........there's a book club in there, alright, but they're discussing "Where The Crawdads Sing"........
We'll press on anyway.
First takeaway......how did ever this attain its reputation as some kind of laugh riot? True enough, Kevin Kwan sprinkles in some witty lines here and there.........but "uproarious"? Uh......no. Not even close.
(Said this before, it bears repeating......BEWARE AUTHOR BLURBS......keep in mind, for a couple of sentences or a short paragraph, these writers pick up a free plug for themselves and their latest book.....so proceed with extreme caution.....)
Second takeaway.......at the end of the day, what you've got here is nothing more than a jumbo soap opera.......plow your way through the prose and you'll find "Days Of Our Lives".....only populated with.....you guessed it.....crazy rich Asians......
.......with the accent on rich. Ridiculously rich. Howard Hughes rich. Bill Gates rich, Warren Buffet rich, yada, yada......
So 90 per cent of the book is spent entirely on endless descriptions of super expensive stuff.......houses, cars, palatial estates, designer wardrobes.....and an encyclopedic catalog of vile, ignorant prejudices that these Midas-wealthy Asians hold against one another.
Bobbing along in this boiling ocean of greed are a few characters you're supposed to root for, I guess....(the young lovers, natch).........since almost the entire array of repulsive supporting characters plot against them.......
And what a crowd. My eyes roll upward like a 'Walking Dead' zombie when encountering any book that starts off with an intricate genealogical chart to explain who's related to whom. (Memo to all authors who do this: After a couple of pages, most readers give up glancing back at your goddamn chart. If you can't keep all your characters straight in the body of the book itself.....then the hell with it....nobody's got the patience or the inclination to figure out whose third cousin married whose fourth son or whatever....)
About two thirds into "Crazy Rich Asians", you may actually start to hunger for the big character showdowns the book keeps promising.......as in any good soap opera worth its bubbles......but if you're panting to get right to the good stuff, the book will still make you plow through those voluminous pages of expensive product descriptions.........
If you dig that eternal 'Lifestyles Of The Filthy Rich' crap, then the book's seventh heaven...... for those of us who gravitate to the storyline and turns of plot, prepare to do some serious mad skimming.......
Very shortly, BQ plans to check out the film version......I freely admit I'm dying to see how they condensed and converted this overwritten Singapore 'Peyton Place' into a 2 hour romantic comedy......stay tuned.....
The book itself? Nowhere near the amount of fun that all the reviews promised......but if you want to go searching for the juicy,soapy romantic entanglements buried deep, deep underneath all the excessive detailing of extravagant wealth....have at it.....2 stars (**)
No comments:
Post a Comment