Booklist Reviews
Lucie Tang Churchill is a stylish but naive biracial 19-year-old, accompanied to an extravagantly fabulous wedding on Capri by her middle-aged cousin, Charlotte, who is obsessed with ensuring that the nouveau riche display the proper reverence for the from-the-Mayflower side of the family. They encounter the bombastically generous Rosemary Zao and her handsome, intense son, George, whom Lucie immediately dislikes—until she doesn't—but then a potential scandal tears them apart. Five years later, Lucie is an in-demand art dealer, engaged to the billennial (billionaire millennial) Cecil Pike, and very happy, until George (and his mother) reenters her social circle. The plot is perhaps not the most important element for Kwan's (Crazy Rich Asians, 2013) fans, who most love his over-the-top characters, ridiculously lavish details, and catty, fourth-wall-breaking narration, all of which are gloriously represented here; there are jewels galore, and a West Village apartment with an indoor canal and gondoliers on retainer. Lucie's story also touches on racism, both external (and familial) and internalized, as she fights her attraction to George. The resolution adds another satisfying layer to this frothy, escapist delight. HIGH DEMAND BACKSTORY: Kwan's first outing since the Crazy Rich Asians series, which begat a huge movie in 2018, arrives just in time for summer reading. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.
BookPage Reviews
Sex and Vanity
The title of bestselling author Kevin Kwan's blazingly fun new novel is a bit of a misnomer: There's very little sex. But that's not what we go to the author of Crazy Rich Asians for, is it? What Kwan consistently delivers—and does so again in Sex and Vanity—are fantastic tales of the over-the-top wealthy, written with just enough empathy to make us care about young, beautiful trust-fund billionaires.
Meet Lucie Tang Churchill. She's the beautiful daughter of a Mayflower descendant and a Chinese American from Seattle. On her lily-white paternal side, Lucie has always been the outcast. Although she's a born-and-bred New Yorker, her patrician grandmother still calls her an offensive slang term for a subservient Chinese woman.
When Lucie travels to Italy for the extravagant wedding of a childhood friend, she meets George Zao, a handsome surfer from Hong Kong. Lucie and George get caught in a compromising position at the wedding, and they sheepishly go their separate ways.
Fast-forward five years, and Lucie is a successful art consultant engaged to Cecil Pike, a Texas oil heir and a "GQ-handsome bon vivant." But Lucie's family looks down their noses at Cecil's new money, and Cecil's family looks right back at Lucie the same way. It's clear Lucie and Cecil are an odd match—to everyone except Lucie and Cecil. And when George reemerges, Lucie begins to question everything she thought she wanted.
Sex and Vanity is a deliciously fun romp from Capri to Manhattan and East Hampton. Kwan is in fine form, gleefully name-dropping luxury brands and socialites as he spins a heartfelt, satirical tale that observes the price of fame, fortune and following your heart.
Copyright 2020 BookPage Reviews.Kirkus Reviews
True love will find a way, even among the status-obsessed and filthy rich. There are few authors who could pull off wealth porn in the current cultural moment—perhaps only one. Kwan, author of the insanely popular Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, again manages to enchant, though this is crazy and rich without the Asian locales, food, and other cultural details. While the locations of this book—the isle of Capri and the Hamptons—are certainly glamorous and full of rich people, they are no Singapore or Hong Kong. Kwan overcomes that with his irresistibly knowing humor and delightful central characters. Lucie Tang Churchill ("92nd St. Y Nursery School / Brearley / Brown"; the educational resume of every character is provided like this) is Chinese American, and her love interest, George Zao, is "a Chinese boy from Hong Kong who had spent a few years in Australia," leaving him with an Aussie accent and a surfboard. They meet and become aware of their furious vibrational connection at an over-the-top wedding on Capri—but a complete disas ter intervenes to keep them apart. Well, not a disaster disaster, more of a public relations disaster. It involves drones. Next thing we know, Lucie is engaged to a simply awful, nouveau riche, social media–obsessed white boy named Cecil Pike, who has somehow been pronounced by Esquire "The Most Desired Dude on the Planet." A faithful Kwan-ite will see poor Cecil immediately for the plot device he is: "The Obstacle," who drives a Meteor over Fountain Blue Bentley Mulsanne and wears bespoke Corthay "Cannes" suede loafers. While he's engineering the timeless love story and continuing our postgraduate education in all the things money can buy, Kwan manages to take a few swipes against snobbery and racism. Nice. This is the only way you're getting to Capri this year. Why resist? Copyright Kirkus 2020 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Reviews
The daughter of a Chinese American mother and WASPier-than-thou father, Lucie Churchill can't admit her attraction to George Zao when they meet on the island of Capri and end up kissing in the glorious ruins of a Roman villa. She's still in denial when she encounters him a few years later in the Hamptons, where she's hanging out with her fiancé. Just announced.
Copyright 2020 Library Journal.Library Journal Reviews
Publishers Weekly Reviews
Kwan follows up his Crazy Rich Asians trilogy with an intoxicating, breezy update of E.M. Forster's