Sarong Party Girls, Cheryl LuLien Tan
Sarong Party Girls, Cheryl LuLien Tan
2 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Sarong Party Girls
A Novel

Author: Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

Narrator: Angela Lin

Unabridged: 11 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 07/12/2016


Synopsis

A brilliant and utterly engaging novel—Emma set in modern Asia—about a young woman’s rise in the glitzy, moneyed city of Singapore, where old traditions clash with heady modern materialism.On the edge of twenty-seven, Jazzy hatches a plan for her and her best girlfriends: Sher, Imo, and Fann. Before the year is out, these Sarong Party Girls will all have spectacular weddings to rich ang moh—Western expat—husbands, with Chanel babies (the cutest status symbols of all) quickly to follow. Razor-sharp, spunky, and vulgarly brand-obsessed, Jazzy is a determined woman who doesn't lose.As she fervently pursues her quest to find a white husband, this bombastic yet tenderly vulnerable gold-digger reveals the contentious gender politics and class tensions thrumming beneath the shiny exterior of Singapore’s glamorous nightclubs and busy streets, its grubby wet markets and seedy hawker centers. Moving through her colorful, stratified world, she realizes she cannot ignore the troubling incongruity of new money and old-world attitudes which threaten to crush her dreams. Desperate to move up in Asia’s financial and international capital, will Jazzy and her friends succeed?Vividly told in Singlish—colorful Singaporean English with its distinctive cadence and slang—Sarong Party Girls brilliantly captures the unique voice of this young, striving woman caught between worlds. With remarkable vibrancy and empathy, Cheryl Tan brings not only Jazzy, but her city of Singapore, to dazzling, dizzying life.

About Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

Born and raised in Singapore, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan is a New York–based journalist and author of A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family, and edited the fiction anthology Singapore Noir. She has been a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, InStyle magazine, and the Baltimore Sun.


Reviews

Goodreads review by emma on June 10, 2022

Emma is the best Jane Austen book, and Jane Austen is the best ever, so describing yourself as Emma set in modern Asia is a tough title to live up to. And also, additionally, this book is just not very good. I can't resist Emma, but that was my downfall. Bottom line: It has a 3.13 average! What do you......more

Goodreads review by Melindam on July 15, 2022

Very hard to shelve. Where should it go? A comedy of manners? Could be. Fluff? Definitely NO. ***** Sex and the Sity (a la Singapore)? Bridget Jones with some sad and bleak undertones? Possibly. This was nothing if not educational and eye-opening! And I truly mean it. Seemingly fluffy entertainment but y......more

Goodreads review by Jessica on December 24, 2015

SARONG PARTY GIRLS pulls off an interesting trick. After you spend the first half of it laughing and highly enjoying yourself as you watch Jazzy and her friends drink and party and drink and party and drink and party, things start to take a turn. This book has you convinced it's a light, fluffy romp......more

Goodreads review by 8stitches 9lives on August 01, 2019

Sarong Party Girls is a fascinating novel that attempts to reconcile modern Asia with the traditions of the past in a way that is believable and honest. Sarong Party Girls is the name assigned to a subset of women who actively seek out a relationship and subsequently marriage with rich, white Wester......more

Goodreads review by Ivana - Diary of Difference on May 06, 2023

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest A quick Chick-Lit, written in Singlish, an English-based patois that Singaporeans speak to each other. It was interesting and unique, and given the fact that I haven’t read anything like this before, I genuinely enjoyed the writing. This is my first......more