Meet Scarlett Chang from Beijing: a mum to two-year-old Oliver, an actress from Shenzhen and make-up artist, a daughter to Ce Ce, a sister, and a lost human being. Her marriage has just crumbled, after discovering lots and lots of pictures of her husband’s “prized possession” on the computer’s hard drive. Scarlett moves in with her mother and teenage brother. Life takes unexpected turns for all of us and this is an honest and heart-felt encounter how it turned out for Scarlett.
She begins with finding her way back to work. It’s not always easy, she gets kicked out of her first job in a matter of days, but she gets there in the end. She starts dating and looking for the right man. But the men she gets on with are really wrong: playboys, famous actors. The quote one of Bridget Jones’s friends: fuckwiths. In the end she sees a psychic and goes on a “man diet”. But that doesn’t mean she can’t get her wedding dress Aliexpress.
The story is a bit lost, at times, just like Scarlett. Not in an unpleasant way, more like the picture gets hazy and unclear; you are not really sure you get it but you don’t mind hanging in there. You somehow know Scarlett, and the story, will turn out all right, especially once she get’s her wedding dress.
What really kept me going is the honesty this book is written with. You really feel that Scarlett’s emotions are raw. That it pains her to break her marriage, but she was left with little choice. That she’s been mistreated by her mother as a child and is struggling to come to terms with it. That she is looking for love, warmth, security in the shallowest of all shallow places – Beverly Hills – and the chance of finding it there are miniscule. Still, she hopes, and persists and we hope and carry on with her. But then, the wedding awaits, and she needs to look beautiful!
