Staff Review: Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

When a book I've read becomes a movie or a TV series, there's one important question I ask myself: will they do the story justice or will everything be changed and ruined? I'm here today to (hopefully) help you answer that question for one book turned movie.

If you read an enjoyed Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, should you go see the movie? Yes.

If you've seen and loved the movie, should you check out the book? Maybe.

I had Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians on my To Read list since I first saw the (original) glittery cover five years ago. I finally found the time to read it this summer because a) I've reached peak wedding season in my social group and b) I really, really wanted to finish before seeing the movie. It can be frustrating to watch a movie and have events or characters you loved in the book removed or changed, but I find that if I watch a movie first, I'm less likely to read the book since I more or less already know what's going to happen.

Crazy Rich Asians combines rom-com and soap opera plots with descriptions of extreme luxury, and just a touch of modern fairy tale fantasy. As a reader, the numerous mentions of luxury brand names could be a little bit exhausting, and this is one area where the movie surpasses the book. It's much easier and less distracting to show a character wearing a gorgeous, expensive outfit (or car or house) than it is to read several sentences describing that outfit.

As a reader, it helped that one of the main characters, Rachel Chu, was equally out of place in this world, and that several of the characters more intensely invested in over-the-top consumerism were used as comic relief. Not that Kwan was arguing that wealth = bad, more of conspicuous wealth = bad manners.

Some of the other changes between page and screen were more significant, but I felt like they made sense for the story and characters. I don't want to spoil anyone, so I'll try to be general. The book explores the ways that extreme wealth and unequal power balances can harm relationships by comparing several different characters' experiences, while the movie narrows its focus primarily to Rachel (our average woman) and Nick (our dashing prince).

Born in China, but raised in America by her single mother, Rachel has created a comfortable life for herself in New York City as an Economics professor. When her handsome, fellow-academic boyfriend, Nick Young, invites her to spend their summer break visiting his friends and family in Singapore, she's happy to join him on an adventure. Nick, however, did not tell Rachel that his family and friends are the elite of Singapore, nor did he warn his family about their relationship, leaving his mother to assume that Rachel is a gold-digging embarrassment.

I enjoyed Kwan's descriptions of his native Singapore, the foods, places, peoples, and hints of its history and culture. I'm also a sucker for a good love story, and I feel like Rachel and Nick earn their happy ending, but that Kwan left enough potential for drama to justify the two sequels. In fact, it's fairly likely that I'll be picking up China Rich Girlfriend (book two) to read next summer.

~Sarah, Adult Services

The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America by Sarah Kendzior

Sarah Kendzior is a journalist writing from St. Louis, Missouri, a city firmly tucked in "flyover country," that large swathe of the United States between the east and west coasts that tends to get little attention. Kendzior sets out to correct some of this neglect in her new book, The View from Flyover Country, composed of short pieces she wrote for Al Jazeera between 2012 and 2014.

All is not well in flyover country, although many of the issues Kendzior writes about affect the entire nation and the globe. Her overarching theme is social and economic justice -- the growing chasm between the haves and have-nots -- which she explores by looking closely at race and religion, the media, higher education, and what she calls the post-employment economy.

With years of journalistic experience and degrees in history, Central Eurasian studies (an MA), and anthropology (a PhD), Kendzior knows her stuff. She's also a clear and graceful writer. One of her primary contentions is that, increasingly, those in positions of influence -- in government, business, policymaking, and mainstream journalism -- belong to an affluent and self-selected set who, due to their privileged backgrounds, cannot possibly comprehend, assess, or report accurately on economic issues. But entry into their professional circles is too often barred to the rest of us by the sky-high cost of elite private schools and the fact that so many influential positions are now filled by those who were able to spend years in under- or unpaid internships and fellowships gaining access to those in power.

Kendzior hits hard on the surreal situation that exists in our public universities too, where student costs have shot through the roof, yet, in many cases, over 70% of tenure-track faculty has been replaced by poorly paid adjuncts. She also examines student-loan debt, stagnant and declining wages, the exorbitant cost of living in big cities, the gender gap, the shootings of unarmed black men, the surveillance state, and so much more. It's not a heartening collection to read, but Kendzior's candor is refreshing, and hope springs eternal that heightened awareness may eventually lead to solutions.

~Ann, Adult Services

Staff Review: God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright

Lawrence Wright's new book, God Save Texas, is a personal, highly anecdotal look at his home state, a place with which he clearly has a love-hate relationship. A staff writer for The New Yorker, Wright is most well known as the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 2005's The Looming Tower (about Al Qaeda and 9/11) and 2013's Going Clear (about scientology).

He's a pleasure to read, quite funny in casual mode, and, wow, has he got some rich material. According to Wright, "a recurrent crop of crackpots and ideologues has fed the state’s reputation for aggressive know-nothingism and proudly retrograde politics." Among these are a wheelchair-bound governor who has argued that Texas should be granted "sovereign immunity" from the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and an evangelical-Christian lieutenant governor (and former radio shock jock) who opposes the separation of church and state and believes arming teachers will solve the problem of school shootings.  

The book's not all about politics though and Wright gives us chapters on the big booming cities of Dallas, Houston, and Austin (where he lives); the Texas history of oil and gas; Texas art, music, and culture; and more. Wright knows his state -- and half the people in it, it seems -- so his book is liberally sprinkled with personal stories about George W. Bush, Rick Perry, well-known Texas writers and musicians, and even actor and Austin resident Matthew McConaughey, who was Wright's neighbor at the time of the famous dancing-naked-while-playing the-bongo-drums police incident back in 1999.

Wright clearly loves Texas but makes no bones about his almost perennial desire to leave it. Despite its booming economy, the state ranks close to dead-last in spending on education, healthcare, social services, and the environment, areas vital to a high quality of life. Wright's is an honest and affectionate assessment of an extraordinary place, but you may feel quite happy to read about it from afar.

~Ann, Adult Services