Books

Book 592: China Rich Girlfriend (Crazy Rich Asians #2) – Kevin Kwan

As always seems to be the case, when one book comes in from being on hold at the library, ALL the books come in from being on hold. This came in at the same time that Check, Please! came in and thankfully one day after Rich People Problems so I was able to read them in order.

Picking up two years after the action of Crazy Rich Asians, we are thrown right back into the high-class glitz and glamour of the Singapore elite only to be shown how quaint they really are when compared to the new rich of China’s booming new age.

Continue reading “Book 592: China Rich Girlfriend (Crazy Rich Asians #2) – Kevin Kwan”

Books

Book 587: Longbourn – Jo Baker

I can’t believe I’ve had this on my shelf for as long as I have. It’s been almost TWO YEARS since I bought it. TWO YEARS! I’m not sure I would go so far as to say this is THE pinnacle of Jane Austen fan-fiction, but it’s pretty close.

I say this for a couple of reasons the primary being that Baker didn’t deviate too far from Austen’s characters, she stayed true to them and only played with the background characters (they’re less than minor) and filled in their back stories. The secondary reason I say this is because it received reviews in the major publications and was fairly mainstream for Austen fan-fiction/inspired fiction. I mean sure you’ve got the major adaptations like Bridget Jones’s Diary and Clueless, but those are both modern adaptations.

Continue reading “Book 587: Longbourn – Jo Baker”

Books

Book 577: Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians #1) – Kevin Kwan

After really enjoying the film adaptation of this, I knew I was going to have to read this trilogy! I picked up a copy of this first book pretty quick from the library, but I’ll be on hold for the next two until mid-2019 at the rate it’s going. That’s okay though I have so many other books to read.

If anything the book and the movie made me want to visit Singapore. One of the previous college’s I worked for had a satellite campus in Singapore, so I was vaguely aware of the culture and the people going in, but after reading about the food and seeing some of the awesome architecture in the movie and just from image searching, it’s definitely moved up my list of places to visit.

Continue reading “Book 577: Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians #1) – Kevin Kwan”

ARC, Books

Book 545: You Think It, I’ll Say It – Curtis Sittenfeld

I’m slowly making more progress on my ARC/Galleys. It’s been a while since I last read a collection of short stories, last summer I read a couple of collections, but they’re not something I seek out very often. So when the publisher reached out about this one I figured why not.*

I’ve enjoyed Sittenfeld’s writing, Prep, from way before I started this blog and more recently Eligible, her retelling of Pride and Prejudice as part of the now (seemingly?) defunct The Austen Project. The downside of this collection in particular, is because I enjoy Sittenfeld’s writing, I had already read at least three, if not five of the previously published short stories of the ten, but I’ll talk more about this later.

Continue reading “Book 545: You Think It, I’ll Say It – Curtis Sittenfeld”

ARC, Books

Book 544: Jane Austen at Home – Lucy Worsley

With this, I’m crossing another review copy/ARC/galley off my list and with this I only have two trailing from last year and then on to the so many more I have from this year. I barely got it through before the one year mark. I got this back in July of 2017.* I’ve pretty much shut down unsolicited reviews until I get through them with the caveat that Jane Austen is a plus (I have two waiting) and authors I’ve previously read I actually have to think about it before I say no.

I requested this after I heard about the BBC series Jane Austen: Behind Closed Doors, which I still haven’t watched, but thought it sounded interesting. I wanted to see this “new” take on Austen and her life and it was better than I thought it would be.

Continue reading “Book 544: Jane Austen at Home – Lucy Worsley”