Book 47: China Rich Girlfriend

Title: China Rich Girlfriend
Author: Kevin Kwan
Started: October 11, 2018
Finished: October 20, 2018
Pages: 378
Genre: Fiction

First Sentence: A red Ferrari 458 italia crashed through the window of the Jimmy Choo shoe boutique on Sloane Street sometime between 4:00am and 4:30am last night.

Summary: [From BN] It’s the eve of Rachel Chu’s wedding, and she should be over the moon. She has a flawless Asscher-cut diamond, a wedding dress she loves, and a fiancĂ© willing to thwart his meddling relatives and give up one of the biggest fortunes in Asia in order to marry her. Still, Rachel mourns the fact that her birth-father, a man she never knew, won’t be there to walk her down the aisle. Then a chance accident reveals his identity. Suddenly, Rachel is drawn into a dizzying world of Shanghai splendor, a world where people attend church in a penthouse, where exotic cars race down the boulevard, and where people aren’t just crazy rich … they’re China rich.

Thoughts: The second book in this series really took a turn for the soap opera dramatics. I'm still debating whether or not that was a good thing. While I greatly enjoyed my time reading the book, I also spent a lot of pages going, "Really?"

I get that the whole point of the book is to show the over the top lives of the super rich, but some of the plot choices just felt crazy - particular in Rachel's storyline. Some of the plots were less dramatic and, I would argue, that made them far more interesting. I really enjoyed reading Kitty's story. Yes, it had some weird kooks, but her narrative about trying to fit in to a society that she was not born to was relateable.

One aspect of the book I loved was Kwan's descriptions of what his characters do with all their money. Every time he wrote descriptions for houses, planes, hotels, or clothing, I was fully in. I love a good peek at the lives of the rich and famous. That's a kind of lifestyle I will never have so it's fun to see a little insight in to what it's like.

Rating: 6/10 [ Good]

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