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Good Fortune
A whip-smart and charming debut novel that brilliantly reimagines Pride and Prejudice, set in contemporary Chinatown, exploring contemporary issues of class divides, family ties, cultural identity, and the pleasures and frustrations that come with falling in love.
When Elizabeth Chen’s ever-hustling realtor mother finally sells the beloved if derelict community center down the block, the new owners don’t look like typical New York City buyers. Brendan Lee and Darcy Wong are good Chinese boys with Hong Kong money. Clean-cut and charismatic, they say they are committed to cleaning up the neighborhood.
To Elizabeth, that only means one thing Darcy is looking to give the center an uptown makeover. Elizabeth is determined to fight for community over profit, even if it means confronting the arrogant, uptight man every chance she gets.
But where clever, cynical Elizabeth sees lemons, her mother sees lemonade. Eager to get Elizabeth and her other four daughters ahead in the world (and out of their crammed family apartment), Mrs. Chen takes every opportunity to keep her investors close. Closer than Elizabeth likes.
The more time they spend together, the more conflicted Elizabeth feels…until a shocking betrayal forces her to reconsider everything she thought she knew about love, trust, and the kind of person Darcy Wong really is.
When Elizabeth Chen’s ever-hustling realtor mother finally sells the beloved if derelict community center down the block, the new owners don’t look like typical New York City buyers. Brendan Lee and Darcy Wong are good Chinese boys with Hong Kong money. Clean-cut and charismatic, they say they are committed to cleaning up the neighborhood.
To Elizabeth, that only means one thing Darcy is looking to give the center an uptown makeover. Elizabeth is determined to fight for community over profit, even if it means confronting the arrogant, uptight man every chance she gets.
But where clever, cynical Elizabeth sees lemons, her mother sees lemonade. Eager to get Elizabeth and her other four daughters ahead in the world (and out of their crammed family apartment), Mrs. Chen takes every opportunity to keep her investors close. Closer than Elizabeth likes.
The more time they spend together, the more conflicted Elizabeth feels…until a shocking betrayal forces her to reconsider everything she thought she knew about love, trust, and the kind of person Darcy Wong really is.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published July 11, 2023
154 people are currently reading
8019 people want to read
About the author
C.K. Chau
1 book41 followersC.K. Chau is a Chinese-American writer based out of New York.
She holds a master's degree in English Literature from Hunter College. Her work has previously appeared in sunstruck magazine and Bright Wall/Dark Room, among others, under another name.
When she isn't writing, she can be found watching old films and daydreaming about her next meal.
She holds a master's degree in English Literature from Hunter College. Her work has previously appeared in sunstruck magazine and Bright Wall/Dark Room, among others, under another name.
When she isn't writing, she can be found watching old films and daydreaming about her next meal.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 356 reviews
March 20, 2025
Just as fairytale retellings have a special place in my heart, even if I don't enjoy most of them, so do PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ones. They never live up to the original, but I almost always enjoy the spins. This one makes it Chinese American in Manhattan's Chinatown. The younger three sisters remain duds, but I always love Jane and Lizzy. Sorry, LB.
You'll see your favorites. I didn't enjoy updated Darcy, but the Wickham character is a hoot. Or a fuckboi. Whatever you please. I like that CK modernized this for the times and made this about work, not marriage. I'm sure someone will criticize that. The overall feel of the story fell flat for me, but I wouldn't say no to reading more of the author's work.
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia
You'll see your favorites. I didn't enjoy updated Darcy, but the Wickham character is a hoot. Or a fuckboi. Whatever you please. I like that CK modernized this for the times and made this about work, not marriage. I'm sure someone will criticize that. The overall feel of the story fell flat for me, but I wouldn't say no to reading more of the author's work.
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia
July 12, 2023
4.5 stars
As a long time Jane Austen fan, I’ve re-read her most popular (and well-known) novel Pride and Prejudice more times than I can count since encountering it for the first time back in 8th grade (don’t ask me how long ago that was, lol). Given how much I love P&P (it’s definitely one of my favorite novels of all time), I’ve always been extremely wary of any books that attempt to retell or reimagine the classic in any way, shape, or form — that is to say, I try to avoid reading any retellings as much as possible. With that said, there are occasions (albeit rare) where I’m drawn to a book precisely because of its P&P and/or Austen adjacent angle and end up really glad that I decided to give the book a chance due to how much I enjoyed the experience. C.K. Chau’s debut novel Good Fortune, a contemporary retelling of P&P set in New York’s Chinatown, fit the bill perfectly.
I was actually first drawn to this book out of curiosity, as I was interested in seeing what a Chinese-American spin on P&P would look like. Then, after I read the premise, I was even more interested, as I saw that the book would combine several things that were long familiar to me — the Pride and Prejudice story, Chinese culture and traditions, an immigrant family story, cultural identity, and best of all, an entire cast of characters who were all ethnically Chinese (with the exception of one character). Once I started reading the book however, I was even more delighted to discover that the family at the center of the story (as well as most of the major characters) were all from Hong Kong (my birth city), and more importantly, the entire story would be permeated with not just Chinese culture, but more specifically Cantonese culture (which is what I grew up with and know very well). I can’t emphasize enough how rare it is to see Cantonese culture — my culture — represented so authentically in a mainstream American novel (and it’s even more refreshing to see both the good and the not-so-good aspects represented). I loved how Chau was able to seamlessly work in so many elements from a culture that I was more than familiar with: the family-run Chinese restaurant where everyone was expected to chip in to keep the business afloat; the nosy and gossipy neighborhood aunties with their relentlessly prying questions (one of my favorite scenes in the book was during Alexa’s wedding when the 5 Chen sisters were forced to politely endure the way-too-personal rapid-fire questions from a bunch of oblivious aunties — a “ritual” that I’ve endured countless times growing up, lol); the Cantonese turns-of-phrases sprinkled throughout the dialogue (in addition to the actual Cantonese words, I got a kick out of seeing colloquialisms such as “ai ya” and “aa” and the “la” at the end of some sentences); the descriptions of local Cantonese cuisine and dishes that, frankly, made me salivate; the Hong Kong pop culture references (I laughed when I saw TVB dramas mentioned at one point in the story); and what I loved most of all, the weekly Cantonese family tradition of yum cha (aka dim sum) — in one (amongst many) of my favorite scenes, Chau perfectly captured the “mad chaos” yum cha experience as we Cantonese are used to experiencing it: the standing room only wait amongst a sea of people for your number to be called, the musical chairs dance / fight for a table, the designated person in the family responsible for chasing down the aunties with the dim sum carts, then getting back to the table only to find that the only food left is whatever you have in your hand (which you had to claw tooth and nail to get), the entire meal taking up most of your morning, only to leave hungrier than when you first arrived…my first thought when I read that entire scene was that only someone who grew up immersed in the Cantonese culture could write a scene like that (needless to say, I LOVED IT!!!).
Of course, what would a P&P retelling be without the P&P story elements? In this aspect, I felt that Chau did a brilliant job. It was fascinating to see how she brought the story from 19th century Regency England to 21st century contemporary America, while also adapting to the modern sensibilities of the times. Most of the characters we’re familiar with are here (though some with different names and backgrounds): the Chen family headed by the father Vincent (who, like Mr Bennett, is constantly seeking peace from the chaos of the household), the mother Jade (a high-strung hypochondriac), and 5 daughters Jane, Elizabeth (nicknamed LB in the story), Mary, Kitty, and Lydia; Darcy Wong, his sister Geo (short for Georgiana); his friend Brendan Lee who has 2 sisters named Caroline and Louisa; Charlotte Luo (LB’s best friend); Geoffrey Collins (yes, that Collins), who is the only non-Chinese character in the story; Lady Catherine (yes, there is a character actually named “Right Honorable Lady Catherine”) and of course, the main villain Wickham (though he is not called anything close to Wickham in the story, but P&P fans will instantly recognize him as the Wickham equivalent). In terms of plot points, Chau definitely adapted the story to modern times — replacing marriage proposals with job offers, an email confession instead of a handwritten letter, fundraising galas instead of elaborate society balls, etc. (just a few examples). And YES, Pemberley absolutely makes an appearance (but you will have to read the book to find out how and what). Oh and there is PLENTY of Austen-style humor in here too (gosh, I can’t remember the last time I laughed so often while reading a novel).
A quick mention regarding our favorite couple (how could I resist?) — the Elizabeth in this story was actually more “bad-ass” than Austen’s original version, which I found interesting and cool (I ended up liking this version of Elizabeth as much as I did our beloved Lizzie). In terms of the character of Darcy in this story — he was ok, but it was honestly hard for me to picture a Chinese Darcy…regardless though, I think it’s going to be a losing battle no matter who tries to “become” Darcy, as whenever I hear that name, the only face that will forever come to mind is Colin Firth’s (lol).
By now, it’s probably pretty obvious how much I loved this one (though part of me is still a bit surprised). While it’s not necessary to have read Pride and Prejudice prior to reading this one (since the story works pretty well on its own), the reading experience is definitely a lot more fun and enjoyable if you’re familiar with the original story (and it’s a bonus if you’re familiar with the culture aspects as well). This clever and charming story ended up being the P&P retelling that I didn’t know I wanted to read. I can’t wait to see what C.K. Chau has in store for us next!
Received ARC from HarperVia Publishing via NetGalley.
June 13, 2023
What an absolutely thrilling, sexy, and immensely intelligent book about work (of multiple types) and love (of multiple types). I haven't been able to walk past Elizabeth Street in Chinatown since without fondly thinking about the heroine.
C.K. Chau is a deeply grounded writer, and this book is deeply grounded in place and the physicality of places: the couches where people sleep, the rec centers they dance in, the rooftops they smoke on, the ladders they climb to repair what needs repairing. Austen writes about money and property—what they are, how they shape people, how inextricable they are from family and human connection—and the things money does are real, tangible things, unblurred by buzzwords and euphemism, and modern writers have such difficulty being in conversation with Austen on this point, such difficulty with reality and tangibility. Chau does not. This is such a carefully observed, lovingly rendered world, set in a past just distant enough to be dissected and just recent enough that it feels like ripping off a Band-Aid.
It is, really, a book about work. It's been well-observed that in the nineteenth century marriage was more of a job than a purely romantic arrangement, and Chau takes that point well—but she is a deep, sharp thinker, and her two branching paths outward from this point are 1) jobs are not clinical things, they are not free from the same ethical questions, divided loyalties, and emotional pain that comprise a marriage or a parent-child relationship or a sisterhood; and 2) families remain jobs—not in the general sense that they are hard, but in the specific sense that they demand time from your day and physical labor from your body. And, mostly, they remain jobs for women.
The way that L.B. works to save her city is certainly not separable from the way she loves it. It would be absurd to separate them—it would be inhuman to separate them, it would make each of them shallow and sterilized. But this does not mean that having to do the work is something that is free of resentment. Throughout the book, as her mother's fears that L.B. will never get a job hang over events like a storm cloud, L.B.'s fears around work, too, blend with them: is she, sister and daughter and idealist and artist and repairwoman, the one who will always shoulder the work? Will anyone ever do the work with her? Is love something she will always have to demand from other people, something she will always have to resent them for taking lightly? Does her family really love her back? Is there anyone who is capable of loving her back?
Austen is a student of human nature, a profoundly compassionate one and a profoundly funny one (again, two sides of the same coin, the separation of which would kill both). Above all else, she makes you glad that you know human beings. Chau, too, is an observer of humanity—the character details for L.B.'s mother, Lydia, and Wickham are finely honed and impeccable, and Mr. Collins in particular steals every scene he's in (if you can call "making me whisper 'noooo... noooooOOOOOO...' repeatedly on NJ Transit" scene-stealing). And it's Elizabeth and Darcy, as always, whose careful and heartfelt characters make you feel glad that you know human beings; the ways they purposefully and thoughtfully change one another's lives, the work they demand of one another, the work they are willing to do.
It's a good New York book. We do complain, don't we, every second that New York is changing—that used to be the SideWalk Cafe, that used to be 5Pointz, that was and remains the Tappan Zee Bridge. It carves out a space for people we love in a New York we remember—in both respects something we can almost, almost touch.
C.K. Chau is a deeply grounded writer, and this book is deeply grounded in place and the physicality of places: the couches where people sleep, the rec centers they dance in, the rooftops they smoke on, the ladders they climb to repair what needs repairing. Austen writes about money and property—what they are, how they shape people, how inextricable they are from family and human connection—and the things money does are real, tangible things, unblurred by buzzwords and euphemism, and modern writers have such difficulty being in conversation with Austen on this point, such difficulty with reality and tangibility. Chau does not. This is such a carefully observed, lovingly rendered world, set in a past just distant enough to be dissected and just recent enough that it feels like ripping off a Band-Aid.
It is, really, a book about work. It's been well-observed that in the nineteenth century marriage was more of a job than a purely romantic arrangement, and Chau takes that point well—but she is a deep, sharp thinker, and her two branching paths outward from this point are 1) jobs are not clinical things, they are not free from the same ethical questions, divided loyalties, and emotional pain that comprise a marriage or a parent-child relationship or a sisterhood; and 2) families remain jobs—not in the general sense that they are hard, but in the specific sense that they demand time from your day and physical labor from your body. And, mostly, they remain jobs for women.
The way that L.B. works to save her city is certainly not separable from the way she loves it. It would be absurd to separate them—it would be inhuman to separate them, it would make each of them shallow and sterilized. But this does not mean that having to do the work is something that is free of resentment. Throughout the book, as her mother's fears that L.B. will never get a job hang over events like a storm cloud, L.B.'s fears around work, too, blend with them: is she, sister and daughter and idealist and artist and repairwoman, the one who will always shoulder the work? Will anyone ever do the work with her? Is love something she will always have to demand from other people, something she will always have to resent them for taking lightly? Does her family really love her back? Is there anyone who is capable of loving her back?
Austen is a student of human nature, a profoundly compassionate one and a profoundly funny one (again, two sides of the same coin, the separation of which would kill both). Above all else, she makes you glad that you know human beings. Chau, too, is an observer of humanity—the character details for L.B.'s mother, Lydia, and Wickham are finely honed and impeccable, and Mr. Collins in particular steals every scene he's in (if you can call "making me whisper 'noooo... noooooOOOOOO...' repeatedly on NJ Transit" scene-stealing). And it's Elizabeth and Darcy, as always, whose careful and heartfelt characters make you feel glad that you know human beings; the ways they purposefully and thoughtfully change one another's lives, the work they demand of one another, the work they are willing to do.
It's a good New York book. We do complain, don't we, every second that New York is changing—that used to be the SideWalk Cafe, that used to be 5Pointz, that was and remains the Tappan Zee Bridge. It carves out a space for people we love in a New York we remember—in both respects something we can almost, almost touch.
October 1, 2024
"Elizabeth held out the last of the smoldering joint. "No," she said. "Thank you."
Darcy took it from her with a light shrug of gratitude.
She stared at him in amazement as he lifted to his lips and took a drag. "You smoke?"
Brendan snickered, shoving his hands in his pockets. "No," he said, flashing him a quick glance. "He doesn't."
Darcy pressed his lips into a thin line. "It's dead, anyway."
This book gave me all the feels... I really don't know what it is about smoking as a romance trope that's doing it for me - since I don't care much for smoking in real life and I think the "drinking from the same bottle" variant is kind of cringe - but... ugh, the scene above made me kick my feet!
Anyway, maybe I should start from the beginning because Good Fortune isn't on many of my friends radars but it absolutely should be! This book is a contemporary US-Chinese Pride and Prejudice retelling which... honestly, after reading this, I'm kind of convinced that all contemporary P&P retellings should be South-East Asian, because this just fit so well! I loved Ayesha at Last, but I think I loved this book even better. It just softens some of the harsh edges of the Bennet family, leaving some of their relationships tense, but also more loving (I was a bit concerned about this after reading The Other Bennet Sister earlier this year). It's a bit hard for me to describe... but I just really loved the vibe of the book.
I also really loved Darcy's character. We only see him through Elizabeth's eyes and for most of the book she isn't really charitable towards him and despite that I related to a lot of his behaviour and read it completely differently from her. I am wondering how much of it was authorial intention and how much just my baseless wishing. However, I believe I'm not the first one to read Darcy as neurodivergent and I think the writing in this book is really helping that assumption. Like the scene where Darcy looks kind of lost into the menu and Elizabeth thinks he's just too snobbish to find anything on the menu that would appeal to him. While my brain went immediately to "no, he just never ate here before, didn't look up the menu in advance and they don't have his usual choices, so he's clearly having a decision freeze". I mean, I could totally be wrong, but there were several moments like this one and I was just relating to him super hard from the beginning.
P&P is also kind of the ultimate "he falls first" trope and I do love that, it's one of my favourite. And for that reason I found Darcy's side of the romance very satisfying - the joint scene is just perfection! I am a sucker for a good pining and omg did I feel him pine even though our POV Elizabeth was completely oblivious. If I had to complain, I would say that Elizabeth's side of the romance was a little less satisfactory. I feel like this is a common issue with P&P retellings and it was okay in this one, but I was just so into the romance here that I really wanted it to have a little more powerful ending and it just.... stayed kind of flat? Which, flat on a pretty great level, but I wanted a bit of a crescendo, you know?
Unlike Ayesha at Last Good Fortune pretty much goes beat by beat with P&P which made it a bit predictable, but it also switches things around enough so that you can never be sure what exactly will happen. For example, Mrs. Bennet/Chen is still interested to see her daughters well married but she's even more obsessed with them getting jobs that would give them enough status in the community. Jane is "the best" of the sisters because she's in medical school not because she's the prettiest. This changes the main theme of the book pretty successfully - there is not a single marriage proposal in sight! And I just loved how that shook things around, still you can generally guess what kind of beat would come next and toward the ending I was ready for it to loosen up a little bit. Although that might be also a consequence of me reading too many P&P retellings this year... (Most Ardently, The Clergyman's Wife, The Other Bennet Sister...)
Good Fortune also talks about photography a lot and at the beginning I wasn't quite sure about it (especially since I had hard time imagining Elizabeth Bennet as a photographer geek), but as the story progressed the book used it really cleverly as a narrative instrument and I was won over.
The one thing that I feel could be deal-breaker about this book for some of my bookish friends is the fact that Darcy is filthy rich, which honestly I'm not the biggest fan of either. The book has a big theme of community versus profit and I was really curious how the author will solve the dilemma to make everyone a good person, but she... sort of doesn't really? I mean it kind of turns out that Generally, there were a couple of moments that I found a bit unclear, the one that I mentioned earlier and then also there is this scene pretty in the beginning where
So, yeah, there are some downsides and some places were just a little bit unclear which made me think that just a tiny bit more of editing could have make this book an utter perfection, alas...
I really loved this, I loved the characters, I loved the chemistry, I really enjoyed the Chinese culture bits. The audio narration is also spectacular, I loved that quite a bit, even though the narrator is not doing anything that special, but sometimes that's way better than a narrator trying way too hard. Catherine Ho has a really pleasant voice and I enjoyed her take on the characters. I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who likes a good P&P retelling, C.K. Chau has a great understanding of the original and I loved reading her spin of things. But this novel is absolutely capable of standing on it's own as a great contemporary romance that is really funny and focuses on family quite a bit. Really wish this book will find its readers because I don't understand how it can have so little reads on GR!
4,5⭐ rounded up from me!
August 13, 2023
4.5 stars rounded up
This was a fantastic retelling of Pride and Prejudice! A lot of times modern retellings focus more on just the romantic relationship, but Austen's original was chock full of social commentary as well, especially on class differences. Good Fortune follows the plot beats of the original quite closely, but set in the modern NYC Chinatown and making smart changes that work for the time period. It really nails the kind of social commentary on class, wealth, and poverty that I loved from the original while also doing a decent job with the romance. Though I might have liked to feel a bit more of the chemistry with Darcy. That's the only place this was somewhat lacking for me. Otherwise it's fun, smart, and outstanding as a debut novel. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
This was a fantastic retelling of Pride and Prejudice! A lot of times modern retellings focus more on just the romantic relationship, but Austen's original was chock full of social commentary as well, especially on class differences. Good Fortune follows the plot beats of the original quite closely, but set in the modern NYC Chinatown and making smart changes that work for the time period. It really nails the kind of social commentary on class, wealth, and poverty that I loved from the original while also doing a decent job with the romance. Though I might have liked to feel a bit more of the chemistry with Darcy. That's the only place this was somewhat lacking for me. Otherwise it's fun, smart, and outstanding as a debut novel. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
July 10, 2023
horny, confident, smart in every single adaptation choice that was made, funny as hell [the motherfucker], NAILS its time and place.
chau understands the finer details about p&p that make it so foundational, and in doing so she's made Good Fortune just as timeless. because yeah, you do have to get the family right. you can't make them caricatures and call it a day. if you've ever been frustrated by adaptations of P&P you should read this one.
chau understands the finer details about p&p that make it so foundational, and in doing so she's made Good Fortune just as timeless. because yeah, you do have to get the family right. you can't make them caricatures and call it a day. if you've ever been frustrated by adaptations of P&P you should read this one.
July 12, 2023
it's a rare and wonderful adaptation that gives me a deeper and fuller understanding of the original work. beautifully and lovingly detailed, and incredibly fun to read for the sake of the prose as well as the story. an immediate addition to the "reread yearly" shelf.
October 8, 2023
i haven't read pride and prejudice and my prior knowledge is a combination of various adaptations (1995 bbc drama, the lizzie bennet diaries, fire island (2022)) and general cultural talking points. it's a clear strength of good fortune that i wish i had read p&p because i was constantly going 'was it like that?! now who is this?! i need to know how this went down!', but also highly enjoying the story on its own merits. many retellings/adaptations rely too heavily on the prior work and shaft their characters and plot, but that wasn't the case here. catherine ho does a great job on the audiobook narration, and even though her darcy voice is a little silly with how stuffy it is, it also adds something and didn't prevent me from frothing at the mouth at some of his speeches.
May 22, 2023
'Good Fortune' by C.K. Chau is a retelling of Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' taking place in New York City's Chinatown in the 90's. I had never read 'Pride and Prejudice' or any retellings prior to this, so I was not able to compare the likenesses.
I did really love 'Good Fortune' once I got into the flow of the book. The interactions of the characters and how the dynamics of family, social class, community, romantic relationships and finding your self were very relatable and (at times) humorous in 'Good Fortune'. It's quite difficult to stay true to yourself when you're getting pulled in every direction to please others. Poor Elizabeth has so many people relying on her that I can understand why she's got the personality she has when the wealthy new-comers make a move into her neighborhood.
I'll definitely be reading more from Chau and also pick up a copy of 'Pride and Prejudice' because 'Good Fortune' was a thumbs up from me.
*Thank you NetGalley and HarperVia for the ARC for my honest opinion.
I did really love 'Good Fortune' once I got into the flow of the book. The interactions of the characters and how the dynamics of family, social class, community, romantic relationships and finding your self were very relatable and (at times) humorous in 'Good Fortune'. It's quite difficult to stay true to yourself when you're getting pulled in every direction to please others. Poor Elizabeth has so many people relying on her that I can understand why she's got the personality she has when the wealthy new-comers make a move into her neighborhood.
I'll definitely be reading more from Chau and also pick up a copy of 'Pride and Prejudice' because 'Good Fortune' was a thumbs up from me.
*Thank you NetGalley and HarperVia for the ARC for my honest opinion.
September 14, 2023
I really wanted to like this book. I love P&P, and I usually like retellings of it. And I very much appreciate books that have Asian characters.
But this reworking of P&P was a little too on the nose. Very little deviation from the original and nothing fresh about it. And horrifyingly, I didn't find Elizabeth likeable.
I was going to give it 3 stars, but as I sat here trying to think of what I DID like about it, all I could really come up with was: Mr. Collins is funny.
But this reworking of P&P was a little too on the nose. Very little deviation from the original and nothing fresh about it. And horrifyingly, I didn't find Elizabeth likeable.
I was going to give it 3 stars, but as I sat here trying to think of what I DID like about it, all I could really come up with was: Mr. Collins is funny.
Read
April 10, 2024*dnf* I quit after around the 30% mark and skipped through to the end. I was not engaged. The writing was OK but though smart, was not witty or funny. It seemed like a good idea to reimagine the Austen classic in NYC's Chinatown and not have Mission Marriage be front and center. But the family was too poor-7 people sharing a messy 700 sq. ft. apartment? Is that a thing? I didn't like Elizabeth (LB). She was an underachiever and pretty unpleasant and charmless. Since I knew what happened due to it being based on P&P, there was no reason to keep wasting my time.
August 15, 2023
A great debut Pride & Prejudice retelling set in modern day Chinatown that follows a Chinese American family in NYC and their rocky interactions with an Asian Mr. Darcy. I loved this one a lot! It's pretty faithful to the original Austen plot, intelligent, moving and a perfect pick for Austen in August fans. Highly recommended for fans of authors like Sonali Dev or Jackie Lau and good on audio too narrated by Catherine Ho. I'm excited to read what this author writes next!!
September 26, 2023
A contemporary retelling of Jane Austen's "Pride &Prejudice", this works because of the irreverence, obstinance and argumentative Elizabeth Chen, known as LB to her family and friends, Darcy here is Darcy Wong, a wealthy guy who's in town to revamp a local community centre, much to LB's horror and fury. Of course these two clash, misunderstand each other persistently, separate, and eventually find themselves back to each other.
LB's love for her neighbourhood and its character is central to this version of Elizabeth. Her conflicts with her mother, Darcy, and others all revolve on her passionate defence of her choices to support and revitalize this part of New York City. It's also how she and Darcy finally connect in this funny retelling of the classic.
LB's love for her neighbourhood and its character is central to this version of Elizabeth. Her conflicts with her mother, Darcy, and others all revolve on her passionate defence of her choices to support and revitalize this part of New York City. It's also how she and Darcy finally connect in this funny retelling of the classic.
July 18, 2023
A compelling reworking of Pride and Prejudice, set in contemporary New York's Chinatown, with Elizabeth Chen, whose mother sells the rundown community center to developer Darcy Wong. Perfect for Janeites who love P & P variations with multicultural wit, flair, charm.
September 3, 2023
I liked the idea of this NYC Chinatown reimagining of Pride and Prejudice but it lacks the wit and careful character studies of its source. Mrs. Bennett is the standout character in her new (and more sympathetic) incarnation.
September 16, 2023
I have not at ALL been in a book reading headspace the past few months, so I am very late in getting to this, but I couldn’t have asked for a more delightful book to break through my drought. LB Chen is such a beautiful interpretation of Elizabeth Bennet - headstrong, caustic, loving, righteous. And Darcy Wong, ooh BABY. The proposal scene had me kicking my feet and twirling my hair like the teenage girl I was when this novel takes place. The sense of time and place is so specific, nostalgic in the best way, and the prose is lovely, at turns moving and EXTREMELY funny. And the Chen girls!!! Sisters will do it for me every time.
A stunner of a book, I’m thrilled to add it to my P&P adaptation arsenal and pull it out on a rainy day.
A stunner of a book, I’m thrilled to add it to my P&P adaptation arsenal and pull it out on a rainy day.
February 21, 2023
Firstly I feel so grateful and blessed to have read an early copy of this book. I consider myself somewhat of a Pride and Prejudice aficionado, having read and watched many retellings over the years. It is of course one of the most beloved precursors to the romance genre and for good reason. But I can say without a shadow of a doubt, this one was my absolute favorite.
It’s not just that the dialogue whips, the characters are bright and sharp and funny and real, the setting is the perfect mix of clearcut image and the haze of time and nostalgia, and the city that is my beloved home comes alive on page, though all of that is true. What Good Fortune gets that so many of the other retellings don’t is Elizabeth and Darcy. They are their purest selves in this retelling whether they’re falling off ladders or playing bad tennis or listening to Mambo Number Five in the unlikeliest of places. The text cares about them in all their depths in all their judgments in all their messy feelings in all their, and pardon me for this, pride, and prejudice. They judge each other and themselves and the world around them sharply and cruelly but without losing anything that makes them compelling and human. CK Chau does a masterful job of letting them go at each other with knife shaped words and trusts her audience to see the good and the love there without softening the blows.
Good Fortune is a masterpiece of storytelling. I’m low key bummed to have finished it because that means it’s over, but I cannot wait to read it again and see what I discover. I will be pressing a copy of this book into the hands of anyone who lets me for the rest of my life. It brings me new things from an old text, and that is one of my favorite experiences in the whole world. It doesn’t even matter if you’ve read Pride and Prejudice before, because you’ve never read it like this.
It’s not just that the dialogue whips, the characters are bright and sharp and funny and real, the setting is the perfect mix of clearcut image and the haze of time and nostalgia, and the city that is my beloved home comes alive on page, though all of that is true. What Good Fortune gets that so many of the other retellings don’t is Elizabeth and Darcy. They are their purest selves in this retelling whether they’re falling off ladders or playing bad tennis or listening to Mambo Number Five in the unlikeliest of places. The text cares about them in all their depths in all their judgments in all their messy feelings in all their, and pardon me for this, pride, and prejudice. They judge each other and themselves and the world around them sharply and cruelly but without losing anything that makes them compelling and human. CK Chau does a masterful job of letting them go at each other with knife shaped words and trusts her audience to see the good and the love there without softening the blows.
Good Fortune is a masterpiece of storytelling. I’m low key bummed to have finished it because that means it’s over, but I cannot wait to read it again and see what I discover. I will be pressing a copy of this book into the hands of anyone who lets me for the rest of my life. It brings me new things from an old text, and that is one of my favorite experiences in the whole world. It doesn’t even matter if you’ve read Pride and Prejudice before, because you’ve never read it like this.
March 10, 2024
Interesting idea to bring “Pride and Prejudice “ into NYC Chinatown in the 1990s. Why not but obviously it’s quite risky. I found some characters were under developed : Elizabeth is grumpy and Lydia very very stupid. Some good ideas, though: Pemberley, for example.
« Trying to imagine Darcy in Atlantic City tested the limits of her imagination. Trying to imagine him in a Holiday Inn tested the limits of reality. »
« Trying to imagine Darcy in Atlantic City tested the limits of her imagination. Trying to imagine him in a Holiday Inn tested the limits of reality. »
November 22, 2023
The writing was good, it was just so boring.
November 14, 2023
Let's get the obvious out of the way first, 99% of Austen romances get one star from me. So this rating reflects excellence.
The good: deeply grounded in time and place (freedom fries...I'm going to kms), extremely well thought out characterization of Elizabeth's social circle and indeed Elizabeth herself. Darcy is a hottie with a body as he should be. The writing is fun and genuinely very good.
The complaint with no grounding: To me Caroline is a lesbian...anyway,
The complaint with grounding: Really there are two. Firstly, I would have liked to see an editor tease at the threads of this narrative a little more. Transitions tend to be a little abrupt; sometimes the narrative strains to move from one P&P-dictated scene to another. We don't quite feel Jane/Bingley (Brendan, here) or Elizabeth/Darcy the way we do in the original, and part of that is because scenes often peter out or end abruptly with a pat, slightly out of place observation. This is more noticeable because scenes often open with a theatrical, voicey flare. The author's clearly having fun with it; if only any editor were having fun, in life, but particularly at work.
Secondly, I'm not quite sold on the fairly explicit transposition of marriage prospects to employment prospects. The first concern is structural: marriage and romantic attachments are obviously still things the novel concerns itself with, but they aren't the central concerns of the female leads, because they're 21st-century Chinese-American women for whom marriage is not the only or primary means of securing their family's future. This difference means the novel has two social spheres to content with, personal and professional, and balancing the two means the novel sometimes falters in its observational humor or pacing. We know Elizabeth doesn't want to get some random job doing lucrative garbage, and her values with regards to employment, commercialism, and community are central to her conflict with Darcy. But she also gets and loses a job in this book, an experience that is reduced to a sketched-out aside in the back third. A huge portion of the original P&P's narrative drive is due to the genuinely, for their class, dire straits the Bennets find themselves in. Here, Elizabeth's failure to find a job is simultaneously urgent and secondary to her encounters with Darcy. The end result is a bit muddled; Elizabeth's convictions aren't quite as clear or deep as they need to be, her reasons for disliking Darcy a little less well-formed. When Elizabeth and Darcy clash in the original P&P, their animus is so sharply defined because they are clashing over questions central to the novel's premise: their shared and separate social spheres, the obligations they hold to others of their class and below it, their views on marriage, the other sex, each others' families, etc. It is a testament to the author's skill that many of these conflicts are still very clear, but still, when you have Charlotte's "marriage" transposed into accepting an offer of employment, the reader is left with a sense of impermanence and lower stakes that directly conflicts with the novel's attempts to ground itself in a similar register as Austen's original.
The other issue is more practical. When Elizabeth and Darcy are fighting, the conflicts are pretty high-level. Community vs commerce, local non-profit do-gooding vs global capitalism. OK. The problem is this: sexy as do-gooding female lead/evil-oh-wait-maybe-not capitalist might be, the conflict isn't quite as intimate as it needs to be to work within the beats of the original. Darcy's objections to Elizabeth's family and origins are preserved here, but Elizabeth's objections to Darcy are a mix of dislike of his family/economic status (roughly in line with the original book) and his plans for her local community, plus a general ideological objection to his wealth and work. The community center is very important and very grounded as a setting...in the beginning. For the bulk of the novel's middle, though, it fades into the background or is mentioned as cliche. The book suffers for this: if a large part of Elizabeth's character is meant to be concern with the social fabric of her community, Chinatown changing through gentrification, and this community center specifically, then it should be a near-intrusive presence, the same way the Bennet sisters' need to marry in the context of English class and community is inescapable in the original, even when not explicitly foregrounded. We get a beautiful rendering of the complex web of obligations and expectations, spoken and unspoken, within Elizabeth and Darcy's overlapping social circles. In this sense the novel meets the original. But when it comes to Elizabeth and Darcy's interactions, consistency is ruptured by the need to juggle a few too many concerns: the community center and their conflicting wishes for it, their feelings for (and against) one another, Elizabeth's photography and job search. Modernity imposes, and the end result is a little less tight than it should be.
Overall: will reread, glad I spent my money on it, thank u to the few people left in publishing who actually care about making something engaging to read.
The good: deeply grounded in time and place (freedom fries...I'm going to kms), extremely well thought out characterization of Elizabeth's social circle and indeed Elizabeth herself. Darcy is a hottie with a body as he should be. The writing is fun and genuinely very good.
The complaint with no grounding: To me Caroline is a lesbian...anyway,
The complaint with grounding: Really there are two. Firstly, I would have liked to see an editor tease at the threads of this narrative a little more. Transitions tend to be a little abrupt; sometimes the narrative strains to move from one P&P-dictated scene to another. We don't quite feel Jane/Bingley (Brendan, here) or Elizabeth/Darcy the way we do in the original, and part of that is because scenes often peter out or end abruptly with a pat, slightly out of place observation. This is more noticeable because scenes often open with a theatrical, voicey flare. The author's clearly having fun with it; if only any editor were having fun, in life, but particularly at work.
Secondly, I'm not quite sold on the fairly explicit transposition of marriage prospects to employment prospects. The first concern is structural: marriage and romantic attachments are obviously still things the novel concerns itself with, but they aren't the central concerns of the female leads, because they're 21st-century Chinese-American women for whom marriage is not the only or primary means of securing their family's future. This difference means the novel has two social spheres to content with, personal and professional, and balancing the two means the novel sometimes falters in its observational humor or pacing. We know Elizabeth doesn't want to get some random job doing lucrative garbage, and her values with regards to employment, commercialism, and community are central to her conflict with Darcy. But she also gets and loses a job in this book, an experience that is reduced to a sketched-out aside in the back third. A huge portion of the original P&P's narrative drive is due to the genuinely, for their class, dire straits the Bennets find themselves in. Here, Elizabeth's failure to find a job is simultaneously urgent and secondary to her encounters with Darcy. The end result is a bit muddled; Elizabeth's convictions aren't quite as clear or deep as they need to be, her reasons for disliking Darcy a little less well-formed. When Elizabeth and Darcy clash in the original P&P, their animus is so sharply defined because they are clashing over questions central to the novel's premise: their shared and separate social spheres, the obligations they hold to others of their class and below it, their views on marriage, the other sex, each others' families, etc. It is a testament to the author's skill that many of these conflicts are still very clear, but still, when you have Charlotte's "marriage" transposed into accepting an offer of employment, the reader is left with a sense of impermanence and lower stakes that directly conflicts with the novel's attempts to ground itself in a similar register as Austen's original.
The other issue is more practical. When Elizabeth and Darcy are fighting, the conflicts are pretty high-level. Community vs commerce, local non-profit do-gooding vs global capitalism. OK. The problem is this: sexy as do-gooding female lead/evil-oh-wait-maybe-not capitalist might be, the conflict isn't quite as intimate as it needs to be to work within the beats of the original. Darcy's objections to Elizabeth's family and origins are preserved here, but Elizabeth's objections to Darcy are a mix of dislike of his family/economic status (roughly in line with the original book) and his plans for her local community, plus a general ideological objection to his wealth and work. The community center is very important and very grounded as a setting...in the beginning. For the bulk of the novel's middle, though, it fades into the background or is mentioned as cliche. The book suffers for this: if a large part of Elizabeth's character is meant to be concern with the social fabric of her community, Chinatown changing through gentrification, and this community center specifically, then it should be a near-intrusive presence, the same way the Bennet sisters' need to marry in the context of English class and community is inescapable in the original, even when not explicitly foregrounded. We get a beautiful rendering of the complex web of obligations and expectations, spoken and unspoken, within Elizabeth and Darcy's overlapping social circles. In this sense the novel meets the original. But when it comes to Elizabeth and Darcy's interactions, consistency is ruptured by the need to juggle a few too many concerns: the community center and their conflicting wishes for it, their feelings for (and against) one another, Elizabeth's photography and job search. Modernity imposes, and the end result is a little less tight than it should be.
Overall: will reread, glad I spent my money on it, thank u to the few people left in publishing who actually care about making something engaging to read.
October 1, 2025
what an interesting book to rate. this is a modern spin on pride and prejudice set in new yorks chinatown
chau’s writing style is right up my alley - running sentences, poetry in funny twists of phrase, just so pretty. it’s been a minute since i’ve read pride and prejudice (and the last time i read it to write an essay shitting on it, will need to revisit to see if my 15 year old self’s opinion holds up) so i cannot say how much the author was constrained by the plotline of the original. i had the same issues with it i did with the original of there being sooo many names and i cannot grasp the emotional tone of it at times and there were background plots that i just had to accept without thinking too much about. i also remembered the sisters being more likeable in the original
overall, gorgeous writing, solid adaptation, need to re read original
chau’s writing style is right up my alley - running sentences, poetry in funny twists of phrase, just so pretty. it’s been a minute since i’ve read pride and prejudice (and the last time i read it to write an essay shitting on it, will need to revisit to see if my 15 year old self’s opinion holds up) so i cannot say how much the author was constrained by the plotline of the original. i had the same issues with it i did with the original of there being sooo many names and i cannot grasp the emotional tone of it at times and there were background plots that i just had to accept without thinking too much about. i also remembered the sisters being more likeable in the original
overall, gorgeous writing, solid adaptation, need to re read original
August 14, 2024
I always enjoy a good retelling of Jane Austen and thought that mixing it with Chinese American culture would be fun. Nope. It stuck closely to the original but lacked the humor and I didn’t find this Elizabeth likable.
January 2, 2024
3.5 stars of warmth and good feeling. the highlight for me was the handling of the wickham stuff, ck chau made good call after good call
September 14, 2023
Delightful. A beat-for-beat retelling that nonetheless never feels stale, full of all the warmth, wry observation, and complexity of feeling that has helped make Austen so enduring.
October 15, 2023
It must be hard to write a good Pride and Prejudice remake and this one did not succeed. The flirting was very cringe.
September 11, 2023
What the book succeeds at: P&P's focus on the private life of people and their interactions with others. Strong dialogue and description of social rules and mores.
What it gets wrong and ultimately why I did not like this book: Ultimately, the Bennets are still a privileged/rich family. P&P is just the story of a privileged family encountering another set of families that are even richer than them, but the sphere is still one of general wealth. This being a P&P adaptation, I have to criticize it for trying to shift the paradigm to one of a poor family vs an ultra rich one. I just don't think it worked -- it felt too forced and almost nonsensical to have an ultra rich HK set of characters interact in such manner with immigrant NYC families (and I say this as an immigrant myself).
What it gets wrong and ultimately why I did not like this book: Ultimately, the Bennets are still a privileged/rich family. P&P is just the story of a privileged family encountering another set of families that are even richer than them, but the sphere is still one of general wealth. This being a P&P adaptation, I have to criticize it for trying to shift the paradigm to one of a poor family vs an ultra rich one. I just don't think it worked -- it felt too forced and almost nonsensical to have an ultra rich HK set of characters interact in such manner with immigrant NYC families (and I say this as an immigrant myself).
July 7, 2023
It ended up being a decent story, but it felt like it took a long time to get there. It felt like it jumped around a lot and didn't always make sense. There were a lot of characters to try to follow, and not a lot of character development. It felt like the characters were just suddenly a completely different person or acted in completely different ways rather than having a gradual growth and transition into it. The story was hard to get into until the last 75 or so pages. I wish there would have been a better storyline to follow with stronger character development leading up to the ending.
This book was won in a giveaway through Goodreads
This book was won in a giveaway through Goodreads
September 3, 2023
So is a re-imagined is not the same as a re-telling.
Keeping the naming of everyone the same & adding a chinese surname wasn't enough at all & didn't make sense most of the time. Ain't no chinese rich person is calling their kid darcy or brandon or lydia! An Elizabeth & jane? Maybe but nah this felt like too much.
The plot & writing? Most of it was just an out of portion of the original pride & prejudice.
I wanted to like this, but it's a hard pass.
Keeping the naming of everyone the same & adding a chinese surname wasn't enough at all & didn't make sense most of the time. Ain't no chinese rich person is calling their kid darcy or brandon or lydia! An Elizabeth & jane? Maybe but nah this felt like too much.
The plot & writing? Most of it was just an out of portion of the original pride & prejudice.
I wanted to like this, but it's a hard pass.
November 19, 2023
This isn't a regular Pride and Prejudice retelling, it's a COOL Pride and Prejudice retelling!
Ugh honestly, Good Fortune is terrible. Elizabeth was certainly feisty and sarcastic, but she had zero charisma or charm. So many of the motivations for character actions are forced for the sake of the plot, nothing is really earned, no one is very interesting. It was ridiculous from start to finish.
Ugh honestly, Good Fortune is terrible. Elizabeth was certainly feisty and sarcastic, but she had zero charisma or charm. So many of the motivations for character actions are forced for the sake of the plot, nothing is really earned, no one is very interesting. It was ridiculous from start to finish.
February 23, 2024
4.5. Chinese American retelling of Pride and Prejudice. I am a SUCKER for any good retelling. Now include my culture? Yes please. So. I listened to the audiobook and I’m sorry to say I did not like the narrator and how she portrayed the Lee and the Wongs. They are supposed to be the elite of Hong Kong aka Cantonese with an English accent. It just somehow came off as ….. old and stuffy. 🥴
I also HATED Lydia but tbf I hate her anyways in the original P&P. Jade (the mom) came off as cringy in your face Asian mother, but at the same time. I get it. But whew talk about second hand embarrassment. Loved Jane and her portrayal. I died at how the insufferable Colin was portrayed and the Wickham character? 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼 absolutely applicable.
I seriously enjoyed this book despite my grip with the narration. Def check it out if you’re a P&P fan.
I also HATED Lydia but tbf I hate her anyways in the original P&P. Jade (the mom) came off as cringy in your face Asian mother, but at the same time. I get it. But whew talk about second hand embarrassment. Loved Jane and her portrayal. I died at how the insufferable Colin was portrayed and the Wickham character? 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼 absolutely applicable.
I seriously enjoyed this book despite my grip with the narration. Def check it out if you’re a P&P fan.
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