“I will never stop vomiting with shame.”
The Gresham family is hosting the wedding of the century. Their oldest daughter, Augie is getting married but there is so much more going on. The wedding is being orchestrated by the matriarch, Lady Arabella who is heavy on maintaining appearances and spending money. Money they do not have as her husband is hiding the fact that they are in debt. Besides planning the most extravagant wedding, she is also trying to marry off her son, Rufus who is in love with the friend of the family, Eden.
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination”
When I tried to write the summary of the book, I had to pause for a minute because there was SO MUCH going on in this book that I don’t even know what the primary story is. The good thing about Kwan is that he has a formula and if you have read his Crazy Rich Asians trilogy then you know what to expect because it is basically the same format and feel. You can expect over the top characters, opulence out the wazoo and insufferable characters. I believe that whatever you felt about the 2nd and 3rd book of the series, is how you will feel about this book.
‘I don’t know the Philippines. I believes some of the maids we had growing up came from Cebu.”
Now, the bad. Kwan is quite the tedious writer to me. Much like the over the top characters and events in his books, I find his descriptions over the top as well. I find the annotations at the end of every chapter annoying even though I feel he probably thinks they are quirky and funny. There were so many storylines to follow and I don’t even know if it was necessary. I don’t know what genre Kwan identifies with but he is basically a romance writer and I think maybe he adds the extra storylines to not fully qualify as one.
“WHICH ONE OF YOU BITCHES IS MY MOTHER?’ Cosima said with a sneer.”
Speaking of insufferable, noone tops the Gresham matriarch, Arabella. She is Asian but seems to have some kind of self-hate? Kwan does allude to racism and discrimination and I can understand Arabella’s motivation to be someone in the upper class. But me thinks she went too far. Kwan didn’t delve really deep into what I call Arabella’s insecurity but my take on it is that’s why she married a white man – to dilute her kids so to speak – so they weren’t looked down on like she was and she looked down on Eden who was Asian. Even though I know this is how it is for some, I felt dissatisfied that Arabella never reached a place of self introspection and truly was just insufferable to everyone around her and especially awful to her children.
“You are also getting too much sun and people will think you are a peasant.”
So basically, if you couldn’t tell, I wasn’t really a fan of this book. It was convoluted, I didn’t care for the characters, the characters had no growth and every reaction – bad or good was just extreme. I can caveat that if you love romance novels, there might be a payoff for you but in my case, that didn’t work in my favor. I think Kwan needs to learn to streamline, have a focal point and just put more into the characters so we actually care about them. Let me know what you think if you have read it!
Taynement
TwoNightStands 