Plot Summary Of "Crazy Rich Asians" By Kevin Kwan

Crazy Rich Asians is a realistic fiction written by Kevin Kwan set in present day New York, Singapore, and parts of the Asia. The story is about Rachel Chu who was raised by a single mom, Kerry Chu, from a stereotypical middle class background.

Rachel is an economics professor at New York University. One day her boyfriend of two years, Nick Young, who is also a New York University professor, tells her that his childhood best friend, Colin Khoo, is getting married over the summer, and that he plans to bring Rachel on the trip with him to Singapore. Rachel agrees but is still doubtful about leaving New York for that long and wonders whether or not this trip means something more serious for her relationship with Nick. Since Rachel is an economics professor, she knows Singapore has one of the highest concentrations of wealth in the world and she looks forward to Nick showing her around the island port. She also thinks it is a great opportunity to visit her best friend from Stanford, Goh Peik Lin, who comes from a rich Singaporean family and who owns a real estate company. It occurs to Rachel that she knows nothing about Nick’s family and Nick has also been very secretive about his family. This causes Rachel to be anxious. Nick relies on his cousin, Astrid, Rachel’s friend, a famous model, and wife to Michael Teo, to help him explain to Rachel about his powerful, strange family, and his posh lifestyle in Singapore. Astrid tells him many times to prepare Rachel for the unpleasant surprise that awaits her in Singapore. In the end, Nick chooses not to listen to Astrid’s advice and assumes that he should be able to bring his girlfriend to Singapore without any expected shocks.

Time goes by and before Rachel and Nick leave for Asia, gossip swarms around in Singapore. According to the rumors, Nick Young’s new girlfriend is a low-class American-born Chinese girl, some say she is a Taiwanese socialite. Nick’s mother, Eleanor Young, is not pleased with either of these potential spouses for her son. She believes Nick should be dating within their social circle. Eleanor assumes Rachel is a gold digger, who is solely after Nick’s fortune. Eleanor decides to hire a private investigator to conduct a full background check on Rachel and her family. She also decides to set up her best friends and their daughters to help ruin her son’s relationship with Rachel. Astrid is battling with problems in her personal relationship with her spouse, Michael. He has been traveling a lot and has been working for long hours. One night Astrid discovers an anonymous, dirty text message on Michael’s phone, which causes her to grow suspicious that he is cheating on her. After a large argument, Michael moves out to go live with his mistress. Astrid gets the help of her ex-fiancé Charlie Wu to track down Micheal. When she faces him about it, he crumbles under pressure and admits that here was no mistress and that he didn’t cheat. She finds out that he made his cousin pose as his “mistress” so that he could get out of the relationship with Astrid since he hates her family and never wanted to marry her either. After this whole ordeal, he pleads with Astrid to move on with his son without him. Astrid is devastated. When Rachel arrives in Singapore, she is immediately bombarded with mean remarks and the surprise that her boyfriend is one of the wealthiest men in Singapore. Eleanor’s best friend’s daughter, Francesca attempts to ruin Nick and Rachels relationship. It all starts when Francesca leaves notes threatening Rachel, and when a woman named Amanda orders women to put dead fish into Rachel’s bag at Araminta’s bachelorette party. Soon Rachel breaks down and shares her ordeal with Nick, who is in shock.

After Colin’s wedding, Rachel wants to go back to New York, but Nick makes her stay for a few more days so that they can go on a trip and get away from his family and everyone who caused Rachel emotional distress. The next day they leave to spend some time at Su Yi, Nick’s grandmother’s, summer lodge. Contrary to Nick’s plans to propose to Rachel at the lodge, his mother and Su Yi confront them and tell them all about Rachel’s real father and that they will not support their marriage. This causes Nick and Rachel to leave. Rachel gets some time away from Nick and goes straight to Piek Lin’s house and she stays there for a couple of days. After all this time away from Nick, Rachel comes to the conclusion that she should go to China with Peik to meet her father in prison. In the meantime, Nick is at Colin’s house while he’s away on his honeymoon. Colin comes home early and convinces Nick to go after Rachel. Right when Rachel and Piek are about to leave for Shenzhen, they find Nick and Kerry in the driveway. Before Rachel could even react her mother tells her about her real father.

As she finishes her story, Rachel realizes that the man she was about to visit in prison isn’t her father, but is the man who caused Kerry distress. Rachel is happy that Kerry stopped her. In the end Rachel and her mother mend their relationship and Rachel’s mother convinces her to give Nick a second chance. While Rachel and Nick are agreeing to reconcile, their friends and relatives around them are busy arguing about where to eat.