Lucas Stoffel

Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy Book Review: Crazy Rich Asians, China Rich Girlfriend, Rich People Problems. Three books about money so extreme it stops making sense, families so complicated they need organizational charts, and one relationship between Nick Young and Rachel Chu that has to survive all of it. Kevin Kwan grew up in Singapore in exactly the kind of world he's writing about, and it shows — not just in the details, but in the way he writes about wealth with equal parts

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Book Review: The Earth is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Arthur Dent, a thoroughly ordinary Englishman who was having a thoroughly terrible Thursday, escapes because his best friend Ford Prefect turns out to be an alien researcher for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy — a sort of electronic encyclopedia for budget travelers. From that point on, absolutely nothing makes sense, and absolutely everything is hilarious.

R.F. Kuang is, at this point, operating on a level that should be illegal. After the Poppy War trilogy proved she could write epic military fantasy that would make your soul hurt, she pivoted to contemporary literary satire and somehow got even sharper. Yellowface is a book about the publishing industry written like a thriller, and it cuts so deep that everyone who reads it feels personally attacked. That's the point. Here's the setup, and it's brilliantly simple: June Haywar