POLITE SOCIETY

The New Delhi edition of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous features a young heroine fashioned in the mold of Emma Woodhouse trying to swim free of the stifling fishbowl that is high-society India.

Surrounded by Edward Ruscha screen prints in her bedroom in Dad’s palatial mansion, Ania Khurana lacks for nothing. Until the writing muse strikes and Ania can finish her novel, the 25-year-old is perfectly content playing the role of matchmaker. Convinced that it was her arrangements that had her aunt successfully meet the man of her dreams, Ania next trains her sights on her friend Dimple. Trying to scrub her working-class roots clean, Dimple is Eliza Doolittle in Ania’s able hands, as the young public relations professional is sculpted to fit seamlessly into Delhi high society. But not all goes swimmingly in this comedy of errors as couples meet—and consciously uncouple—for all the wrong reasons. Meanwhile, the patriarch, Dileep Khurana, wrestles with his own demons, and Ania’s best matchmaking decisions frustratingly backfire. Rao’s lighthearted American debut will doubtless invite comparisons to the hit Crazy Rich Asians, but they are mostly unwarranted. Yes, Kevin Kwan's Asians drip with swank, but all that excess serves a linear plot that chugs full steam ahead. Here, however, the characters seem too fascinated by the scenery, and after a few too many dangling plotlines, the reader might not care that Ania chooses to “supplement her tofu extract face-cleaning capsules with seaweed skin patches and an oxygenated mist in a sheathed canister couriered to her from a hilltop in New Zealand.” The slack-jawed focus on the dazzle also misses an opportunity for more nuanced commentary about class instead of the cautious bites the novel delivers.

Glitter might make for an appetizing amuse-bouche but it's not enough for a satisfying meal.