Kevin Kwan. China Rich Girlfriend. New York: Penguin, 2015. Print.

This reviewer had gotten a big kick out of Crazy Rich Asians by this author, so Santa very kindly gave him a copy of China Rich Girlfriend this Christmas. Thank you very much.

China Rich Girlfriend is actually a sequel to Crazy Rich Asians. Many of the same characters appear. It does not give too much away, for example, to say that Nick and Rachel do get married in this installment. Still there are many complications as some of the ultra rich characters seem to overdo things.

Here is an example. Imagine a rather staid but high-priced Christie’s art auction. The pièce de résistance of the day is receiving bids that are getting into the range of eighty million dollars:

Suddenly there came a commotion form the back of the auction room. Murmurs could be heard as the standing-room-only crowd began to give way. Even in a room packed with celebrities dressed to the nines, a hush came over the space as a strikingly attractive Chinese woman with jet-black hair, powdered white skin, and crimson lips, dramatically dressed in a black velvet off-the shoulder gown emerged from the crowd. Flanked by two snow-white Russian wolfhounds on long diamond leashes, the lady began to walk slowly up the central aisle as every head turned toward the sensational sight. (31)

Welcome to the world of Kevin Kwan.

I learned for example that there are VIP rooms and services, and then there are VVIP rooms and services. We see more excess as a group of young Chinese “princesses” go on a trip to Paris (via private jet, of course) to shop, shop, shop. Later on, the author describes another private jet in such a way that it sounds like a luxury ocean liner.

While the Singaporean families of Crazy Rich Asians still play a part, this time we get much more into the newly rich people from Hong Kong and mainland China. Any rich Mainlander has to be nouveau riche because in the 1970s no one was rich except for Chairman Mao. That, of course, has changed.

China Rich Girlfriend continues with some of the satire. Starlet Kitty Pong has married one of the newly rich Asians, but she senses correctly that she is not really accepted by the jet setters she is trying to associate with. She hires a kind of social makeover artist to help her make her way through the rich Asian upper class.

At first it does not go so well. She is invited to the most exclusive dining club by a friend, and not only is she asked to leave, but her friend’s membership is canceled. She attends an invitation-only church service (I guess only among rich Asians is there such a church…) but even there commits a social faux pas. Because she is rich and beautiful, we tend to laugh at her experiences as she tries to figure out her way through society.

We meet Colette, one of the new Chinese princesses. Her lifestyle seems even more extreme than the Singaporeans we met in Crazy Rich Asians. They, at least, were subtle and kept in the background. Though she is very modern, her father in some ways, though newly rich, is more traditional. When she refuses to marry the man he has selected for her, it is going to get tense. It seems she only has access to hundreds of thousands of yuan instead of millions.

Rachel Chu, the ABC (American born Chinese) fiancée of Nick, discovers that her father is now one of the Chinese business elite. She meets and seems to get along well with her half-brother, but her father’s wife understandably wants nothing to do with her. This obviously is sticky and serious, but it does raise Rachel’s social standing among Nick’s relations.

While it is fair to say that China Rich Girlfriend is satire, and parts are still very funny, there is a more serious side to this tale. A young woman dies in a car accident. There is a very well-orchestrated cover-up. While everyone knows that Carlton Bao was driving his luxury sports car much too fast and crashed it into a Jimmy Choo boutique, few people know that one of two female passengers with him died.

We have learned in the United States that even congressmen and senators usually resign or no longer run for office if something like that happens. But if they come from a very wealthy, well-connected family, they might be able to get away with it, too.

There is also an attempted murder in China Rich Girlfriend. The perpetrator is discovered fairly quickly, but we readers suspect that she is probably taking the fall for her employer. Still, the overall effect of the novel is breezy fun.

Lots of lively conflict and a number of other subplots I have not even mentioned keep the story moving. Since the novel has many of the same characters as Crazy Rich Asians, it makes sense to read that book first, but it is not necessary. Each book stands on it own.