel Chu, a down-to-earth ABC (American Born Chinese) career girl, it’s the shock of her life. Nick comes from one of the wealthiest old-money families in Singapore, and is considered heir apparent to the family fortune. Like any prince, Nick is expected to marry a girl of a certain class, and Rachel finds herself in a viper's nest of resentful young socialites and disdainful female relations.
Meanwhile, Nick's fashion-plate cousin Astrid, the It Girl of Singapore, has her own struggles with the class divide after marrying middle-class Michael, who may be having an affair.
Amid distastefully extravagant stag and hen parties, razor-sharp catty insults, and untold extremes of class snobbery as Rachel and Astrid's worlds spin out of control, disastrous revelations arise that will change the way both women view themselves, their families and their relationships with the men they love.
Kwan has created a stylish and intricate piece of comedy with a tender heart and the habit-forming tendencies of a soap opera. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger, Infinite Reads