A review by kwugirl
Sarong Party Girls, by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
4.0
I got curious about this book due to the review in Slate. The "Emma but in modern Singapore" tagline is absurd, Slate is right that it's much darker than that, and there's an applicable Ross Douthat piece somewhere I'm sure about the negative consequences of the sexual revolution for women, etc. I can't comment on veracity with the real party scene (in Singapore or elsewhere) but there's enough here of an unflinching look at traditional patriarchal Asian culture, racism, and modern sexual politics that seems true to me in essence.
I'm glad the Slate piece gave me a bit of an intro to the Singlish so that wasn't too much of a surprise. I was also slightly helped along by being able to figure out what the occasional pinyin Chinese phrases were but I don't think that would impede understanding.
The satire is done well, even if it feels like the book overall ends a bit abruptly--but then again, I can't really think of how else it could've been wrapped to a close while staying true to itself. I thought I might find the main character really annoying, but as you get to know her more, I really felt for her and onto a "don't hate the player, hate the game" stance.
Good for: people who are open to thinking about upsides and downsides of more modern dating culture, people that accept complexity and moral ambiguity in their protagonists, people that aren't turned off by blatant statements of ugly truths, people interested in the clash between class, racism, and sexism, and maybe people who want an outlet for hating on cis-het men (I can only think of one non-repugnant male character in the entire book, and it's explained that he's not awful because he's gay).
Not good for: PUA who will take fiction as confirming their worldview, people who don't want to just feel a bit depressed about how things are in the world afterwards (this is usually me and is often my stated reason for preferring fiction to nonfiction, but my curiosity overrode that in this instance)
Also should be strongly noted that this is NOT chicklit, imo.
I'm glad the Slate piece gave me a bit of an intro to the Singlish so that wasn't too much of a surprise. I was also slightly helped along by being able to figure out what the occasional pinyin Chinese phrases were but I don't think that would impede understanding.
The satire is done well, even if it feels like the book overall ends a bit abruptly--but then again, I can't really think of how else it could've been wrapped to a close while staying true to itself. I thought I might find the main character really annoying, but as you get to know her more, I really felt for her and onto a "don't hate the player, hate the game" stance.
Good for: people who are open to thinking about upsides and downsides of more modern dating culture, people that accept complexity and moral ambiguity in their protagonists, people that aren't turned off by blatant statements of ugly truths, people interested in the clash between class, racism, and sexism, and maybe people who want an outlet for hating on cis-het men (I can only think of one non-repugnant male character in the entire book, and it's explained that he's not awful because he's gay).
Not good for: PUA who will take fiction as confirming their worldview, people who don't want to just feel a bit depressed about how things are in the world afterwards (this is usually me and is often my stated reason for preferring fiction to nonfiction, but my curiosity overrode that in this instance)
Also should be strongly noted that this is NOT chicklit, imo.