Title: Five Star Billionaire
Author: Tash Aw
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Summary: This is the story of five people living in Shanghai--Phoebe, Gary, Justin, Yinghui and Walter Chao. Their lives intersect in many ways--Phoebe works for Yinghui, Justin has had a long-standing crush on Yinghui, who is also his brother's ex-girlfriend. Yinghui is exploring a business venture with Walter, the Five Star Billionaire. This story rotates through each of these character's lives with Shanghai as the backdrop.
Review: I should have written this review before I went on vacation because now my brain is fuzzy. I might not remember all of the reasons I liked this book, but remember my review on Crazy Rich Asians? Most of the people in Five Star Billionaire are wealthy but this book is so much better than Crazy Rich Asians.
I enjoy books that rotate through different characters. Aaron and I went to Shanghai in 2007 and I loved that trip, so that was part of the initial appeal for me. While I enjoyed the book, the primary reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is I didn't feel like there was enough character development. The book's less than 400 pages, which means only about 76 pages are written from each character's perspective. Also, some characters didn't really develop at all. Gary is a former pop star who starts over and has minimal involvement with other characters in the book. Perhaps he started over on his terms, but I wonder if his book space would have been better allocated to providing more depth to the other characters.
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