It makes me sad to say this, but Women of Good Fortune falls squarely into the camp of having a fascinating premise but a lackluster execution.
From the description, I was all aflutter. You need only to hint at things like a high-society Asian wedding and a brilliant heist masterminded by a group of smart and resourceful women, and I'm starting to dream of Ocean's Eleven meets Crazy Rich Asians. Add to that the setting of Shanghai, the city of my birth and early years, and how could I not love this?
And yet, I did not. Pretty much from the start, I felt a disconnect from the story that never really went away.
The heist itself is enjoyable enough in that frothy and hammed up sort of way, as long as you don't take it too seriously. Though it was a bit convoluted, I had fun following along as they tried to figure out how to steal all the red envelopes full of cash from right under the noses of the wedding guests.
But the problem here is the characters. The three main women are extremely unlikable, so much so that it hobbled the story for me. They constantly complain about not having enough money and how they hate the men in their lives, but I don't really understand their issues. They have enough money to live comfortably, and the men in their lives genuinely care about them and treat them with respect, and some are even billionaires. How terrible for them.
The women could just leave if they really can't stand it. Yet they stay and persist, in the way that is only explainable in Chinese—吃苦 (to eat bitterness), just so they can maximize their suffering, which in turn makes them feel entitled to the money they are stealing from the rich people. I tried, you guys, but it's really hard to relate to such self-inflicted suffering and entitlement.
And the side characters aren't any better, with most of the parents and in-laws portrayed as greedy and selfish. Other than the three male love interests, the rest of the cast is so awful, I cringed hard at their harsh portrayal.
I understand what this book is trying to do. We are meant to sympathize with the women because they come from difficult childhoods and circumstances. Could upbringing and poverty and parental abuse make you unable to stand up and advocate for yourself, make you seem cold and greedy in the eyes of someone who grew up with privilege, and cause you to bend the moral code to ensure your survival? Yes, absolutely. But the problem is that this book doesn't show that subtlety. And without it, we're just following a bunch of greedy and shallow people.
Clearly, this story is meant to be a light satire that both entertains and gently pokes fun at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. But in order for satire to work, there needs to be something in the characters you can relate to. This satire strips away all the humanity until there is nothing left but the caricatures. And I just couldn't relate to that at all.
Readaroo Rating: 3 stars
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