Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan + Singaporean Pineapple Tarts

Alert: Spoilers ahead! And keep an eye out later this week on my instagram @picklesandpages for my Singaporean Pineapple Tart recipe!

*I'm gonna chat for just a minute here, if you want to skip to the review it's a little farther down below in black ink!

Hi y'all, I've been a little MIA for a bit. I started stressing myself out with posts and they became longer and more tedious to write, so taking a break felt nice. It let me get back into reading for joy rather than reading to review. I was actually able to read 100 books in 2020! I'm pretty proud of myself and now I want to get back into looking at books a bit more critically. So from here on out, my format is going to be a little less aggressive: I'll be writing short and sweet reviews, mostly about my feelings and any important thoughts I have, but it wont be a 15 minute read and perhaps each paragraph won't be separated by a quote. Don't get me wrong, I still love putting quotes, but I'm not gonna force it unless there's something I'm dying for you to hear. With all that said, let's get started!

Crazy Rich Asians is one of my favorite films of all time, so needless to say my expectations were high. I got a bit nervous seeing that there were three books in the series and only one movie, though. I thought perhaps they shoved all three novels into one film which would surely leave out a ton of important details, right? I was wrong! It seems that they followed the book quite beautifully. The biggest difference here is a slightly cliffhanger ending in the book (SPOILERS: Rachel and Nick get back together WITHOUT his mother's blessing), whereas in the movie they had a nice happy ending with everyone on board. I'm definitely going to read the rest of the series whenever I get my hands on it, especially because I'm eager to find out how the story really ends, now that I know the movie embellished a bit.

I also noticed that the book went into quite a bit more detail into Rachel's mom's past-- in the film she mentions that her husband was abusive. Obviously that is more than enough of a reason to leave him, but in the novel it gets much more detailed-- her husband hit her, raped her, raped other women, and when she gave birth to a baby girl instead of a boy, his family actually planned to pour acid into the newborn's eyes! (Because of the one baby policy in China, the only way the government allowed you to have another baby was if the first one had a handicap). Also just like the film, that abusive man isn't even Rachel's real dad. While her mother was being abused by him she became friends with a neighbor who offered her safety, and quickly fell in love with him. Rachel is his daughter, and he was actually the one to get them to America.

Personally, Astrid was my favorite in both the film and the book. Her loveliness really has a way of transcending the page and screen. I found that her story was quite significantly different in the film, though-- much more simplified. In the movie she finds out her husband has been having an affair. When she confronts him, he leaves her and she realizes that his resentment is not her fault, but his. However, in the book things go quite differently. When she confronts him about the affair, he admits that he faked the whole thing. What?? Yeah, I know. He faked it so that she would finally have a "good reason" to divorce him because he so badly wanted out of the relationship but was clearly too much of a coward to break up with her himself. And get this, she still wants to be with him!! Even at the end, she's fighting to keep their marriage together. Even if I hadn't liked this book, I would still have to keep reading just to find out what happens to Astrid. I want her to drop him so bad, all he does is make her feel bad about herself and she deserves better.

That's all I've got for today, folks. Tune in later this week on my instagram @picklesandpages to see my take on pineapple tarts!

"Those Khoos sure like to flaunt it, don't they," Victoria said with a laugh, popping one of the crumbly pineapple tarts into her mouth.

Alas, the pineapple tarts I was so excited to make turned out... not so great. I won't bother linking anything as everything that went wrong with the tarts came from the recipe being less than wonderful. The dough was bland and much too dry (5 cups of flour with hardly any wet ingredients??? What a fool I was to trust it!), the tarts were almost 90% dough, and the only good thing was the filling, which I made myself without the recipe's help! Anyhow, someday perhaps I'll try this treat again but with a better recipe as my guide. You win some, you lose some!