COUNTERFEIT
Kirstin Chen
The Borough Press
288 pages
9th June 2022
HUSTLERS meets BIG LITTLE LIES in this hilarious and thrilling story of women breaking bad
Meet Ava: rule-abiding lawyer who has ticked all of life’s boxes. She’s married to a successful surgeon and has just taken an indefinite career break to raise her adorable toddler. A picture-perfect life.
Meet Winnie: Ava’s old college roommate. Once awkward, quiet and apparently academically challenged, she left Stanford in a shroud of scandal. But now, she is charismatic, wealthy and has returned to town dripping in designer accessories. An actual perfect life.
When the two women bump into one another at a local coffee shop, it seems like fate has intervened: Winnie’s new-found success is courtesy of a shady business and she needs a favour; Ava is realising she is not built for the stay-at-home life. But what starts as one favour turns into two, then three, and soon Ava is in far deeper than she ever imagined.
Now Ava has to make the ultimate decision: cut and run, or risk it all?
Praise for Kirstin Chen:
‘Propulsive and captivating, [Counterfeit] juxtaposes the hushed sanctuaries of high fashion with the Shenzhen sweatshops where imitation goods are produced. It’s a provocative story of fashion, friendship, and fakes (in more ways than one), with characters that both subvert and capitalize on the model-minority myth.’
VOGUE
‘Delicious, page-turning’ KEVIN KWAN, author of Crazy Rich Asians
‘Engrossing’ CELESTE NG, author of Little Fires Everywhere
‘Complex and rich’ HARPER’S BAZAAR
‘Brilliant’ ELLE
My Review
Somehow this was not what I was expecting and yet I really did like it. I’m always a fan of books that shed light on another culture and this did a little of that. As we go through the story it appears Ava and Winnie do not have the same story on what has happened to get them to today. The reader is left wondering who to believe. I waffled for quite a while on this. Ava is telling the story in narrative almost like she is talking to the reader, but we know she is speaking to a detective. This reminded me a little of Ferris Buehler and kinda made me wonder if she was reliable even though her story was very solid and never waivered and by going first she isn’t refuting someone else..
I also really enjoyed learning of the process they’d go through to pull this off. I am amazed that anyone can come up with these schemes. There are too many moving parts to be able to do something like that.
It is well thought out and clever. Part life story, part mystery and just a little bit of humor. I think this is good beach read as we hit summer.
Sherry
About the author
Kirstin Chen is the author of Soy Sauce for Beginners and Bury What We Cannot Take. Born and raised in Singapore, she currently lives in San Francisco.
Anne Cater
Thank you x