How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Another novel with a unique point of view by Hamid.

Mohsin Hamid is such a 10/10 writer that it's unfair to the rest of the population

Pakistan book around the world.

This, unfortunately, did not work for me. Might have something to do with not naming the “Pretty girl” and only calling her “pretty girl” or the second person POV. I'm not sure but this isn't necessarily my type of book.

The 2nd person narrative and the self-help framing is interesting, but the characters are really what holds this romance-disguised-as-instructional book up. The two leads are fascinating in their own ways, and weave they're way through the story like fish through water.

Devoured half the book in one night. My copy had four pages of high praise as blurbs and reviews for the book, and all of them are deserved.

Just to be clear, this is not a book of self-help. If anything, it's a memento mori. Read it, be depressed about your imminent demise, then go out into the world and do something positive about it.

A book that is definitely not a self-help book and definitely not about how to get filthy rich in rising Asia. The author must have probably chosen this title to filter from the start the kind of people who are looking for a self-help book and also the kind of people who won't read a book just because it's called “How to get Filthy Rich ....”. Not an easy read, but totally worth it.

A poor boy in Asia uses the vehicle of this book to share ways of getting rich amid his life story. It's a hard story, a dark story, a sad story, but then you probably expected that. It's also an easy story, a light story, a joyous story, and that might be more surprising. A life lived in the extremes of pleasure and pain, and that makes for a good book.