Counterfeit: A Reese's Book Club Pick

This book was so fun and entertaining that I did not want to put it down! It is also very well-conceived and well written. I will now look into Ms. Chen’s other works. I would recommend purchasing this book!

Not much character development. The two main characters were as shallow as the scam they were pulling. And reading endless pages about a screaming toddler is nearly as annoying as actually being around a screaming toddler. It's a quick read, but not a terribly good on.

This book was a good time and an easy read. It has some big Ideas about feminism, the immigrant experience and the American dream, but it does not torture these themes to make a point. The characters are interesting, but could have been a bit more fleshed out. Overall, a very enjoyable read!

By the end of this book, I realized that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I have not read a story like it. It was surely a page turner once it picked up speed. Definitely worth the read.

A romp of a story with clever characters and a fun twist. I loved the ending. A quick read because you don’t want to put it down!

i wanted to like this book and for the most part i did considering i wasn’t able to put it down but towards the end i got super bored because it got really predictable and i didn’t really love the prose on this one. it made it difficult to follow and lacked a lot of detail that i think would have been fun to read

It took me until second or third part to understand these two’s scheme. Witty, funny, cunning characteristics. I recommend it!

Enjoyed the plot and characters, except 1. The way the author wrote the 2 year old grated on my nerves and made my anxiety shoot up. I understand Henri was wrote that way to make the readers identify and empathize with Ava, but know I’m even questioning how truth Ava was with how Henri acted.

Fun and easy read. I wanted the book be longer and the characters to do more and get to know them even better. An enjoyable and different read.

I was looking forward to this book as it was a RBC pick, but it wasn’t as great as I hoped.The extravagant words here and there were annoying as it didn’t bring value and were randomly placed.Several good turning points, but not enough for me to recommend.Decent book overall as it kept my interest to finish.

Finished this in a day! It’s a good and light hearted mystery with several twists. I enjoyed both main characters and the writing was excellent. I find a lot of new fiction to be formulaic but this was great

Loved it for the writing, the characters and the way the plot was weaved.A feel-good story, it’ll start by tricking you, it’ll then make you laugh and root for the MCs just to end with the right kind of implausible happy ending.A whole lot of fun!

The novel was about two women and a counterfeit designer handbag business. The theme of what is real vs fake ran through the entire novel: the ideal vs reality of motherhood, marriage, family and the American Dream. I can't say much about the story and it's twists without giving too much away. But this novel brought up a lot of issues to unpack.

The book was interesting. I was disappointed that the character was so anxious to re-enter a way of life that she considered a life she would not want to engage in in the beginning, and now, after being convicted, she was more encouraged to enter the same crime activity at a more dangerous level:, all of this after her son was finally making his way in pre-school. Recidivism that everyone always speaks about: that’s why my imagination tells me that she must be undercover because of the bizarre ending.In addition, the donor activity was very sad.

Ava and Winnie were roommates in college for a few months until Winnie got expelled for cheating on the SAT exam. Ava went on to Graduate Stanford, become a tax attorney and marry a brilliant surgeon. They had a son Henri who was behind on developing his speech. Ava was asked to have Henri removed from the preschool program. He cried constantly. They had a nanny Maria, Henri adored her. Ava was coerced into going into the business of selling counterfeit pocketbooks. Unfortunately her old acquaintance Winnie was into shady things. She dragged Ava into it. Ava had an unhappy marriage, she never saw her husband and she stopped work to bring up Henri until he went into preschool. Unfortunately at the age of 2 Henri wasn't ready. She was naive at first and when she realized how deep into it she was it was too late to back out. Her friend threatened to tell her husband. They were Asian and from China. The mob were there bosses, and the factories were located in China. Ava was boxed in, she had no choice but to confess to her husband and then go to the police! She got divorced and was sentenced to two years probation and a hefty fine. She promised to never do anything like this again. The judge was lenient on her! You must read the book to see if Ava lives up to her promise.

I found Counterfeit on Book Bubs newsletter and when I was looking for an easy read picked it off my shelf.It didn’t disappoint. I wanted a story that required little investment from me and wouldn’t require deep thought. And while this fit the bill it also was a good story.Ava and Winnie met in college and Winnie quickly exited. Pretty quickly you think you know why but much like other details in the book Chen tosses us a turn, a believable turn but a turn none the less. In fact the turns were some of my favorite of the book.I also appreciate that while you story ends two years later all the pieces aren’t tied up and after all isn’t that life —we can settle and still have some work to do

Let’s face it —- that any purse can fetch a price that surpasses the cost of a car is absurd. However, designers have created “bags, purses, wallets and accessories with iconic labels, so globally identifiable that all its worth has become measured in money, in expenses, a visual financial statement of power and prestige.And for two women, Asian Ivy League minorities ever battling visual stereotypes, the opportunity to maximize marketing and sales of counterfeit master copies of the most obscenely expensive purses, bags, and wallets seems like perfect businesses in which only the wealthiest are targeted and essentially victimized by their vanity.What unfolds is as much a fast-paced international crime ring drama as revelatory examination of inner workings of social systems.

This book had so much hype it was nearly impossible to deliver. But it got really close! I'll admit off the bat that I left one star off because I was annoyed by the lack of quotatuon marks in the first half (most of) the book. Our story is told from past tense first person; as Ava tells it to a detective. We get a lot of great insight…or do we? I did enjoy the use of narrator to misdirect the reader. No spoilers though!I'm not ABC or Asian, I've just visited China, have Chinese immigrant friends and consume the media. I enjoyed a lot of the cultural references and how Ava and Winnie used prejudice to their own gain. Consumption culture is certainly a rampant disease. China steadfastly refusing to admit to a capitalist culture won't change that anytime soon.An engaging and entertaining story, for sure. Just need to pay close attention to catch dialogue and timing shifts.

The plot of this book, that an organised crime group run by women (1) buys luxury bags from retailers, then (2) returns an excellent counterfeit version of the bag for a refund, and then (3) sells the real bag on eBay at a small discount, is so flawed I'm genuinely stunned no-one picked up on it prior to publication. There is no logical reason why this scheme would be structured this way. As we speak, organised crime groups are just selling fakes as real luxury bags directly to consumers, thus cutting out steps one and two. And most importantly, ensuring that they are not ripping off an organised entity (i.e. a major brand) with sales records and political influence. If you sell fake designer bags to a bunch of individuals online, they are atomistic, meaning they are not organised and capable of acting collectively to bring attention to what you're doing. In other words, no-one is going to really care about your scheme, and you'll probably get away with it. Organised crime groups understand this, and so should the author. And the ending! OMG. The author clearly did so little research into the diamond industry I was literally shouting at my kindle while I was reading it. You cannot swap lab grown diamonds for real ones and then return the ring to the shop for a refund, especially in the case of large diamonds. All diamonds, except for a tiny minority, have internal flaws that you can see with a loupe. The flaws are mapped out on each diamond's grading report. Thus, every time a diamond ring is returned to a shop, its flaws are examined to make sure they perfectly match those detailed in the corresponding grading report. Swapping out real diamonds for lab grown ones would not work!!!!! Aargh! I hate how poorly this author researched her book. It's

I'm not sure what list Counterfeit was on, but it was included in one from just one of the many newsletters I've signed up for. I was planning on putting it to the side and adding the book on Bookbub and waiting for a discount but I'm glad I didn't because the book is worth full price.Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen came out on the 7th of June and was published by William Morrow. It's barely been two months, and the book already has over sixteen thousand reviews on Goodreads, and is in the top 10 in two categories on amazon. It's 284 pages long and while normally I complain that a book should be longer or shorter, I can't with this one because it's just perfect. It's also not a debut as the author has written other novels such as Bury What We Cannot Take and Soy Sauce for Beginners, both of which are on Kindle Unlimited. This book is perfect for readers who liked Bad Blood, and shows like Inventing Anna!When Ava reconnects with her old college roommate Winnie, literally not one person could have predicted the outcome; that the two of them would run a counterfeit scheme involving replicas of luxury handbags.I won't argue that the book is perfect. It absolutely isn't! But amidst all the garbage that seems to get published, it's good to come across an author who can write something interesting, while still addressing more complex topics such as how the Asian American community is viewed in the United States and how quickly the model migrant narrative can change when profits are threatened. I absolutely hated Ava's husband and his white boy obliviousness to everything. I adore Winnie and the guts she had to pull all of this off.