LoveReading Says
Fizzing with “how on earth will this play out?” intrigue and all the page-turning pace of a stylish screen thriller, Kirstin Chen’s Counterfeit lays bare a web of deceit that’ll have readers questioning what they’d do in a similar situation, debating characters’ motivations and ethics, and wondering what they’d have done to escape (or not). It’s brilliantly compelling stuff that also addresses the prejudicial vagaries of the American Dream.
On the face of it, Ava has it all – she’s a Stanford graduate married to a transplant surgeon who’s taking time out from a career in corporate law to care for their toddler. But in reality, Ava is terribly dissatisfied, and only went into law to keep her parents happy: “from the very beginning, I’d known my lot in life: to be good enough at my job, and to tolerate it until retirement”. Hardly a recipe for fulfilment. What’s more, because “I dreaded his disapproval most of all”, her husband has no idea.
Amidst growing marital tensions, while struggling with a three-year-old who won’t stop crying. Ava bumps into Winnie, her former college roommate. After leaving Stanford in the midst of a cheating scandal, Winnie appears dressed head-to-toe in designer garb, with a scandalously expensive bag collection. When Ava runs into financial trouble on a trip home to Hong Kong (thanks to her controlling husband), she decides to do Winnie a favour that’ll provide her with much-needed cash. A favour that sees Ava bound up in Winnie’s counterfeit bag business, with no easy way out.
Ava’s compulsive account of events is addressed to a detective, but there being two sides to every story, we’re also presented with Winnie’s account of their early friendship, and how she came to coax Ava into her enterprise. It’s an extremely entertaining novel, with wry commentary, too. As Ava notes, “Winnie is the American dream, and that’s what drives everyone mad, mad, mad - that she had the gall to crash their game and win it all”.
Joanne Owen
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Counterfeit Synopsis
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
"A con artist story, a pop-feminist caper, a fashionable romp . . . Counterfeit is an entertaining, luxurious read--but beneath its glitz and flash, it is also a shrewd deconstruction of the American dream and the myth of the model minority. . . . Chen is up to something innovative and subversive here." -- Camille Perri, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Recommended by New York Times Book Review - Washington Post - People - Entertainment Weekly - USA Today - Time - Cosmopolitan - Today show - Harper's Bazaar - Vogue - Good Housekeeping - Parade - New York Post - Town & Country - GMA.com - Buzzfeed - Goodreads - Oprah Daily - Popsugar - Bustle - theSkimm - The Millions - and more!
For fans of Hustlers and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, the story of two Asian American women who band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise--an incisive and glittering blend of fashion, crime, and friendship from the author of Bury What We Cannot Take and Soy Sauce for Beginners.
Money can't buy happiness... but it can buy a decent fake.
Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home--she's built the perfect life. But beneath this façade, Ava's world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn't been used in years, and her toddler's tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point.
Enter Winnie Fang, Ava's enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, twenty years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. But the shy, awkward girl Ava once knew has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange. The secret to her success? Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now she needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business--someone who'd never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava. But when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes once again, Ava is left to face the consequences.
Swift, surprising, and sharply comic, Counterfeit is a stylish and feminist caper with a strong point of view and an axe to grind. Peering behind the curtain of the upscale designer storefronts and the Chinese factories where luxury goods are produced, Kirstin Chen interrogates the myth of the model minority through two unforgettable women determined to demand more from life.
"If you appreciate a good caper, you'll want to pick up Kirstin Chen's novel . . . Fast-paced and fun, with smart commentary on the cultural differences between Asia and America." -- TIME
"Propulsive and captivating . . . A provocative story of fashion, friendship, and fakes (in more ways than one)." -- VOGUE
About This Edition
ISBN: |
9780063119550 |
Publication date: |
13th June 2023 |
Author: |
Kirstin Chen |
Publisher: |
William Morrow & Company an imprint of HarperCollins |
Format: |
Paperback |
Pagination: |
288 pages |
Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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Other Genres: |
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Recommendations: |
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