Women of Good Fortune was a surprising read about a heist that changes the lives of three women, but not quite how you'd expect.

The overarching theme of this book is rejecting certain stereotypical mindsets and behaviors associated with Asian cultures. This theming was incredibly interesting to me, as it later proves throughout the book that money cannot solve every problem, and how it can corrode your relationships with other people and your outlook on life.

Really, the title is ironic in a way - it should be Women of Misfortune. Lulu, Jane, and Rina each suffer from a different aspects of growing up in Chinese society. Lulu struggles with how she is only found valuable to her parents so long as she is able to supply money to them. She constantly second guesses each decision she makes, bases her worth on what she can do for the people around her, and is pressured into marrying Harv because she feels it is her duty to marry rich as the child supporting her family.

Rina struggles with the constant competition that comes with being a career woman in China. She is constantly underestimated in the workplace, which is proven when she is denied a well-deserved promotion over a younger man working underneath her. She has to keep working long hours and overtime in her attempts to prove her worth to her company who expects her to get married and have children any day now, and will fire her for any drop in productivity. The grindset is literally draining her, leaving her with barely any energy for herself or her social life. Additionally, she struggles with the expectation of fertility from those around her, especially from the higher ups in her workplace. Along with the constant reminder that her biological clock is ticking as an unmarried, thirty year old woman who chose her career before starting a family, she is also faced with medical complications that could result with her becoming infertile. Because Rina eventually wants to start a family after she's hit the height of her career, she is understandably distressed and motivated by this, which feeds into her overworking herself to be able to afford egg preservation procedures in the U.S.

Jane has been told all her life that she is ugly because she is physically unable to conform to the restrictive Asian beauty culture. Her entire life she is made to feel worthless simply because she is not pretty, and as such she compensates with overindulging in consumerism, haggling for luxury goods in order to make her feel better. She even believes her husband only married her because of her only asset - her apartment. As such, her disgust and unhappiness with herself puts a strain on her marriage, and she believes the only way to solve her issues is with plastic surgery and a divorce.

Even though they are able to pull off the heist, because their respective issues have core roots in societal expectations and feeds into each woman's self-sabotage, they find their lives and relationships unraveling around them. It was really sad to me to see Lulu, Jane, and Rina's friendship fracture, Jane's relationship with her husband strain even more, and Rina almost throws away an opportunity to have someone love her for who she is.

That being said, because the money did not immediately bring these women happiness in the wake of their deteriorating relationships, they were able to work on unlearning and letting go of these burdens society and their parents had placed on them, and eventually mend their relationships with each other. I especially liked how Jane's character developed. Instead of plastic surgery, she uses part of the heist money to start going to therapy to learn to find worth outside of her self-image and accepting herself, while she uses the other part of the money to invest in a luxury goods store with Michaelangelo, their counterfeiter. I like that during this period of time she was able to reflect on how she had treated those around her, and how it helped her resolve to do better with her relationships in the future when the opportunities were given to her.

Overall, is you would like a taste of Crazy Rich Asians with a dash of heist plotline, with an underlying theme of criticism for common societal pressures placed on Asian people, then this is the book for you.

It is with great sadness that I must give this book a low-star review.😔

I was really prepared to give this book between 4-5 stars - the first act, like in the first book, was a bit of a slow build to get the stakes established and the story underway, but still held many essential character reactions. Acts 2 and 3 were a whirlwind after I finally found time to come back to the book. Perfectly executed, tension the entire time, a rollercoaster ride of a book.

Here is why I am rating this otherwise powerhouse of a book 2 stars - the ending is not satisfying. Matteo dies, and unlike the other “near”deaths in the book, he does not survive. He straight up sacrifices himself and dies. There is so much emphasis on him being a part of Arthie’s crew, being in love with Arthie, and the hope of his future with Arthie in the future, that when he dies, it completely undercuts any satisfactory triumph we should feel for overthrowing the Ram and resurrecting Spindrift. It literally is not the same without him.

Because of this, it also feels like Arthie is never allowed to win. Arthie loses so much in these two books, that the last shred of hope she has is clinging to some sort of future with Matteo. And she just straight up can’t even had that. I get the appeal of a tragedy, but so much tragedy had already happened throughout these two books that it would have been okay for everyone to live and be together.

It’s just so wholly, colossally disappointing that the ending does not match the build up of the book at all, and because of this, I’m not even willing to explore the author’s other works because I don’t trust her to deliver the payoff that she has built the reader up to.

This book feels like a perfect representation of what I love and look for in fantasy fiction. A rich world full of spirits and and folklore and a beautiful romance.

I really appreciated how complex the conflict presented in this book were. To me there never seemed like an easy answer, and Mina and Shin never had all the information needed to solve the problems they were facing. They really only arrived at the answers they needed due to Mina's ingenuity and trust that the gods could still be there for her people, and Mina and Shin's trust in each other helped them keep going.

Additionally, the juxtaposition of Mina and Shin's worldviews are so interesting. It really helps to add more depth to the worldbuilding as well. Mina has all these stories and myths that have been told to her through childhood that she holds onto diligently, and it feeds into her preconceived notions about how the spirit world and the world of gods should act and their role in the human world. When she finds out the spirit world is nothing like her stories, she aims to correct it the best she can in her circumstances, and later in the story we see how her belief and her story-telling bears true change to the spirit world.

Shin is disillusioned with the gods because all he knows is 100 years ago, the Sea God fell asleep. He still feels respect and a sense of duty to protect the Sea God, but there is an underlying resentment he has for his duty to the Sea God, especially when he can't remember the circumstances that brought them together to begin with. His lack of faith in the gods returning and his pessimistic outlook on humanity clashes with Mina's faith in the goodness of humanity and her faith in the gods in such interesting ways. It would take another read for me to analyze it fully but it was fascinating to watch nevertheless.

I also really enjoyed the found family Mina experienced, both literally and figuratively. Part of me suspected that Dai, Miki, and Mask were related to her, but the revelation that they were still felt satisfying, especially with how strong their bond had been built throughout the book beforehand. My attachment to these characters before their familial connections were revealed shows me that Axie Oh really did a good job building a convincing dynamic between them that didn't feel corny or on the nose. As a side note, i also appreciated the eventual found family and friendship Mina found in Shin's friends, Namgi and Kirin.

My only complaint (and this may sound nitpicky but bear with me) is that I feel like Mina could have easily been 20 years old at the start of the story and not 16. The depth of her emotion and the way she talks could just as easily be attributed to a 20 year old, because my mind kept automatically aged her up as I kept reading. I ran into the same issue with the Lunar Chronicles, where in both of these books they've mentioned the main character's ages maybe twice and never again. It also doesn't track to give only the MC's an on-page age and then not the ages of the other characters - which maybe the rational there is that they're immortal and therefore ageless blah blah blah. I'm just not sure why it's necessary to have her determined to be 16 when it's not deemed necessary to mention anyone else's age.

Age complaints aside, this book was so satisfying for me to read. Now I will probably try to read anything Axie Oh writes from here on out, especially since I've heard equally good things about her other work.