As with Crazy Rich Asians, Kwan’s book is a paean to the finest things in life, walking a fine line between revealing luxuries and reveling in conspicuous consumption. There is a lot to look up, but each thing turns out to be a pretty wonderful discovery, whether it is a piece of music, a work of art, or (naturally) a fashion designer. There are also entertaining footnotes (which, fascinatingly, are in the first person), hilarious glimpses behind the perfect smiles of oh-so-polite ladies, and a brief cameo by Astrid, Han Suyin, and Kitty Pong from Crazy Rich Asians.

Part I opens in 2013 with Charlotte, a major supporting character, panicking because of something that Lucie, the main character, has done (or has done to her) which will ruin her, but the audience is left in ignorance as to what terrible thing that might be and instead transported several days back in time to the beginning of an extravagant wedding in Capri. It ends, after describing nearly a week of indulgence with Lucie being filmed via drone during an intimate act and Charlotte making it Go Away..

Part II takes place five years later in New York, opening on a cringe-worthy, over-the-top proposal from Lucie’s boyfriend, who does a splendid job of rubbing the reader the wrong way with every word out of his mouth. The fact that Lucie seems to enjoy his awfulness makes me question whether she’s a protagonist I’m going to enjoy following for the second half of the book, but at least she seems to be getting everything she wanted from life. Until the man she’d been intimate with in Capri five years ago, George, reappears in her life with an instinctive understanding of her innermost feelings and acceptance of her as a whole person, rather than the sum of two racial halves.

There is a Part III, but discussing it would be to give away spoilers. Instead I will talk about one of the design choices for the book that I particularly liked. The chapter headers are lovely minimalist line drawings invoking the setting of the chapter: wavy lines for Capri, a skyline for New York, a beach chair for the Hamptons. It’s a delightful detail in a book that is all about the details.

Substantially, this work includes an interesting consideration of culture, identity, and self- versus public perceptions, as well as privilege and prejudice. The descriptions of microagressions Lucie contends with because of her half-Chinese heritage not only from strangers, but from her own “high WASP” family are enough to make any decent person’s blood boil. I hope she has the opportunity to tell them all to go to hell. That said, the vicious rivalry between Old Money and the Nouveau Riche is still clearly alive and well, and still titillating to read about.

Such mixed feelings about this one! Sadly, Sex and Vanity definitely didn't live up to the Crazy Rich Asians books for me. I'm glad I read it and did enjoy some of it... I just felt like there was something lacking throughout the book.

The story starts on the island of Capri where Lucie and her cousin Charlotte are attending the wedding of one of Lucie's childhood friends. The pair meets Rosemary Zao and her son George and immediately dislikes them as they seem over-the-top and snobby. Lucie and George end up having a brief romance and then we're flash forwarded 5 years when Lucie is engaged to Cecil.

What bothered me is that we get no explanation of why Lucie decided to go for Cecil and with everything I had already learned about Lucie, it seemed a bit out of character for her. But then I realized I didn't really know much about Lucie's character because I didn't really "know" her. The book did more telling than showing and we never truly get inside Lucie's head or get a real feel for her motivations. In fact, we never really get deep with any of the characters and thus, it's tough to connect with any of them.

There are a few sections of the book that I thought were unnecessary and snooze-worthy (the parts with Mordecai and many of the Auden sections) and sections that I really enjoyed and wanted more of. But what I really wanted was a deeper connection with the characters, especially Lucie. I feel like much of the book could have been cut and more focus could have been put on her. I do feel like this disconnect happens often when a male author writes a female main character.

Overall, I did enjoy the plot of the book and really loved the scenery and descriptions. I just couldn't connect to the book how I wanted. I can see this being an absolutely stunning movie, though something tells me the screenwriters will be cutting out quite a few sections of the book!

Kevin Kwan is always a sheer delight to read, and to escape into the lives of the ultra rich. Certainly never more so then now as we live in such awful times. The escapist fantasy is a must, and taking a couch trip to Capri was fantastic, the characters and prose crackle, and it’s seriously terrific to see him give an homage to E.M. Forester. Bravo, and here comes another bestseller

Another fun read from Kevin Kwan. It was even more over the top than Crazy Rich Asians if that’s possible! I loved jetting away to Capri for an amazing wedding and the elaborately decorated apartments and houses of the main characters. It was a bit heart wrenching to see the journey Lucie travels in finding how to be true to herself and what that even looks like in coming from such different family backgrounds on her mother and fathers sides. Yet the more outrageous the character, the more genuinely caring they turn out to be and Lucie can find a lot of support from both likely and unlikely sources.

"The iconic author of the bestselling phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians returns with the glittering tale of a young woman who finds herself torn between two men: the WASPY fiancé of her family's dreams and George Zao, the man she is desperately trying to avoid falling in love with.


On her very first morning on the jewel-like island of Capri, Lucie Churchill sets eyes on George Zao and she instantly can't stand him. She can't stand it when he gallantly offers to trade hotel rooms with her so that she can have a view of the Tyrrhenian Sea, she can't stand that he knows more about Casa Malaparte than she does, and she really can't stand it when he kisses her in the darkness of the ancient ruins of a Roman villa and they are caught by her snobbish, disapproving cousin Charlotte. "Your mother is Chinese so it's no surprise you'd be attracted to someone like him," Charlotte teases. The daughter of an American-born Chinese mother and a blue-blooded New York father, Lucie has always sublimated the Asian side of herself in favor of the white side, and she adamantly denies having feelings for George. But several years later, when George unexpectedly appears in East Hampton, where Lucie is weekending with her new fiancé, Lucie finds herself drawn to George again. Soon, Lucie is spinning a web of deceit that involves her family, her fiancé, the co-op board of her Fifth Avenue apartment building, and ultimately herself as she tries mightily to deny George entry into her world--and her heart. Moving between summer playgrounds of privilege, peppered with decadent food and extravagant fashion, Sex and Vanity is a truly modern love story, a daring homage to A Room with a View, and a brilliantly funny comedy of manners set between two cultures."

Your perfect summer escapist fantasy!

I have been a big fan of Kevin Kwan ever since I first read Crazy Rich Asians, so when I found out that he had a new book coming out, I knew I would have to read it. I am so glad I did! Sex and Vanity is a wonderful retelling of A Room With A View set among the lives of the filthy rich.

Sex and Vanity starts in Capri and follows Lucie Churchill as she attends a friends wedding with her cousin Charlotte. When Rosemary Zao hears Charlotte complaining about their rooms lacking a view, she and her son George offer to switch rooms with the cousins. George is also a guest of the wedding so he and Lucie start to see each other everywhere. Lucie fights her attraction to George until the night of the wedding, and after they are caught in a compromising situation, she and Charlotte head back to New York.

Five years later Lucie is engaged and spending the weekend in the East Hamptons when George reappears in her life. The old attraction starts to rear its head. Lucy is conflicted with what she feels and what she thinks her family wants for her. Will she go with her heart or do what she thinks is best? If you are a fan of Kevin Kwan, I think you’ll enjoy this book. It’s is heartfelt and hilarious all at the same time.

Part of me wants to give this a higher rating because Kevin Kwan has such a compulsively readable writing style. It’s mostly fast-paced (except for the constant asides providing cultural notes, which I really enjoy) and zig zags merrily across the line between sincere and satirical. Unfortunately, I don’t really feel as though I read a new story. I feel like I’ve read another chapter in the Crazy Rich Asians saga - or even a reinterpretation of it with the names changed and some identities swapped around. So while it was a fun read, it wasn’t really satisfying.

Writing: 4 Plot: 2 Characters: 3.5

Kevin Kwan’s new book has all of the humor, wit, social satire, and Conspicuous Consumption we’ve come to expect from his books (the Crazy Rich Asian trilogy). In this book, Lucie (our heroine) is bi-racial with an American Asian mother and a blue blood (read wealthy and WASPy) father, now deceased. Here the over-the-top behavior is ascribed more to the “new money” elements, both Asian and WASP, and there is plenty of snootiness and social climbing to go around. If you’re the kind of person who loves reading about couture clothing, palace like accommodations, and extravagant parties, you’ll hang on every word. I skim those parts because it’s not my thing — I like Kwan’s books because of the over-the-top plots and weirdly engaging characters.

And that was the problem with this book for me. It is a rewrite of A Room with a View — which happens to be one of my favorite movies (I confess I have not read the book, but Kwan’s book is a definite rewrite of the movie). And I mean a real — though not advertised — rewrite. The names are the same: Lucie Churchill (was Lucie Honeychurch); George Zao (was George Emerson); Auden Beebe (for the Reverend Beebe), etc. This is not a problem — there have been many, many, rewrites of classic (I can think of four rewrites of Pride and Prejudice off the top of my head). I loved the plot but I already knew what was going to happen! And I couldn’t help but picture Julian Sands every time “George” appeared. Also, while the plot was A Room with a View and the ambiance was Kwan’s signature over-the-top style, he added a slender theme of racism against Lucie — her perception that she was always “a little China doll” to her white relatives and that her brother, who looked more Caucasian, had white privilege she was denied. It is very hard to feel any sympathy for someone who has that much money, is beautiful, and has never been denied anything due to her race — so that fell pretty flat for me.

Overall entertaining and a quick, fun read, but for me, the zaniness and surprises of his previous stories were missing and the name dropping fell on my fashion-deaf ears so I was left with some endearing characters and an ultra-exclusive travelogue for the Isle of Capri.

I was excited to discover Kevin Kwan had a new book coming out. I devoured the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. Finding out his latest is a retelling of E.M. Forester's A Room With a View was just icing on the cake. I sped through this book. I enjoyed how Kwan reworked elements of the original into a 21st century setting. I chuckled at the references to Merchant & Ivory. I highly recommend this novel, especially to those who enjoyed his previous works.

Enjoyed this book in the end, but there might be too much conspicuous consumption for me to feel good about truly liking it. Good cast of characters, lovely locations, snappy dialogue. Felt like the protagonist behaved a little inconsistently - she was mature for her age in the beginning but behaved childishly in the end.

Supremely funny as Kevin Kwan skewers snobbish Blue bloods, the Neuvo Riche and billionaires everywhere. Lucie, George and their immediate families seem like the only characters who are not caricatures of the super wealthy, upper crust. How Lucie could have put up with the obnoxious Cecil for as long as she did is not really as surprising as one would think. Lucie has many issues with her duel WASP and Chinese background.

If you are looking for a snippy, sarcastic laugh out loud romp through the Upper Crust then this is it. I can highly recommend this book to all romance fans.

On her first day on the island of Capri, Lucie Churchill (yes, one of those Churchills) sets her eyes on George Zao, and finds an instant attraction. They spend time together during her vacation, and ultimately she gives him up, torn between how her WASP family would view her relationship with an Asian man. Years later, Lucie is engaged and bumps into George. Sparks fly, but what does it mean?

Did Cecil write this? Because it completely sounds like something Cecil would write.

I feel like Kwan was trying too hard to recreate the success of Crazy Rich Asians while also doing a Jane Austen retelling within the upper stratospheres of rich WASP society, and it didn't quite work.

It's going to be a pop-up on Newtown Lane, right next to James Perse. We're going to start small at first and offer an Ayurvedic juice bar, qigong, puppy yoga, breath work meditation, and maybe some sound healing. See what the community responds to.


I feel that part of the issue was he tried to do too much—a scathing expose of WASP racism, a Jane Austen retelling, some mixed media aspects, and recapturing the gossipy and catty tone of CRA, complete with its name-dropping of all the Right brands and some gauche-riche brands and everything else.

While I liked that he did rip into cultural appropriation and racial microaggressions, I felt like it didn't go far enough? And that eventually the parody of the way white yogic gurus culturally appropriate, mutate, rebrand and sell back a traditional religion was...eventually also kinda adopted as okay in its ridiculousness?

I also felt that the first half was far too long. The summary made it feel like the first part in the past would be a brief prologue, but Capri was nearly half the book. The rest felt rushed and boring and artificial.

Plus the two leads were bland as mayonnaise.

Aside from her final moment, Lucie had absolutely no backbone or personal agenda. The lack of a backbone was completely justified based on her upbringing with her racist grandmother, who would dress her up in culturally inappropriate clothing as a child and call her her little China doll, but the lack of personal agenda was also...I dunno. She just went along with the flow the entire book, and did whatever was expected of her. She was something to everyone without ever feeling like a real person herself.

And George was...I could never get a good read on George. He was a self-named eco-warrior who fought for sustainable housing and eco-friendly other shit, but he never seemed to reflect on his own wealth or did anything about his family's environmentally damaging shipping industry. He felt like a hypocrite in his own way, wearing the best clothing and jet-setting across the world while advocating for environmentally sustainable solutions for the lower classes. He was a champion surfer. A glorious specimen of man. A hippy dude. A billionaire focused on the environment while living the high life. Obsessed with architecture and the love of one woman. Basically, he was Leonardo diCaprio...minus the love of one woman thing.

I did appreciate the subtle shout outs to Crazy Rich Asians though.

It did do a fantastic job of capturing the racism and exclusionary practices of the upper, upper crust WASP community, and the name-dropping and scrabbling among the lesser wealthy to elevate their own status.

It did a decent job retelling Persuasion (I think this is the one it was retelling), what with Lucie refusing George because of his ethnicity and her interracial identity coupled with her upbringing and not wanting to further sully her family (her grandmother and family did a number on her), and a sex scandal that wasn't.

And Cecil was an absolute asshat—although one that you could kiiiiiiinda root for, since he was trying to break into the upper crust, so Kwan succeeded in that?

Overall, this wasn't a bad book. I appreciate what it was trying to do, although it failed on the execution.

There was a lot of vanity, and not a whole lot of sex.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review

Sex and Vanity was everything I expected from a Kevin Kwan book—over the top, decadent and delicious!! I haven't read the Crazy Rich Asians series (though I did see the movie) so this book felt really fresh to me- a perfect summer read!

I loved the Crazy Rich Asians series and was super excited at the opportunity to read Sex and Vanity. I liked the book a lot. However, I did find the beginning of the book more enjoyable. In the second half of the book, I just could not believe that Lucie would even date a man like Cecil much less be engaged to him. All in all, the characters were fun and funny and it was an enjoyable read. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Thanks to Partner NetGalley for the digital ARC of Kevin Kwan's Sex and Vanity in exchange for an honest review. The book releases Tuesday, July 14.

I had high hopes for Kevin Kwan's Sex and Vanity. I enjoyed the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, with its examination of class difference, of tradition, and of the ways that groups can discriminate within.

Sex and Vanity has many of the elements that I so enjoyed in the trilogy: Kwan builds a vivid portrait of wealth and privilege beginning with the attendance of Lucie Churchill and her cousin Charlotte at a lavish wedding. As soon as they land on Capri, Lucie and Charlotte are swept up in a crowd where education matters--parenthetical lists of all of the schools someone has attended follow every character's introduction--and extreme, thoughtless spending is an expectation.

Lucie, the daughter of a white, upper-class father and a Chinese-American mother, has been caught since childhood in the web of her white family's discomfort with her Chinese features. Charlotte--her cousin on her father's side--makes a point, when she introduces Lucie, of explaining the full history of their connection. This practice, of course, only makes Lucie more aware of Charlotte's discomfort with her mother, a discomfort that plagues Lucie's relationships with all of her white family.

At the heart of the novel is Lucie's relationship with George Zao, who she meets at the wedding. Lucie isn't sure, from the beginning, what to make of George--at first, he seems cold and disengaged, but as she comes to know him, she begins to admire all that he does well.

Lucie continues to be drawn to George, and their connection grows. Until something happens at the wedding. Then, we're propelled five years into the future, in New York City, where Lucie is engaged to an extravagantly wealthy, "new money" heir from Texas. And then she sees George again . . .

There is a certain glee, a delicious wickedness, to the way that Kwan describes the world in which Lucie, her family, and her friends live, throwing around brand names and lavish descriptions. He employs liberally the footnotes that are so fun in his original trilogy, speaking to the reader and providing further explanations of just how wealthy and overboard these people are. And I get it. But at a certain point, it became less fun than tiresome for me. I also really disliked Lucie. Kwan does a lot of work to make her empathetic, and certainly, the way that her family treats her is horrible. But--again, for me--she acts horribly. She does some really loathsome things in her quest to shape her life so that she can fit in. And her redemption comes too late in the book.

I really loved Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians series and had high expectations for this book. However, this book didn't grab hold of me and it took me a while to finish. It could be because Lucie and the other characters seemed very one dimensional and generic that I often had trouble telling them apart. Despite its flaws, this book will still fly off the shelves in the library for those looking for a breezy read.

What a fabulous book. This book has everything - crazy rich people, gorgeous settings, fantastic characters, a few really memorable quotes, a HEA and sex and vanity.
This book revolves around Lucie (half Asian) who honestly is a hot mess who goes to Capri to attend a wedding in 2013, meets these amazing people (hello, can I please be besties with Rosemary Zao?), has a holiday fling then fast forward five years where she (no spoilers here)... The book is quite different from Crazy Rich Asians (except for the fabulously wealthy part) but I enjoyed it for what it was. The characters are so well written, I wanted to reach through the pages and shake my head at most of them. Another fun read by Kevin Kwan - thank you very much to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for allowing me to read the ARC.

Read if you: Are eagerly anticipating the next Kevin Kwan novel.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Kwan is a clever and funny writer, but this is not on the same scale as Crazy Rich Asians. Although I didn't love--or even really like--most of the characters in Crazy Rich Asians (the movie is much less satirical and has a bit more heart), I enjoyed that book for its humor, its secondary characters, and the evocative descriptions of ultra-wealthy Singapore life. The constant name-dropping of schools (preschool/private school/boarding school/college) after each character became tiresome. This is a take on E.M. Forster's A Room With a View, but you don't need to be familiar with the book/movie.

Librarians/booksellers: This will likely be in demand.

Many thanks to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Kevin Kwan follows the formula that worked so well in Crazy Rich Asians but it just doesn’t work in this book. The characters were impossible to tell apart and the whole thing was convoluted and confusing. I wanted to like it but didn’t. I do not recommend this book.

From the creator of "Crazy Rich Asians" comes a new world of over-the-top money, family, and romance in New York. When George and Lucie meet at a friend's wedding they are teens who barely speak to each other but are still drawn together. One night, one indiscretion, and one drone send them apart. Years later they are back in each other's orbit and Lucie has to decide if she's going to stay on the path she's planned for herself since she was 8 years old, or take a risk and go for what her heart really wants.

"Sex and Vanity" is a pretty good description of most of the people in this book- emphasis on the vanity. It's "Crazy Rich Asians" up a notch. The only exceptions seem to be our heroes, Lucy and George and their mothers- all other friends and family are shameless name droppers and have black belts in one-upmanship. Lucy has spent her life trying to fit into this world, while believing that she isn't good enough for it because she's half-Asian and she doesn't look like her father's Plymouth Rock WASP family. Every time she manages to enjoy a moment as herself, something happens to shock her or shame her back into her protective little shell. She thinks she has to be what everyone else wants her to be, but George sees her for who she actually is, or could be.

While I enjoyed the book, with its fast paced writing style and breezy over-the-top world, I wish we had gotten to see George more. The reader actually gets very little "George" time, which makes it hard to believe in love between George and Lucie. He almost never talks, does nice things without fanfare but just to help people (which is great, no complaints there- especially compared to Cecil!) but I hard a hard time following Lucie through her feelings for him. At first she doesn't like him, on no basis at all. Then she does, on no basis at all. Magnetic pull might be a good start to a relationship, but it never got beyond that for me. He seemed like a Mr. Darcy type who never got turned into a character to know, but just an idea.

Light summer fun to help make people smile, "Sex and Vanity" will be enjoyed by everyone who enjoyed the world of "Crazy Rich Asians".

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review