Last Tang Standing: Spy it! Score it!

Fun, insightful book! Asian Bridget Jones in crazy rich Asia. A fantastic debut.

Book Name: Last Tang StandingAuthor: Lauren HoKK Rating: 🐛🐛🐛🐛/5This one was Fun! Witty! Hilarious! Sweet! A through and through romcom book with great characters, a well-defined plot and wit.. lots of it.. by a debut author no less.The story follows Andrea, a 30 something lawyer, as she struggles to finds herself and fulfill her life ambitions and/or her mother’s. She goes through the everyday ups and downs and some more downs and we find ourselves completely charmed by this imperfect, crazy protagonist who is too real to be fiction. Anyone who has ever been career oriented, or waited to find the love of their lives or found too many loves in their lives, had a few drinks, hated their friends, loved their friends, failed to meet their parent’s impossible standards, OR just simply lived.. will relate to the story.. That is probably the beauty of it. There is nothing too new about the story. It is relatable, really well written and planned and hence, you love it.I am not a big reader of romcom books honestly. But this one had so much more to offer. There are not only funny moments.. like you do an unattractive laugh snort kind of funny, believe me.. read it alone.. but there are also touching, sweet, romantic and very real moments that keep you absorbed. Characters you love, you root for and some you hate cause you are meant to. I also loved the local references to habits, culture and lifestyle of the characters. That made the book more researched and the story more real instead of some generic romantic tale. A complete package.. a really fun read.My expectations were quite high from this one. It was destined to fail or so I thought. I had met the author before reading the book and had been completely charmed by her presence. I had read review snippets about how funny the book was, and the publishers had set a very very high bar by describing the book as “Crazy Rich Asians meets Bridget Jones's Diary”. (I never get why these blurbs are written this way) But I loved it. I think this can easily become a fun romcom movie which will appeal to quite a wide range of ages. Again, a debut author, Lauren Ho, and one to look out for.

When I walked into Last Tang Standing, I was carrying the weight of my week long slump and I had absolutely no idea what I was stepping into; however I certainly had not expected to step straight into what I had.Last Tang Standing was the most candid piece of work I had ever read. The book is very very character driven and it is a very literal almost-minute-by-minute update of the protagonist’s life. Here’s the thing, when you to write a book in this style, you have to have an imagination as wide as the horizon: because how else can you plan a protagonist’s life straight down the minute, give the reader an understanding of the stage the story is set in and take the plot forward with every diary entry? Lauren Ho must be some kind of magical being. Or at least, her brain is made up of unicorn dust, I’m sure of it.Andrea Tang was one of the single most relatable characters I had read and the fact that she was so open and fearless about the thoughts she had in her head make all the things she says and does all the more relatable and not hurtful in the least. Despite being filled with serious flaws like any other person—be it her competitive spirit that can get to a point where she may just about stop breathing before she admits that she needs help, her paranoia/fears, trust issues etc,—she doesn’t take herself too seriously and has a super-love for alcohol, which often turns any difficult situation into a hilarious one, without taking away the importance of the message but retaining the overall tone of the book. Andrea is in her thirties and let’s be real, us Asians believe that by thirty, one should’ve already had their first child, be knee deep in their marriage and pretty much be one amongst many in the social world of adulting.The story is a million little moments that slowly starts to build into a larger puzzle and I have to admit, I was so surprised at the author’s ability to keep me hooked despite what had initially felt like an influx of characters. Eventually it smoothens out and you start to fall into the rhythm of the relationships and the happenings of the plot. To my utter surprise, I can even go as far as to say, the author almost read my mind at certain points when I realised the reason for a certain character arc and the next sentence I read were those exact same words I had thought in my head. I think it needs to be said: Lauren Ho had the reader exactly where she wanted them.I think in many ways Andrea represents all of us, outside of race or ethnicity or anything else. Just as a person, she represents all of the moments where we’re blind to the things we’re holding on to out of habit and the wonderful things that we’re letting go of, not even from fear, but out of being utterly unaware of what we want. Why? Because we never had thought to take the time away to think if the path that we are barrelling down is the one we wish to pursue or if it’s just the one that we were set on and now do not know how to stop?There was a beautiful analogy that was given by the protagonist’s best friend that I will forever treasure. She flips the idea of ‘settling’ and it hit me like a train because she was right. Settling doesn’t just mean you’re settling for less it could also mean you’re settling for more than you want and that in itself brings unhappiness too, because it is again not what you want. But you talk yourself into it because in a narrow minded view, who would give up something that ‘looks so good and is so much more’?This book is easily about choices, finding your ground with them and recognising your own reasons for making them.The only issue I had with the book was that the style of the writing dictates the large variety of things we learn in a single page and at times it felt like there was an stream of information coming through too fast and that did bring about some fatigue, but that didn’t take away from the overall humour, joy and message of the story. I would rate this book an easy 4 stars!A very happy reading and I hope you’re staying safe.Received an ARC from publisher.

I loved this book, it was great holiday reading. I lived in Singapore for 3 years and this book brought back happy memories.

I loved it! Excellent read for any occasion or time of life! I would highly recommended to others. Similar to CRA yet very intriguing and unique in it’s own ways.

I'm positively surprised by the condition of this used-book, it said the condition is "acceptable", which would also be ok for me, but what I have in my hand is pretty good, I see that there's a little scratched spot on the cover, but that does not bother me in the least. Very happy with this purchase :) Keep it up!

My partner loves Beth O'Leary and we've been waiting to get this since she recommended it on IG LIVE. I read it and am so glad I did. I think Goodreads reviewers who say it's Crazy Rich Asians meets Bridget Jones’ Diary are spot on.The heroine is HILARIOUS. That voice! And what I liked about Andrea is how flawed but how endearingly so she is. She's smart and tough, even as she's unsure of herself at times. That's believable I'm Asian and I can 100% identify with her struggles to please her family, even though I'm a man and British.The diary entries are sharply written, witty, and offers a glimpse in to Singapore working life, and as someone who lived and worked in Singapore, the author's depiction of the gruelling life, obligation to "show face" and put in face time, and the office politics is accurate. In Ho's book, there's an interesting emphasis on her work life, apart from the romcom stuff, and I won't spoil it, but it adds another dimension to the book, because the work is almost like a secondary character.As for the romance-there are two love interests, and I was rooting for one, but the writing is so strong even if you're not so invested in the love story you will 100% enjoy reading this gem.Overall, I would give this a solid 4.5/5 stars. One mood-lifting, escapist read!

Perfect beach read! So much fun!I’ve enjoyed it a lot, it remind me of Crazy Rich Asians. Is a must read if you like Kevin Kwan’s style of books.Also you get to know more about the Chinese culture in a funny approach.