The Expatriates was a big buzzy book when it was first published and has been sitting on my TBR pile for literal years. I decided to read it when I saw that Prime was turning it into a series. I have not watched the series since finishing the book and I have no plans to, which should tell you what I thought of it. I love “rich people problems” stories, but I’ve figured out that the rich people in question need to be so insanely wealthy that they have almost no connection to the rest of humanity (e.g. Succession and The Crown). Two thirds of the main characters of this book are upper middle-class Americans living wealthy lifestyles in Hong Kong and I honestly just can’t bring myself to care about them.
Our story revolves around three women. There’s Mercy, a recent Columbia graduate who is almost as much a victim of her own bad choices as she is of her socio-economic status. Hillary is a wealthy housewife struggles with her failing marriage and her inability to conceive. Margaret has a strong marriage and three beautiful children, but her family is rocked by a tragedy. These women’s lives will intertwine throughout the book. The prose in this book is very good, but I just found myself completely unable to relate to any of them and I was often frustrated by their decisions. I honestly wanted to know more about the “helpers” that the two wealthy women had. We would call them housekeepers in the US. But they served mostly as backdrops to these women.
Obviously, a lot of folks liked this book quite a lot, so the problem might well be with me. Like I said, the writing is beautiful, and it made me want to visit Hong Kong during this period. I would not, however, want to hang out with any of these women.
