This was a fast paced, engaging read that balanced complex woman’s issues with a light hearted idea for a money heist. This is the story of three female friends in Shanghai. China . It takes place in the months leading up to Lulu’s wedding to a very eligible bachelor. The woman devise a plan to steal the money from the wedding to change their own lives. This book has it all, sharp insights into class and gender wrapped in a shiny, glamorous, hilarious bow. So fun to read!

- thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc to review!

- a solid story about found family, and doing what is necessary to survive. Wan writes engaging characters in a fun style, and this book will keep you engaged for sure.

This book was very refreshing. It was light-hearted and highlighted the Asian American experience very well. This has both good comedy and swooning romance. I may not be Chinese American, but as an Asian American, I felt like the characters accurately portrayed the Asian culture. The characters are super relatable, which was a great way to bring up serious topics like social norms and practices in a relatable and light-hearted manner. This is a nice mix of Crazy Rich Asians and Helen Hoang's books. Overall, 5/5 and I would highly recommend this book.

I am a simple girl. Combine hot women with heists that subtly go against patriarchal values and I am sold. "Women of Good Fortune" was such a fun and lighthearted read that also had me clutching my chest in moments of internal culture wars. Wan does a fantastic job at contrasting a setting where these three women—Lulu, Jane, and Rina—living in modern day Shanghai are not only are clever, independent, and beautiful, but also complicated, messy, and frustrating at times. I am a big fan of characters that depict a full spectrum of complexities and yet, an underlying current urges to you root for their happiness and success no matter what crimes they commit.

I would've have loved for a deeper dive into the resolution of each woman finding and living their own version of a perfect life. I think great characters are the steel backbone of any book and my personal tastes demands every facet of their complexities to be utterly dissected. Nevertheless, I LOVE WOMEN.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Note: NetGalley provided a free digital advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

Lulu, Rina, and Jane are three best friends living in China all impacted by the oppressive beliefs of society and their family as to what a good woman should be/do. Specifically the cultural belief of “leftover women” and how it has impacted each is a theme. Each with their own reasons, they decide to steal the wedding gift money from Lulu’s wedding. Once the storyline was established for each character, the pace moves pretty quickly through the planning of the heist and then the act by act of the wedding day. It was an enjoyable read and kept me entertained. They are each flawed characters trying to escape something and the character growth was nice to see at the end.

Women of Good Fortune is a wonderfully entertaining and thoughtful book about three close friends, who are navigating through their place in Shanghai society. Lulu is reluctantly engaged to a man from high society, and feels her family’s pressure to support them financially. Jane is in an unhappy marriage and is focused on the role society places on beauty. Rina is unhappy at being passed over by men at her job; she wants a career but she is worried about her biological clock. Together they plan a heist for Lulu’s wedding day and the book follows the eight months leading up to it. The three desperately hope the huge amount of money they get will help pay for specific ways each wants to change and improve their life. Sophie Wan expertly weaves the fun of planning the heist with their crew, with very well developed characters with backstories, and the cultural expectations of women in Chinese society. At its heart, this is a book also about friendship and loyalty. I highly recommend this enchanting and moving book. With thanks to Netgalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for this wonderful ARC. My opinions are my own.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing/Graydon House for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

The synopsis of the heist drew me in, but the book ended up being about so much more than that. It was a look into cultural expectations in China, including class relations and the strict line drawn between upper class and middle/lower class families. It examined gender roles; that women can only bring value if they carry out their duty to their parents, husbands and husband's families. Similarly, it touched on family relations and the struggle to always live up to parents' expectations.

The book felt a liiiiitle long but overall I really loved it. Lulu, Jane and Rina were very relatable characters whose thoughts, feelings and experiences really resonated with me. The writing flowed easily and kept me engaged and there was a great balance of humor, romance and heartbreak throughout. Come for the heist, stay for the self-discovery and character development.

This book was good but it did take a moment to catch my interest. The plot is about a heist but the book mainly focuses on relationships and friendships. There was a twist ending which I wasn’t expecting and was so refreshing. The point of view was split three ways, which is not typically something I enjoy!- but for the premise of the story it worked really well!

This book didn't quite hook me in the beginning but ultimately I enjoyed it. I think it could have been a little shorter or faster paced and while I enjoyed several of the side characters, we could have done without one or two of them. And at times, it felt the author had though about adding a more complex subplot but didn't fully commit, as there were a few descriptions or references that didn't quite build up to anything.

That aside, I think where this book really shone was in its portrayals of the various relationships, both romantic and platonic. Friends fight. Families aren't perfect. Partners can miscommunicate. I enjoyed that this was all displayed not in a particularly trite or trophy way but in a somewhat messy way that felt somewhat realistic. Now, of course, it's a novel, so there were some clear stereotypical moments (aka the entire MIL character) but the rest of the characters were given enough time to shine. I was worried the multiple POV introduced in the beginning would be confusing but the sections were short and snappy, so I was able to get each main girl's perspective without feeling bogged down in any one of them.

I, historically, love heist novels, but this one was especially enjoyable because it didn't feel too predictable, beyond the inevitable success. I like how there were curveballs and hiccups. As a reader, it made me more invested in how they would succeed.

I might even recommend this to my bookclub when it comes out!

Three friends decide to pull a heist to change their lives. I found this book a little hard to get into, but I enjoyed the ending!

I received an early copy from a netgalley, but all thoughts are my own.

Women of Good Fortune
Sophie Wan
March 5, 2024
Graydon House
* contemporary
* adult fiction
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Set against a high society Shanghai wedding, a reluctant bride and her two best friends, each with their own motives, forge a plan to steal all the gift money on the big day!
I found this book to be lighthearted and intriguing, it isn’t my usual genre but I was not disappointed. Female readers will connect with the themes of having to choose between career and family, committing to a life partner, and going against social norms, I would highly recommend this to readers who enjoyed novels like “Crazy Rich Asians”. Great book!
4 stars

Rife with Chinese culture and traditions surrounding marriage and weddings; women in the workplace; living up to parental expectations; and dutiful daughters, debut novelist Sophie Wan’s Women of Good Fortune is an outlandish caper story that involves a bride and her best friends’ plan to steal her wedding gifts in an attempt to build better lives for themselves.

Lulu, the bride, is a beauty, but it is because of her good looks that she is marrying into an extremely wealthy, yet downright awful, family. She doesn’t love her fiancé, and she is only going forward with the marriage because she knows it will provide some sort of security for her aging parents down the line.

Rina is in the tech industry, working one of China’s grueling nine-nine-six schedules (this involves working from 9 AM - 9 PM, 6 days a week) in an attempt to move up the career ladder. The problem is that at her still fertile age, her ambition is overlooked because it is assumed that she will eventually stop working once she finds the right guy, settles down, and has children. Time is ticking for Rina, who does have dreams of having children some day - if only she had a handsome sum of money that would allow her to freeze her eggs until she becomes more secure in her career.

Jane is no beauty by Chinese standards, yet her family has something that few can offer - a nice apartment in a desirable area for any man willing to glance past Jane’s looks and marry her. That is how Jane ended up married to a husband she hates. She spends her days, well, spending his money, while plotting her escape from this boring life. She dreams of securing enough money to completely change her face through plastic surgery, and then escaping her life as a wife forever.

These three friends all want something that only money, A LOT of money, can buy. Through this desire to gain and prosper, is how the plot to steal Lulu’s wedding gifts is born. Women of Good Fortune follows the friends as they develop and refine an over-the-top plot to steal the gifts and make their escape. Full of hijinks and jaw-dropping scenarios, Women of Good Fortune will keep you on the edge of your seat wondering if they can really pull it off.

While mostly entertaining and quite educational for those unfamiliar with Chinese culture, Women of Good Fortune could use a little polish. It feels a bit unfinished, as if it is only a draft of the novel and not the final copy. Wan’s writing is choppy, and the dialogue and descriptions in this book feel underdeveloped. The story does not flow seamlessly to its end, and can definitely be edited down in some places while padded in others.

Recommended to fans of Kirstin Chen’s Counterfeit.

Cute story, more on friendships and relationships than the heist itself it seemed, with side comments/reflections on things like keeping up appearances, following one’s dreams, and managing societal pressures. Btw, I would have to say, I liked Vic the most!

Notable lines:

“Acknowledge your feelings, but remember they’re subjective.”

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I liked that the twist I thought was coming ended up being something different. The ending with the women's friendships was different than I expected and that was a little bittersweet.

3.5 stars, rounded up.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A book that is about some young women who are money obsessed. They want rich husbands, they are obsessed with brand name items and want to shop. They are trying to come up with a plan to steal the box of money gifted at a wedding so that one of the characters doesn’t have to marry the guy but can get the money.
I found this story mundane and fairly ridiculous. I while I am sure they are conversations like this going in, I am very glad I don’t have women like this in my life.

I initially struggled to get into the cadence of the book but once I got there, I enjoyed the read. I didn’t particularly like the protagonists or ethically agree with their plan so I didn’t feel myself cheering them on to succeed. I did like several of the fringe characters a lot so felt myself rooting for them instead.

It was an entertaining read, the three main characters complimented each other really well and a 3-way pov was the right move for the plot to be interesting that made me want to keep reading, i thought i was going to be more excited about the heist and there’d be more conflict but it was still a good book

This book was a fun and interesting read. There are a lot of characters with complex storylines so at times it can a bit difficult to follow. Overall I enjoyed this as the author kept you guessing until the very end. This book is light and would make for a great vacation read. The author’s descriptions of the characters and setting was very descriptive and added to the overall enjoyment of the book.

Fast-paced and digestible. However, I felt that several of the narratives were fairly predictable. The three leads were all quite selfish, which I understand is somewhat part of the point, but it made me enjoy reading their perspectives less.

What starts out as a story of three friends unhappy in their own little ways with their lives, ends in a heist and an eventuality that was the truth of their lives from the very beginning. I love how Sophie Wan challenges cultural norms through the eyes of Lulu, Rina and Jane, ultimately helping them topple the norms that hold them back. Loved the romance arc in the story as well. I totally rooted for Rina and Jane's love life. This book was a perfect balance of funny, romantic and wholesome.