Counterfeit: A Reese's Book Club Pick

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Ava Wong is close to her breaking point. She put her career as a lawyer on hold be a stay at home mom for her young son who is a bit of a handful. Her surgeon husband is always working and their marriage is suffering to be blunt. Ava's college roommate, Winnie Fang, pops up in her life again. Winnie grew up in China and went to Stanford with Ava before abruptly dropping out. Ava is now running a scheme in which she imports near perfect replicas of luxury handbags to the US. Winnie could use Ava's help with her business. Totally illegal stuff. Let's see how things play out for Ava. Counterfeit is decadent and delicious. The sparkling storyline seduces with its compelling twists and turns even as Kirstin Chen deftly interrogates issues of race, identity, wealth and consumerism. A true delight for mind and heart from beginning to end." - Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee The novel starts out well enough. We are introduced to Ava, the main character, who struggles as a new mom to a (I think?) developmentally challenged son and her husband (a cardiac surgeon), while they somehow have money problems. Already, this is drastically unrealistic but alright... go on. Magnitude of counterfeiting and piracy of tangible products – November 2009 update" (PDF). OECD, Paris. 2009. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 25, 2015 . Retrieved November 15, 2016.

MIT CIS: Publications: Foreign Policy Index". Archived from the original on 31 March 2014 . Retrieved 15 May 2010. Ava recounts about up until this point, she’s always been a rule follower. She’s a Chinese American lawyer who is married to a surgeon and they have a toddler son. But beneath the perfect facade, her marriage is full of troubles and she’s having difficulties handling her son’s outbursts. She put her career on hold to take care of her son and now she’s having an identity crisis. The reality is much different and her life is coming apart at the seams. Her son has constant tantrums, Ava hates being a lawyer and has taken an extended break, her husband works non-stop and doesn’t even live in the same residence, and she feels a little bitter she did everything she was supposed to and ended up here. If she is living the Asian-American dream, she is waiting for someone to wake her up from it. But, Ava is disgusted with her “friend’s” behavior, that is —until she needs money for her son to get into the best of the best schools & when her husband freezes her credit cards….the list adds up. With a whole lot of bribery she falls under Winnie’s spell and gets in on the scheme. It’s funny because going into the novel, I thought about how I’m not caught up in expensive purses anymore. I used to be all about getting a new Coach or a Kate Spade purse (at the outlets) but ever since the start of the pandemic, I’ve been fine carrying the same purse. But that said, I found myself looking at a Lululemon belt bag so maybe I do still care about name brands, haha.

Money can’t buy happiness… but it can buy a decent fake. Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home—she’s built the perfect life. But beneath this façade, Ava’s world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn’t been used in years, and her toddler’s tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point. ICC Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau (1997), Countering Counterfeiting: A Guide to Protecting and Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights, United Kingdom. Ava Wong is a successful lawyer with a picture-perfect family, but behind the scenes, her marriage—and life—are falling apart. Enter Winnie Fang, Ava’s college roommate, with a proposition for Ava: help Winnie manage her wildly successful counterfeit luxury purse business. But when consequences loom, Winnie disappears, leaving Ava holding the bag.” — Harper’s Bazaar , The Best Beach Reads of 2022 Swift, surprising, and sharply comic, Counterfeit is a stylish and feminist caper with a strong point of view and an axe to grind. Peering behind the curtain of the upscale designer storefronts and the Chinese factories where luxury goods are produced, Kirstin Chen interrogates the myth of the model minority through two unforgettable women determined to demand more from life.

Counterfeit is decadent and delicious. The sparkling story line seduces with its compelling twists and turns even as Kirstin Chen deftly interrogates issues of race, identity, wealth and consumerism. A true delight for mind and heart from beginning to end.” — Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee Many counterfeit goods are produced and manufactured in China, making it the counterfeit capital of the world: the counterfeiting industry accounts for 8% of China's GDP. [12] [13] Counterfeit goods are also made in Russia, North Korea, Taiwan, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Turkey is responsible for 3.3% of word's counterfeit goods, according to OCDE. Some counterfeits are produced in the same factory that produce the original, authentic product, using inferior materials. [ citation needed] A United States Senate Committee on Armed Services report regarding counterfeit electronic parts in the defense supply chain, highlighted in an investigation commenced in March 2011, [14] found that 1800 cases of suspected counterfeit components were in use within over 1 million individual products". [15] A 2012 follow-up report found that counterfeit parts came "overwhelmingly from China". [16] Engrossing . . . . There is something particularly joyful and delicious right now about reading a novel centered around a feminist caper. This novel is a lot of fun, but it also asks a lot of questions about what we covet and why.”— Roxane Gay It didn't take long for the story to hook me. I was already having an enjoyable time when the author shifted gears somewhat and that just took the book to the next level. Clever writing for sure. My only wish is for the ending to be more fleshed out. Small gripe though as overall it was a good summer read. In terms of character development, I feel that Chen did a great job with both Winnie and Ava. Even though I disagree with their actions and the decisions they ultimately made, I was able to relate to the struggles they went through as Chinese women who grew up in traditional Chinese families. Ava especially resonated with me, as I recognized so much of her family dynamic in my own — i.e.: the pressure to choose a “prestigious” career path that ultimately leads to wealth, even if it’s not a career that I would want for myself (this quote sent shivers down my spine because it’s almost verbatim what I experienced: “ …in my family there were only a few acceptable paths—law, medicine, engineering. Law was the one I’d disliked least. From the very beginning, I’d known my lot in life: to be good enough at my job, and to tolerate it until retirement.”); the expectation to be an overachiever in school (anything less than straight A’s was frowned upon) and maintain the image of the “good Chinese daughter” so as not to disappoint my immigrant parents who sacrificed so much for their children to have such opportunities; the cultural significance of “face” and the huge impact it has on how, as a Chinese woman, I’m supposed to live my life (another quote that applies almost verbatim to my own situation: “ …but when you grow up as I did, schooled in the supremacy of “face”—the figurative face, the image, reputation, honor that must be fought for and preserved at all costs—breaking free from constraints to think for oneself becomes a Herculean task.”). One of the things I love about the reading experience is coming across characters whom I am able to relate to in some way (even if our life circumstances are completely different) and that certainly was the case here — this makes the time and effort spent reading this all the more worthwhile.

Counterfeit

While no one is physically hurt, it’s still a crime. And that’s something that Ava starts to wrestle with. Verdict Ava Wong, Asian American lawyer, has the appearances of a perfect life. Sure hasn’t worked since having her son, Henri, now two years old. Her husband Oli is a renowned transplant surgeon and everything should be rosy. So why does she feel so flat? Well Oli spends too long either at work or travelling to and from it and Henri is a very difficult child who cries at every opportunity. In fact Ava would be completely lost without her nanny, Maria. Enter Winnie Fang, Ava's enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, twenty years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. But the shy, awkward girl Ava once knew has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange. The secret to her success? Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now she needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business--someone who'd never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava. But when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes once again, Ava is left to face the consequences. At first you may think you know Ava and you may think you know this book. But don't worry, the book is a few steps ahead of you and it is more than meets the eye. This isn't really a spoiler at all, after all, a book all about counterfeiting can't be exactly what it claims to be on the surface, can it?