I was a big fan of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy (and movie!). When I first caught wind of Kevin Kwan’s new book, Sex and Vanity, I couldn’t wait to jump back into a world of over the top luxury, caricature-esque characters, and ways of life beyond my wildest imaginings. This is exactly what I got. Sex and Vanity is marketed as an homage to A Room with a View, and although I haven’t read E.M. Forster’s novel, after a brief skimming of the Wikipedia page, it looks like the general plot is closely followed, and many of the names of the main characters from the original book are used. Other than that, I can only speak to Sex and Vanity as a standalone story.

I will say that in retrospect, there are very few likable characters in this book. I loved the main characters of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, and the way they stood in stark contrast to the utter vanity of those around them. This book follows Lucie, starting when she is in high school and has a romantic trist with a boy named George while they’re at a wedding in Italy, and then skipping ahead to when she becomes engaged to Cecil. Cecil was way too much for me. He was inexcusably rude, vapid, and entitled, and the fact that Lucie could be engaged to him and keep brushing off the terrible way he treated her family made me very frustrated. Besides having little personality of her own, she came off as quite the meek pushover. Additionally, her cousin Charlotte’s character construction was extremely bizarre. She seemed incredibly old-fashioned and conservative for the modern setting. I wonder if this was a sort of carry-over from trying to adapt a novel from 1908. It didn’t quite work.

Besides the issues with the characters, I actually enjoyed this novel a lot. It was a wonderfully opulent escape from reality, with exquisite descriptions of decadence from Capri to the Hamptons. The plot was pretty predictable, but I liked the little dips and turns that were taken along the way. Lucie’s experience being biracial and feeling torn between the two sides of her family was also a thought-provoking and informative layer to her character and the story as a whole. Finally, Kevin Kwan’s descriptive language is masterful. I could practically see, taste, and smell everything he depicted, and the footnotes he includes in his writing allow the reader to have the same background knowledge as the kooky characters, without him including a bunch of exposition directly in the narrative.

Review posted on June 27 tp:
https://treatyourshelf.home.blog/2020/06/27/sex-and-vanity-by-kevin-kwan-book-review/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CB8oTS-gDdB/

This book was extremely entertaining, it held me captive page by page. One of those books you choose to read instead of getting decent hours of sleep.

Sex and Vanity mainly follows the story of Lucie Churchill a half Asian American and American sweet heart. She's gone to all the right schools all her life, raised by her Asian mother after her father passing away during her childhood. Lucie's mom always wanted to make sure Lucie grew up with a strong background established with her American Father's side, the Churchill side if you will. With Lucie entering her first semesters at Brown she has an amazing week of summer ahead of her. She has been invited to the the most extravagant, glamorous, wedding of a lifetime.

The wedding takes place in Capri Italy, known for its beautiful and luxurious atmosphere this sets a precedent for cute 19-year old Lucie to set off and "live a little." But do not fret she has been chaperoned by her mother, the only condition she was allowed to venture on her own was if she brought her older cousin Charlotte. And Charlotte an expert WASP is ready to sit back and let the beautiful city of Capri work its magic and make sure her little cousin stays in check.

By chance encounter Lucie meets George Zao and his animated mother. (There was a hotel room reservation fiasco, many people were a witness to this.) In the beginning Lucie cannot stand George, he keeps to himself too much and only chimes in to end up sounding arrogant. Throughout the week long event that this wedding entails Lucie and George have several encounters that make Lucie second, and triple guess whether she despises George OR is actually infatuated with him. The wedding day soon arrives and Lucie and George have a moment, that I WILL NOT SPOIL, but know its CRAZZYYYYYY! This causes Charlotte to step in, do some damage control and end scene.

They had known each other for only a week, and they were both victims of Capri, yes, victims, swept up by all that beauty and history and achingly romantic, Instragrammable moments of Issie's wedding."

Which then brings us to Part II of the novel. It's been 5 years since the fiasco in Capri. Lucie is in her home state of New York, graduated summa cum laude a year or so ago from Brown, and is working in the art industry. *Dream Job Alert!* Lucie is just recently engaged to a uber rich, socialite, now-renounced bachelor, Cecil. Lucie and Cecil are in the Hamptons for the summer (tradition for Lucie and her family) But guess who comes into the scene? Yup George and his spunky mom!!! With this unseen encounter, this sets off to a whole summer of angst and the deep attraction that was once very vivid between George and Lucie all those years ago. It all takes a toll on the dynamic of the group, and makes for exciting and laughable scenes.

Sex and Vanity is so flipping hilarious, its told in third person narrative. That made it like a Gossip Girl experience, with the book mainly following Lucie and her timeline we still get all the salacious gossip from everyone in the room and across the sea. Kevin Kwan has been able to jam pack all the beautiful imagery that you'd expect from him. From the details of the enchanting caverns and lagoons in Capri. To the super edgy and trendy aesthetic of New York. We get a glimpse into the life style of the rich and famous. We get to see Lucie struggle all her life to fit in the mold of her WASP family and friends and how that backfires on her. Lucie despite the crazy and scandalous events she goes through, really finds herself and lets the self love in at long last.

She had done nothing but deceive herself, and the deception hadn't just begun this summer. It has started all those years ago in Capri..."

This book was all the glitz, glamour and gossip your heart and brain need for a summer read. It's hilarious and just the right amount of sexy as well. Filled with a bunch of footnotes to explain happenings and characters, this truly was a reading experience I loved. It's enchanting, compelling, hilarious and flirty!

Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan will be available on June 30th, 2020. I beggeth of you reader, please grab a copy! This is the read you have been needing.

When I got the opportunity to read Kevin Kwan's next book before it was released by #NetGalley I jumped on it. I couldn't wait and Sex an Vanity didn't disappoint. It was the perfect, fun, summer read! The characters were enjoyable with just a few eccentrics thrown in to make the story fun to read. I couldn't wait to see what would happen with Lucie and George. Their friends and family were fun. I really enjoyed all the pop-culture references and the footnotes were hilarious. It was like spending time with your somewhat sarcastic, but lovable best friend.

I loved Crazy Rich Asians, the book, a lot and the trilogy a fair bit but not quite as much. So I was feeling very positive about Mr Kwan striking out with a new set of characters in a new setting. He based this new novel on E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View which I haven’t read but I’ve seen the movie, and looking at the Wikipedia plot summary it seems like Sex and Vanity mostly matches the plot beat for beat albeit in a contemporary setting and with Asian and biracial characters.

However, I just found this novel very labored, lacking the effervescence and exuberance of the earlier books and the descriptions of the decadent settings, interiors, and clothing seemed forced rather than sprightly.

But my biggest problem was that the characters just didn’t make sense, particularly Lucie and Charlotte. They didn’t seem to be coherent people as they changed between chapters into different ones. Certainly part of the problem is imposing early 20th century white uppercrust values and morality onto 21st century characters and situations.

So for me this was pretty disappointing but I’m sure it will do just fine without my appreciation.

Thanks to Doubleday and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

3.5, rounded up. Don't start this one with high hopes for it as a retelling of A Room with a View--Kevin Kwan makes this book an embellished standalone imbued with drama in his own unique way. While it lacks the panache of the Crazy Rich Asians series, Sex and Vanity seems to take itself a bit more seriously--through Lucie, a half-Chinese, half-white young woman, Kwan explores the complexities of racial identity (though Lucie, like the character on which she is based, isn't appealing to me). I also felt like it was more focused, though I could have used more development with George and Lucie.

This is a fantastic book from Kevvin Kwab. It centers around a destination wedding in Capri of an Asian American socialite. There are twists and turns that make this a fun read. I could not put it down. .

A glitzy, decadent novel set among the upper upper crust of the 1%, Kevin Kwan follows up his CRAZY RICH ASIANS trilogy with SEX AND VANITY. I'm afraid, though, that this book just isn't going to resonate as well as CRA did when it first came out. The world is very different now, and reading about the antics of the rich (including the name-dropping, explanations of expensive designers and cars, and people who are seemingly always on vacation) just didn't sit well with me. I thought it would be a nice escape -- instead, it felt hollow and not as ground-breaking as Kwan's previous novels.

A re-telling of A ROOM WITH A VIEW, we start the book at a fancy wedding in Capri, where Lucie meets George, thus kicking off the love story between two main characters who aren't very well developed, unfortunately. Kwan shines when he writes the ancillary characters like the crazy cousins, embarrassing mothers, and rich assholes. Unlike the joy of learning about Asian culture and the rich lifestyles those previous characters had, perhaps the setting of Capri, Manhattan, and the Hamptons made this book feel like it was not as special. There were also so many tongue in cheek moments in the seemingly unnecessary footnotes that veered from meta into eye-rolling territory. However, I cannot deny this book is FUN and you will breeze through it like a cool Hamptons wind. I would totally see the movie! The book, however, leaves much to be desired.

A young Lucie Churchill arrives on the island of Capri for a destination wedding. Charlotte, her older cousin, accompanies her at the request of her mother. While Charlotte is meant to keep Lucie in line, she essentially tries to suck the fun out of the entire trip. Right off the bat, Lucie and Charlotte meet George Zao. How can Lucie possibly find one human so annoying? And yet, why does she feel so drawn to him? Ultimately, the surroundings of this beautiful island coupled with partaking in the wedding of the century causes Lucie and George to give into temptation. Charlotte forces Lucie to flee the island immediately, so not to ruin her or her family's reputation.

Flash forward five years to find Lucie, now a successful art dealer, living in New York and engaged to a billenial (billionaire + millennial = bilennial). Everything in Lucie's life is falling into place, until George shows up. Suddenly he is imbedded into her life, showing up at her mother's home for lunch, going to the movies with her and her fiancé, and playing poker with her brother. It doesn't take long before the past resurfaces and makes Lucie question everything.

I know some readers were hung up on it being a retelling of A Room with a View, but as someone who has never read it or watched the movie, I had nothing to compare it to in that regard. For me, it was a real struggle not to compare it to Crazy Rich Asians. At some points, I felt like I was reading CRA instead. It has the humor and wit I expect from Kwan, but I still feel like something is missing. I also found the incessant name dropping and rambling rather tiring (I did, however, enjoy the cultural footnotes).

Listen, these characters were fire. I loved some and I hated some (+ I loved to hate some), but they were all hilarious in their own way. Except Lucie. I simply could not stand her childishness or her complete lack of self-anything (awareness, esteem, worth). She is basically a puppet -- thinking, feeling, saying, wearing, and doing whatever someone else tells her to. You know she has substance inside of her somewhere and you keep waiting for it to show itself, but then...you really only get a glimpse of it here and there. I really wanted/expected more character development for her.

Bottom line: Kwan is a master of details. You will be able to see the entire book unfolding right in front of you. It was a quick read, it was fairly easy to digest, but I didn't love it. A great beach read...it just didn't have the depth I was expecting.

Sex and Vanity opens in 2013 as Lucie and her cousin Charlotte travel to Capri for Lucie’s friend Issie’s wedding. The story takes us from Italy to New York and back again over six years as Lucie is torn between two worlds - the WASP* society that her father’s family belongs to and a love story she is trying very hard to avoid.

I am ashamed to admit that I have not read Kevin Kwan’s bestselling trilogy. Sex and Vanity drew me in right away with its beautiful descriptions of Capri and eclectic cast of characters. Kwan’s writing style is refreshing and I love how he uses footnotes to enhance the story and even correct his character’s false assertions. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and cannot wait to read more by Kwan in the future.

*White Anglo Saxon Protestant

I'm a big fan of Kevin Kwan, so was super excited to get this ARC. Plus, it's a retelling of one of my favorite books/ movies - A Room with a View. Talk about a great combination! After reading the book - which I did in nearly one sitting - I'm getting out my old VHS of that Merchant and Ivory film, in which Helena Bonham-Carter makes her debut. Kwan updates Lucy's story to fit a contemporary, social media world in the high society of the one percent. He also delves into what it's like to be of mixed ethnicities and how those expectations, prejudices and presuppositions can shape a young person's behavior.

His main character, Lucie, is American born and bred. Her mother is third generation Chinese, tho, so the white, Churchill side of Lucie's father has never quite known how to relate to her. Lucie looks more Asian than her brother, Freddy, and - although she's gorgeous, with curly hair - she's always felt less than adequate around her Churchill relatives. She's taught herself never to put a foot wrong, to try to live up to their expectations of top scholar, advanced degrees and marrying well. When she meets George Chiu at a cousin's wedding in Italy and nearly gets caught via drone camera having a fling with him, Charlotte, her Churchill cousin who's looking after her (Lucie is 19) has a conniption. She basically tells Lucie she's ruined and that hanging out with George is a huge mistake and won't be tolerated. This initial character arc is what's addressed in the rest of the book - how Lucie struggles with her own identity and maturity to be true to herself, regardless of what her extended family thinks.

Fast forward to 2018 and Lucie is now engaged to a highly suitable billionaire, who's obsessed with his social media standings. This character cracked me up several times, as I was envisioning Daniel Day Lewis's character in the movie updated to the 21st century and I think Kwan's vision is perfect. If you liked his Crazy Rich Asians book, you'll like this one,.

And if you're a Merchant and Ivory fan - you'll LOVE it!

I thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining tale of privilege! The fact that it is somewhat reminiscent of "Crazy Rich Asians" did not bother me, since new settings and different characters provided plenty of fun, romance, and family drama. I am happy to read and recommend anything by Kevin Kwan!

It's a little less than Crazy Rich Asians, but still a fun breezy book; especially for fans of Room with a View. A very enjoyable escape.

Fun, sexy and irreverent, SEX AND VANITY is another lightning-paced read from Kevin Kwan, perfect escapist reading for these dark days.

Kevin Kwan is back in an entertaining and over the top new story. I was a huge fan of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy and the movie, so I was so excited to see that Kevin Kwan had a new book coming out. I didn't even read the synopsis before I decided that I wanted to read his upcoming novel, but once I did read the synopsis I was completely intrigued. The story opens up when two young women, Lucie and Charlotte, attend her cousin's extravagant wedding set in Capri. When I say extravagant, I mean no expenses were spared. Isabel's wedding was the kind you read about and see pictures of in couture magazines. It made me think of the Sex and the City movies, both when Carrie and Big marry and when they travel to Abu Dhabi. Throughout the first part of the book, we are introduced to several characters that play a part throughout the story, two of those important ones being Rosemary and her son George. Lucie and George have a fling, if you will, but they both return to their normal lives as soon as the wedding festivities are over. Years later, when Lucie is engaged, George and Lucie see each other again, and all of those unresolved feelings from their time in Capri resurface. Sex and Vanity was entertaining with the perfect amount of fluff that I needed in my life. I have been reading some "heavy" books lately, and I felt like I needed something light and easygoing. Some of the things that were over the top that stood out to me in Sex and Vanity was the $225,000 car Lucie's fiance gifted her, their luxurious mansion complete with its on Venetian gondola that went throughout the house. Um, what?! It had all of the over top wealth that I have come to expect from Kwan from the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. Speaking of Crazy Rich Asians, there is even a part where a "beautiful Asian woman named Astrid" makes an appearance, and Kitty is also mentioned at the very end. I thought it was sweet of Kwan to pay homage to those characters that I remember so well. This book also had footnotes, that gave more explanation about things he was describing. I read CRA a couple of years ago, and I can't remember if they had these same footnotes. At first, I thought they would be somewhat distracting, but as I got used to them, I continuously looked to them to get more information on the schools, labels, designers, etc. that Kwan mentioned. This was helpful and added to the overall entertaining factor of the book. Sex and Vanity is out on July 7, and it is the perfect summer read. I will post my feature in about a week, a little closer to its July pub date. Thank you to Doubleday and Netgalley for this e-ARC of one of my most anticipated novels of summer!

Another frothy bit of fun from Kevin Kwan. This hit all the marks you want from a summer read: a little romance, a lot of glamour, and some family drama in the mix. I think this needed a slightly better (worse?) antagonist and George was a bit bland and flat, but that honestly didn't hurt my enjoyment of the story.

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of Sex and Vanity! I was so excited when I found out that Kevin Kwan wrote another book because I am obsessed with Crazy Rich Asians. I thought this was cute, though it didn't suck me in quite like the CRA trilogy did. Maybe I missed something? I'm not entirely sure. However, I wasn't disappointed and I'll probably read it again to see if it'll suck me in again.

Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

When Lucie Churchill attends her friend’s lavish Capri wedding, she has no idea that her own life is about to change. Accompanied by her snobby, rule-following cousin Charlotte, Lucie isn’t expecting any surprises... until she meets George Zao. It’s hate at first sight for Lucie, but there is something about George that she can’t stop thinking about. After a scandalous rendezvous, Lucie puts George out of her mind for years. When Lucie and her new fiancé stumble upon George in the Hamptons years later, she is overcome with nostalgia and wistful memories. What is it about George? And is he about to torpedo Lucie’s life for the second time?

Kevin Kwan is back at it again with another juicy novel, filled to the brim with larger-than-life characters who have larger-than-life bank accounts. If you want a crash course in the hottest designers and luxury goods, a Kwan novel is a great place to start! I loved Lucie and enjoyed her character development. As a half Chinese woman born into a WASPy family, Lucie had to find her voice to stand up to her racist family members. I really enjoyed watching Lucie become more assertive and sure of herself as the novel progressed. The other storylines are less serious, and at times ridiculous, but fun nevertheless. Pick this one up if you need a soapy, fun beach read this summer. Fans of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy will likely enjoy this one, and I can easily see this novel becoming a series! Thank you @doubledaybooks and @netgalley for my advanced reader’s copy! Sex and Vanity will be released on July 14th.

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