When I picked up Last Tang Standing, I was carrying the weight of a week long reading slump and I had absolutely no idea what I was stepping into; however, I certainly had not expected to step straight into what I had.
Last Tang Standing was the most candid piece of work I had ever read. The book is very very character driven and it is a very literal almost-minute-by-minute update of the protagonist’s life. Here’s the thing, when you to write a book in this style, you have to have an imagination as wide as the horizon… because how else can you plan a protagonist’s life straight down the minute, give the reader an understanding of the stage the story is set in, and take the plot forward with every diary entry? Lauren Ho must be some kind of magical being. Or at least, her brain is an absolute masterpiece, I’m sure of it.
Andrea Tang was one of the single most relatable characters I had read! The fact that she was so open and fearless about the thoughts she had in her head makes all the things she says and does so relatable and not hurtful in the least. Despite being filled with serious flaws like any other person—be it her competitive spirit that can get to a point where she may just about stop breathing before she admits that she needs help, her paranoia/fears, trust issues etc,—she doesn’t take herself too seriously and has a love for alcohol, which often turns any difficult situation into a hilarious one, without taking away the importance of the message but retaining the overall tone of the book.
Andrea is in her thirties and let’s be real, us Asians believe that by thirty, one should’ve already had their first child, be knee deep in their marriage, and pretty much be one amongst many in the social world of adulting.
The story is a million little moments that slowly starts to build into a larger complete puzzle and I have to admit, I was so surprised at the author’s ability to keep me hooked despite what had initially felt like an influx of characters. Eventually it smooths out and you start to fall into the rhythm of the relationships and the happenings of the plot. To my utter surprise, I can even go as far as to say, the author almost read my mind at certain points when I realised the reason for a certain character arc and the next sentence I read were those exact same words I had thought in my head. I think it needs to be said: Lauren Ho had the reader exactly where she wanted them.
I think in many ways, Andrea represents all of us, outside of race, ethnicity, or anything else. Just as a person, she represents all of the moments where we’re blind to the things we’re holding on to out of habit and the wonderful things that we’re letting go of, not even from fear, but out of being utterly unaware of what we want. Why? Because we never had thought to take the time away to think if the path that we are barrelling down is the one we wish to pursue or if it’s just the one that we were set on and now do not know how to stop?
There was a beautiful analogy that was given by the protagonist’s best friend that I will forever treasure. She flips the idea of ‘settling’ and it hit me like a train because she was right. Settling doesn’t just mean you’re settling for less, but it could also mean you’re settling for more than you want and that in itself brings unhappiness too, because it is again not what you want. But you talk yourself into it because in a narrow minded view, who would give up something that ‘looks so good and is so much more’?
This book is easily about choices, finding your ground with them, and recognising your own reasons for making them.
The only issue I had with the book was that the style of the writing dictates the large variety of things we learn in a single page and at times, it felt like there was an stream of information coming through too fast and that did bring about some fatigue, but that didn’t take away from the overall humour, joy, and message of the story.
Last Tang Standing is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of June 9th 2020!
Will you be picking up Last Tang Standing? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
Crazy Rich Asians meets Bridget Jones’s Diary in this funny and irresistible debut novel about the pursuit of happiness, surviving one’s thirties intact, and opening oneself up to love.
At thirty-three, Andrea Tang is living the dream: she has a successful career as a lawyer, a posh condo, and a clutch of fun-loving friends who are always in the know about Singapore’s hottest clubs and restaurants. All she has to do is make partner at her law firm and she will have achieved everything she (and her mother) has ever worked for. So what if she’s poised to be the last unmarried member of her generation of the Tang clan? She doesn’t need a man to feel fulfilled, no matter what her meddling relatives have to say about it.
But for a dutiful Chinese-Malaysian daughter, the weight of familial expectations is hard to ignore. And so are the men life keeps throwing in Andrea’s path. Men like Suresh Aditparan, her annoyingly attractive rival for partner and the last man she should be spending time with, and Eric Deng, a wealthy entrepreneur whose vision for their future is more lavish than she could have imagined. With her workplace competition growing ever more intense, her friends bringing dramas of their own to her door, and her family scrutinizing her every romantic prospect, Andrea finds herself stretched to the breaking point. And she can’t help but wonder: In the endless tug-of-war between pleasing others and pleasing herself, is there room for everyone to win?
