I heard about Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians novel several years ago, and it sounded interesting - however, I never got around to reading it. This year, however, I was given the opportunity to receive several novels from BookSparks for the Summer Reading Challenge, and Rich People Problems was delivered in one my boxes for May. I didn't want to jump into the series at novel number 3, so I bee-lined to the library and checked out the first two novels in the series - Crazy Rich Asians and China Rich Girlfriend.

While I think the novels would be okay read a stand-alones, there would definitely be some background information missed without reading all of the novels. So, without further adieu, let's get on with the reviews.

Crazy Rich Asians
As the first novel in the series, Crazy Rich Asians follows several families from Singapore - including Nick Young (part of the crazy rich and crazy private Leong family) and his girlfriend, Rachel, who both take a summer trip to Singapore for Nick's best friend's wedding. Nick is originally from Singapore, while Rachel was born in Mainland China and raised in the US. Nick comes from a family of old money, and because Rachel's heritage and family status, Nick's family has a ton of issues with them dating. With a whole lot of hoopla about Nick and Rachel's relationship, plus lots of other family dramas, Crazy Rich Asians is funny, full of drama, and a little bit of mystery.

China Rich Girlfriend
China Rich Girlfriend, the second novel in the series, gives the reader more background on Rachel's family, while also giving more information on several other key players in the books - including Astrid, Nick's cousin, as well as several others - this time, a ton of characters from Hong Kong. This novel gets a little darker than book one, but is still just as full of comedy and drama.

Rich People Problems
The most recent novel in the series, Rich People Problems, follows different members of the Leong family and how they react in the midst of a family illness. From greed, guilt, to sadness and hope. This book is the wildest of them all, but wrapped up fairly nicely.



Each of the books of the novel is wild and so over-the-top, but from my understanding gets a lot of its bases from the author's childhood. Kevin Kwan grew up in Singapore, and throughout all three novels, provides some fun footnotes about different things, from types of foods to slang terms, to his personal experiences with school teachers.

I felt the series opened me up to a culture I am insanely unfamiliar with, and I don't just mean that of crazy rich Asians, but also just of the crazy rich. I often found myself looking up brands, artists, and designers, because I am an avid thrifter and have never put much thought into high-end brands, but I was amused by some pop culture references, like Game of Thrones and Harry Potter (of course!).

I did enjoy these novels and I think they're definitely perfect summer reads - however, I do think that these novels would be better to suited to some more than others. These books aren't perfect for everyone, but they are definitely incredibly fun reads for those that like fun, over-the-top drama/chick lit.

A few things that I disliked (but didn't make or break the novels for me) were how over-the-top the stories were (but again, these novels are about a type of culture that is so obscenely different from my southern US lifestyle) and also the amount of characters in the books - which made it kind of hard to follow at times. Again, neither of these things broke the story for me, but were a few things that I didn't like as much.

An extra little tidbit - Crazy Rich Asians is being turned into a film, too! Filming just started this year, on location in Singapore.


Have you read any of the books in this series? Would you?