RaveThe GuardianThe reader almost needs an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of who thinks what of whom, and why. Crazy Rich even offers a playful riff on the trope of all Asians being good at math ... It\'s the sort of lighting-quick computations I haven\'t seen since the SATs ... The great irony – and pleasure – of Crazy Rich Asians is that those being stereotyped stereotype right back. Call it a reversal of the collective gaze. Yet for all the stereotypes it exposes then skewers, there are others peddled so earnestly that the reader can\'t help but wonder at Kwan\'s agenda ... But ultimately, novels like Kwan\'s can be taken as (small) signs of progress – they expand our portfolio of how Asians are perceived in the media. There\'s also something refreshing about this appropriation of self-representation.
Mona Awad
PositiveThe New York TimesThe book feels less like a traditional novel than a collection of 13 moving portraits of Lizzie at different cross-sections of her life, fulfilling the promise of its title — and the prophecy the teenage Lizzie makes in McDonald’s: 'I’m going to grow into that nose and develop an eating disorder. I’ll be hungry and angry all my life, but I’ll also have a hell of a time.'
