Crazy rich Asians / Kevin Kwan

This is a really fun novel about people living extravagant lifestyles that most of us can never dream of, let alone experience! Originally from China, they live in Singapore and are enormously wealthy, being the "crazy rich Asians" in the title.

The "crazy" in the title also describes the outrageous thinking and behavior of some of the characters. One woman's wedding cost more than $40 million, yet all she can focus on amid the splendor is the insult she feels from one guest who is wearing the same dress that she wore to a previous event. Eddie considers himself deprived because he didn't have his own plane or a full-time crew for his yacht, "which was much too small to host more than ten guests for brunch comfortably." He keeps an active spreadsheet to estimate his parents' worth to know how much his inheritance will be when they die. He is angry that his parents "failed him when it came to what was truly important - they didn't know how to flaunt their wealth properly."

Amidst all the finery and life of luxury in the novel, the dark side is that money is power. Rachel Chu, an ordinary university professor from New York, finds out when she is dating super wealthy Nick Young that she has to traverse the fierce competition among young women to marry into money and the equally fierce battle by Nick's mother to keep her son from marrying someone with a possibly less-than-impeccable pedigree.

Publisher Weekly Review: "Kwan's debut novel is a fun, over-the-top romp through the unbelievable world of the Asian jet set, where anything from this season is already passe and one's pedigree is everything. When Rachel Chu's boyfriend, Nick Young, invites her home to Singapore for the summer, she doesn't realize how much gossip she's generated among Asian socialites around the world. To Rachel, Nick is a sweet, intelligent history professor-and the first man she's imagined marrying. To the Asian billionaire set, he's the gorgeous heir apparent to one of China's most "staggeringly rich" and well-established families who virtually control the country's commerce with their ancient fortunes. As soon as she steps off the plane, Rachel is ushered into the opulent world of castle-like estates and mind-boggling luxury. As if the shock of realizing the scale of Nick's wealth is not enough, she must also contend with a troupe of cruel socialites who would absolutely die before they let Singapore's most eligible bachelor get snapped up by a no-name "ABC" (American-born Chinese). There is also Nick's family-his imposing mother, Eleanor, who has exact ideas about who Nick should be dating; his beautiful cousin Astrid, who the younger girls dub "the Goddess" for her stunning fashion sense (she was "the first to pair a vintage Saint Laurent Le Smoking jacket with three-dollar batik shorts"); and Nick's cousin, the flamboyant Oliver, who helps Rachel navigate this strange new world. A witty tongue-in-cheek frolic about what it means to be from really old money and what it's like to be crazy rich."