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Sarong Party Girls: A Novel

Written by:
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
Narrated by:
Angela Lin

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
4
Narrator
1
Release Date
July 12, 2016
Duration
11 hours 20 minutes
Summary
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.
Reviews
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Ein L

Entertaining to listen to and follow Jazzy's journey of self-actualization as she wades through the quagmire of Singapore's status-obsessed society. Singapore's unique socioeconomic environment is a really fitting backdrop for a lot of the themes explored in the book, including things like "white worship", which are much more distilled and pronounced in SG due to certain cultural factors. It's also great as just a trashy gossip girl soap opera that's a glimpse into the general sentiment of Singaporean girls who want to climb the societal ladder. Obviously this phenomenon isn't exclusive to them, but it's interesting here due to the clash between traditional asian values and modern western desires and sensibilities that's more commonly seen a hodgepodge place like Singapore. I'm not Singaporean, but I do travel there a lot and the place is near and dear to me so that adds another level of personal interest. I have to say though, the narrator Angela Lin did a great job, I imagine the book isn't as engaging in just plain text without the Singlish juxtaposed with other accents Angela manages to pull off.

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