Free for All Friday, June 26, 2015

You may remember her as Angie from All My Children or Mozelle Batiste Delacroix in Eve's Bayou, Debbi Morgan has been acting for four decades and hasn't aged.  In her new memoir, The Monkey On My Back, Morgan doesn't dwell on her time in Hollywood.  Instead, she talks about "the fear, doubt, and insecurities she’s struggled with for much of her life—and how she escaped a vicious cycle of pain to find self-confidence, happiness, and success." It's on shelves now!


Zane is in trouble with the IRS...again.

A preview of the cover of #NBAward Winner @Sherman_Alexie's picture book scheduled for release in 2016. pic.twitter.com/ZJzEQFs4bI

— nationalbook (@nationalbook) June 25, 2015

Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You, is one of my favorite authors to interact with on Twitter.  She wrote a little piece over at The Oyster Review called What Is Asian American Literature, Anyway?

Between the World and Me, the much anticipated new book from Ta-Nehisi Coates was originally scheduled to be published in September. Given recent events in America, the publication date has been moved up to July 14. Go ahead and get your pre-order on!






It's important that kids are able to read books about characters that look like them for a variety of reasons.  This week over at Barbershop Books, Alvin Irby talks about why it's just as important for white children to read diverse books.


Be sure to check out the Kids page. I'm posting updates of books featuring colourful children on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. While they're not reviews, they are books that I've found through catalogs and other research that I think kids would enjoy. While there seems to be quite a few books for younger children and tweens, there is an appalling lack of young adult books with diverse characters. I've got a handful of YA books that I'll be featuring in upcoming weeks, but if you know of any books for the 13 and up crowd with Asian, African, African-American, Latin or Native American characters, please send recommendations my way.

Amazon is going to start paying self-published authors based on the number of pages read in their books. Does this give you more incentive to quit a bad book early on, since the author won't profit if you don't read? Do you think this is fair to authors that were previously paid a flat fee or do you think this will inspire them to write better in hopes that people will continue to read & increase their profit margin?

Missing our posts on Facebook?  Throughout the week I post interesting things I find online about books, current events, etc.  Although you may have liked Read in Colour on Facebook, you may not be seeing all of our posts.  Want to change that? Click on "Get Notifications" under the Liked drop down.  Posts should begin to appear in your feed.

Tuesday, June 30, is your last chance to get Read in Colour t-shirts & tanks.  Order yours before the campaign ends!

#BookReview: CHINA RICH GIRLFRIEND by Kevin Kwan

Those Crazy Rich Asians Kevin Kwan introduced us to in 2013 are back! When last we saw the Youngs, Nick and Rachel had just gotten engaged (much to his mother & grandmother's chagrin); Michael and Astrid were celebrating his company buyout; and Eddie and family continued to grace society pages with their impeccable dressing from head to toe.

Nick & Rachel and Astrid & Michael are back, but Eddie is solidly a third string character.  There's little to no mention of his family and his appearance merely serves to remind us of just how ridiculous and pompous someone of his status in life can be.  And though Nick and Rachel are a focal point of the book, they take a backseat to a new character, Colette.

Thanks to social media "stars" like the Kardashians, we're all familiar with how a talentless hack can rise to the top of society with the help of Twitter, Instagram and a few well placed pictures (or videos).  To say Colette Bing is China's answer to Kim K. would be an insult to Colette. Her father is the third richest man in China and the world is Colette's playground.  She is, indeed, the China rich girlfriend who is at the center of the world wind that is this book.

Rachel's search for her birth father leads her to China (thanks to Nick's overbearing & meddling mother) where she becomes acquainted with her nearly identical brother, Carlton, just one of Colette's many suitors.  When Rachel and Nick get caught up in the chaos of Colette's life, they (and readers) are exposed to an even more extravagant lifestyle than witnessed in Crazy Rich Asians.  Where Nick's family members tended to hide their wealth, Colette has no problem flaunting it.  I couldn't even begin to keep up with the brands, places and names that Kwan dropped throughout the book as he detailed how and where these people spend their money.

I like that Kwan takes the time to give us footnotes about the phrases the characters use.  While that probably plays well in print versions of the book, footnotes in ebooks are compiled and shown at the end of each chapter, making it difficult and time consuming to figure them out while reading.  It disrupts the reading flow, but not enough to stop reading.

Like he did with Crazy Rich Asians, Kwan doesn't tie up everyone's story line with a nice neat bow, leaving room for another sequel.  I, for one, would love a follow up to find out how Rachel's relationship with her new family plays out and how the story line for Kitty Pong, a minor character that becomes a major character, plays out.  Her transformation by Corinna Ko-Tung was almost Pygmalion comes to China and I'd really be interested in a book about Corinna getting her Henry Higgins on.

Two years ago we were told screen rights had been optioned for Crazy Rich Asians, but nothing else has been said about a movie.  Rather than that, I would prefer a network TV summer series that combines both books.  It would definitely hold my interest much more than some of the other summer series networks throw our way.  Trust me, if you were a fan of Dynasty or Dallas back in the day, you'll love China Rich Girlfriend.

400 p.
Publisher: Doubleday