Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.
You know what I love? Glitz and glamour. I live for the first Monday in May, award show season, and any show where the costuming is a feast for the eyes. Give me petty drama and immaculate costuming any day of the week. And I just read a book that has both of those things.
Please give a warm welcome to The Fraud Squad by Kyla Zhao!
As always, a spoiler alert is in order. If you’ve read any other review on this site then you know I love to spoil the entirety of the books I read. With that, let’s get to the synopsis.
It’s Gossip Girl meets Crazy Rich Asians in Kyla Zhao’s debut novel. Samantha Song has longed to write about all things high-society in Singapore’s premiere magazine S. One issue though: she’s poor. How can she manage to get invited to an elite event when she and her mother are struggling to make ends meet?
Enter her work bestie Anya. Anya comes from a wealthy family and has been part of the upper crust since birth. Anya is also friends with the It Guy of Singaporean society: Timothy Kingston. Timothy is introduced to Samantha through Anya, and during the lunch when they meet, Samantha learns how incredibly disillusioned Timothy is with high society. So the three come up with a plan. A plan for Samantha to infiltrate Singapore’s high society, trick the upper class into believing she herself is a socialite, and get a column in S.
It won’t be easy though. Samantha needs to learn how to act like a socialite, how to talk like a socialite, how to think like a socialite; basically become everything she’s not. Thankfully Timothy and Anya are there to help. Timothy will supply the invites Samantha needs to infiltrate this rich new world, and Anya will supply her with all the designer clothing. The rest is up to Samantha.
Can Samantha fool everyone in Singaporean high society? Can she charm Missy, the editor of S magazine, into giving her a job and featured column? Or will Argus, S’s mysterious, unknown, and infamous gossip columnist find out Samantha’s true identity before her scheme even begins? Find out in The Fraud Squad.
I have some mixed feelings about this book. The vibes? Immaculate. I love the world of petty, high society drama. The writing on the other hand? Meh. It’s not spectacular. Kyla Zhao’s writing style left me wanting more. I found the story to fixate on events and scenes that weren’t as necessary to the plot and in turn neglected information that was more relevant to the plot. Hello Argus, I’m talking to you.
Listen, when the back of book synopsis heavily features an anonymous character who is well known to all the characters, lowkey infamous, is a villain, and is constantly spilling tea, I expect to be hearing from said character. I don’t care if it’s through a magazine column, anonymous texts, their own site, I want to hear from Gossip Girl (or in this case Argus). Yet readers never get to hear from Argus in The Fraud Squad. I am displeased. Samantha is supposed to be fooling all of high society. Her goal is to trick them into believing she is one of them. Argus would a hundred and ten percent talk about Samantha in their column. Yet this mysterious author never does. Their column is never even shown until the big reveal of Argus's identity at the end of the novel. Nope, don’t like that. Argus is huge deal to nearly everyone in this book. Samantha constantly mentions how scared she is that Argus will reveal her secret. So where are they? Why aren’t they writing about her? Apparently, Argus was taking a break from writing their column, but nowhere is that even mentioned prior to their identity being revealed.
To continue with my Argus rant, and this part specifically goes out to those who have already read the book, did Argus’s identity seem very predictable to you? Or was it just me? There is only one clue towards Argus’s true identity, that being their love of Greek mythology, and only one other character has any interest in the topic. There’s really only the one possibility, right? No one else can possibly be Argus.
For another example on how the author neglects important, relevant information, there are many times when Samantha is struggling at an event and the author essentially fades to black, ends the chapter, and beginnings the next chapter a week later. Samantha supposedly charmed the room and fixed her mistakes, and those at whatever event she was at now love her. Can I see that? How did she manage to trick the one percent this time?
If you couldn’t tell, I’m not a big fan of Samantha. I’m not a big fan of any of the main characters if I’m being honest. You have the bitchy, jealous ex-girlfriend, the bitchy, jealous work bestie, the stereotype of a feminist, and the disillusioned rich kid. They’re all really shitty people who don’t learn anything in the end. Even Samantha doesn’t learn anything. She never has to apologize for anything she’s done, and she’s given her dream job on a silver platter. Where’s the moral of this story? It’s certainly not “work hard and you’ll achieve your dreams,” which may be the lowest hanging fruit but would have worked nicely in this story.
Also! You cannot tell me that Singapore’s old money would not have sniffed out Samantha’s lies in an instant. There is no way these women would see a fresh face popping up at events, claiming to be from a wealthy family, and not begin digging into her life and family. In the immortal words of Kris Jenner, “this is a job for the FBI.” And that’s what bored high society women become. Samantha should have failed before she started.
Overall The Fraud Squad needs help. The dialogue is clunky, the pacing is poor, and the characters leave me wanting soooooo much more. Plain and simple, this is a weak book.
With that, I shall bid you all adieu. Thank you very much for joining me today, I will see you all again next with another new review. If you can’t wait that long then you can always check out my podcast Nothing to See Hear. Me and two of my besties talk everything from cryptids to weird moments in history, Disney to Scooby-Doo, and bad 90’s wrestling to haunted houses; there’s bound to be something you’ll find interesting.
Until next time, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.
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