Counterfeit: A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and New York Times BESTSELLER - the most exciting and addictive heist novel you’ll read this summer!

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It is sad to see the author of this book promoting racial stereotyping by creating various characters precisely according to the stereotypes. Enter Winnie Fang, Ava's enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. This is a quick, light and enjoyable read which also throws a fair few surprises in one’s way and which turned out to be far more fun than I’d expected.

‘Counterfeit’ Is New Pick for Reese’s Book Club | Kirkus Reviews

developmentally challenged son and her husband (a cardiac surgeon), while they somehow have money problems.

This was a fun look into the world of luxury handbags and their super fakes, traditional Chinese customs and expectations, and a little bit of how the wealthy deal with the struggles and stresses of an expected lifestyle like choosing the right preschool or maintaining the perfect image.

Counterfeit Kingdom: The Dangers of New Revelation, New Counterfeit Kingdom: The Dangers of New Revelation, New

The story is good but the characters felt shallow and focused on problem solving that didn't involve morals in the solution. The sparkling story line seduces with its compelling twists and turns even as Kirstin Chen deftly interrogates issues of race, identity, wealth and consumerism. This is a great easy read, it’s clever and fun but with dark undertones as it shines a light on things such as Chinese factory conditions. Clearly whatever scam Winnie has involved her in has been found out and Winnie has vanished, while Ava is left to explain what really took place.

Ava Wong is thirty-seven, a Stanford-educated lawyer who worked at a high-flying job at a law firm but is now on an extended maternity break with her difficult toddler Henri. Her latest, Counterfeit, is a Reese Witherspoon book club pick, a Roxane Gay book club pick, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice.

Counterfeit: A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and New York Counterfeit: A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and New York

This is very out of character for Ava who has always played it safe but with things falling apart at home, it’s a risk she is willing to take. Enter Winnie Fang, Ava’s enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. It's cleverly told, hugely intelligent, and raises a lot of extremely sharp points about the kind of narratives people tell and believe and expect. Also about the high fashion industry, and the lives of the wealthy upper middle class and how impressively they obliterate their potential for comfort with greed for more.

Chen reacted to her book’s selection on Instagram with a split photo of her and Witherspoon, each holding Chen’s novel and each wearing a blue gingham shirt. Pay attention to the quality of the print, as in cases of counterfeit, the pages often look cheaper and generally worse.

Counterfeit Books Stop Counterfeit Books

One of the things I love about the reading experience is coming across characters whom I am able to relate to in some way (even if our life circumstances are completely different) and that certainly was the case here — this makes the time and effort spent reading this all the more worthwhile. But beneath the perfect facade, her marriage is full of troubles and she’s having difficulties handling her son’s outbursts. There is a lot about what it is to move in the world as a wealthy woman, a white woman, an Asian woman and all the big and small differences between them. As a matter of fact, I had to switch to the audiobook because I couldn’t stand any longer the lack of quotation marks.As Ava is roped into Winnie's world of counterfeiting, the focus isn't on heists and scams as much as it is on a marriage going sour, the tedium of parenting, and the joy of a secret. No surprise that the sly feminist caper was the subject of a fierce eight-way bidding war for TV rights. Winnie who had left Stanford under a shadow around her SATs is now much changed—glamourous, dripping with designer accessories. What it ended up being, however, is exactly what I was hoping when it was first announced by Reese over on the ‘Gram.