Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen Book Review

Welcome to my review of Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen. I had high hopes for this book and see that it was picked for Reece Witherspoon’s bookclub which is usually a good sign but this one just didn’t work for me.

Click me to go to my Review

Synopsis

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?

About The Author

Kirstin Chen is the New York Times best-selling author of three novels. Her latest, Counterfeit, is a Reese Witherspoon book club pick, a Roxane Gay book club pick, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice. It has also been recommended by The Washington Post, People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Time, Oprah Daily, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Parade, and more. Her previous two novels are Bury What We Cannot Take and Soy Sauce for Beginners.

My Review

Ava Wong appears to have it all: a high-flying career as a lawyer, a surgeon as a husband and a beautiful little toddler with whom she is currently staying at home. She is suddenly reunited with her old college roommate, Winnie Fang. Winnie was the college misfit whom nobody missed when she suddenly left. Ava is beginning to realise that things aren’t quite as easy as she was expecting, and before she knows it she finds herself involved with Winnie’s counterfeit handbag business.

This was a slow read for me, I put it away for a while and came back to it which made it a little better, maybe I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind for it. It wasn’t the exciting read I had expected from the blurb. We listen to Ava’s retelling of how she ended up getting involved with Winnie. The characters were mildly entertaining and while there were some twists and turns I didn’t feel I connected to them as well as I could have. 

A light read and interesting to learn more about the world of fakes.

Not a bad read at all but not the one for me today.

Rated