My Favorite Wife by Tony Parsens

My Favorite Wife is the story of a lawyer, Bill Horden who brings his young family from London to Shanghai, China. He will be made partner in a couple of years so that he and his family can have better life.

However not everything in Shanghai are what they have expected. There are farmers have their land ripped away from them, babies being thrown into trashcans, and there are women selling their bodies to earn a living.

Their lifestyle also has changed a lot. Bill always leave the home early for work and come back after his wife Becca and his daughter Holly have gone to bed. He spent very little time with his family and most of his time at work, entertaining the clients after working hours.

After Holly's sudden asthma attack, Becca shock at finding a baby in the trash, and at the same time worrying on her sick father back home, Becca demands to go back to London. Leave Bill alone in Shanghai.

In Paradise Mansions, the place where Bill and his family are staying has a group of young women being kept as mistresses by rich married men – some local, some foreigners. After Becca and Holly went back to London, Bill gets lonely and strikes up much more than a friendship with the beautiful JinJin Li, one of the ladies from that group of young women. And you probably can guess what happen next.

The second half of the book mainly talks about Bill being alone in Shanghai and his interactions with JinJin Li. I dislike the fact that he knew he should not do it, he knew it is wrong and yet the next minute he has forgotten about it and go all out with her.

The story of the book made me in low mood for quite a while as it brought back some bad memories. I feel dissatisfied about the ending of the book. Not that I don't like the ending but I feel it is a bit rush. The author jumps to the ending without talking much about the interactions between Bill and Becca on this issue. In fact this book mainly focuses on Bill. There is no much mention about Becca after knowing her husband has betrayed her. There is no much details about her feelings and how she can forgive her husband on this matter.

I won't say this book is not a good read. In fact it is a very interesting book because it’s a Westerner’s point of view of Asian life. But it's not a book to make you feel comfortable, not for me.   

I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.