Kevin Kwan makes me want to go back to Singapore. (It doesn't take much, but still.)
If you haven't yet read Crazy Rich Asians - and you should - the essence is that economics professor Rachel Chu gets more than she bargains for when she agrees to spend the summer in Asia with her boyfriend, who is also a fellow professor. Unfortunately, there are a few little details that Nicholas Young has omitted to tell her - like is family is filthy rich, the family home is basically a palace, and every woman in Singapore is angling to get her hooks into him. Also, his mother is absolutely, over-the-top cray-cray. All of which makes for an entertaining read of the highest degree.
What Kwan does especially well is infuse his characters (most of them anyway) with genuine likability so that even when the reader is struck dumb by the behavior, you can't help but root for them. Also, the infusion of Singapore. I love a book that enables to me to recapture the best of a place that I've visited, and Kwan does that so well with the city state.
Five stars.
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