Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

The story begins in New York with young professors and couple, Rachel Chu and Nick Young. Nick, who is originally from Singapore, invites his girlfriend home for the summer to meet his family and attend his best friend's wedding. Rachel says yes. She has the usual "meeting boyfriend's family for the first time jitters" but figures everything will be fine. Unfortunately, she has no idea what she has said yes to. It turns out Nick's family is crazy rich and old, old as in the kind of family that can trace its roots back to whatever the Asian equivalent of the Mayflower is. Accordingly, they are snobby and obsessed with associating with the right kind of people. American-Asian Rachel from a no-name family with only a middle-class sized bank account just doesn't quite measure up.

Nick is clueless for a large part of the book. Like only a rich person could, Nick never thinks about money - having it or not having it. He doesn't worry about impressing people or fitting in. His life has always been one of relative ease and so the possibility that Rachel would be shocked to discover how crazy rich (and crazy snobby) his family is simply never occurs to him.

There is a parallel story about Nick's cousin Astrid who a few years earlier married a middle class man. Astrid's husband Michael is smart, hardworking, and successful but he's not from a wealthy family with old roots and therefore never completely feels accepted by the family. Like Nick, Astrid doesn't notice her husband's discomfort. (This isn't to say I liked Michael. He has issues to work out but his feelings were understandable once he got around to explaining them to his wife.)

Most of the book reads like a soap opera about rich people and their problems, and I was totally down for that. I loved books and shows like Gossip Girl and Downton Abbey and this reminded me of those. Then the story took a turn. Rachel's learns a shocking secret about her family, which kind of fits in with the soap opera theme but also came out of nowhere and at the end leaving little time to really develop that story thread. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book overall. There's nothing earth shattering or deep here, but it's fun. I will definitely read the next book and watch the upcoming movie.