If I can draw any parallels of this book to another, it is with Ellis’s American Psycho. Remember the iconic part where Bateman compared his business card with his colleagues? Most of this book is an extension of that scene, where all the rich try to upstage each other endlessly. American Psycho is a satire, and Crazy Rich Asians is an attempt of satire, falling well short.
Bateman’s suits are “overwritten” with purpose, that regardless of the length of the description of his suits there are gaps missing in the description, like the colour of the suits. When Kwan describes haute couture, it just sounds like a list.
The characters are weak. Rachel, plainly middle class, is a fish out of water compared to the crazy rich, but I found it hard to root for her — There’s nothing I really like about her and I can’t relate to her. The rich are either unlikeable or just boring. The dialogue reads like a terrible script, and it’s a wonder how the movie upstaged the book. I knew that the book made a false start with the confusing and redundant family tree.
Still, there are things I enjoy about this book. Living in Malaysia, I’ve learned a lot of the Hokkien and Cantonese lingo that I hear almost daily but couldn’t understand. I can revisit the book just to learn these casually thrown remarks, but not to reread it. South East Asia is well written and the locations are exotic. The places are written with more integrity than the characters that populate them.
I picked this off from a bookshelf in my apartment complex, and its sequel lies there waiting. I don’t know if I will read it. When you’re reading through books that require more attention and effort, it is nice to have a bit of fluff every now and then. It does serve this purpose. I’ll make up my mind when I return this book to its rightful shelf to collect more dust.
