China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan

The soap opera that began in Crazy Rich Asians continues in China Rich Girlfriend. This wasn't quite as good as the first book. Mind you, there is still plenty of excessive spending, sumptuous food, and planet sized egos. The tension in the first book was all about Asian-American Rachel meeting her rich boyfriend's family for the first time in Singapore, how she would react to their billionaire lifestyles, and how they would react to her. This second book in the series introduces Rachel's long lost father and his family. They are just as crazy rich (and plain crazy) as Nick's family but given that Rachel is meeting them for the first time and is therefore not as close to them as Nick was to his family the stakes felt much lower. Rachel and Nick who are ostensibly the main characters, are more observers than participants in the craziness, which further has the effect of putting distance between the reader and the story. I did like this. I just hope the final book in the trilogy packs a bit more punch.

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.