Lies and Weddings Quiz: How Well Do You Know Kevin Kwan's Novel?
Quiz Introduction
Kevin Kwan's Lies and Weddings spans decades and continents, weaving together the tangled fates of the aristocratic Gresham family and the unassuming Tongs. This quiz covers the entire novel—from the fatal 1995 Hong Kong engagement party to the Venetian wedding that closes the story. You'll face questions on plot twists, character motivations, thematic symbols, and the intricate connections that bind these two families.
Plot and Sequence Questions (8)
Question 1.
What happens to Henry Tong immediately after he proposes to Gabriella Soong at the Peninsula Hotel in 1995?
A) He is arrested for cheating at baccarat.
B) He falls over a glass balcony railing and is impaled on a crystal candelabra.
C) He flees Hong Kong with the engagement ring.
D) He is punched by Stanley Ho and hospitalized.
Question 2.
Why are Eden and her father, Dr. Thomas Tong, suddenly invited to Augie's Hawaii wedding after initially being excluded?
A) Arabella discovers Eden is a doctor and wants free medical care for guests.
B) Bea volunteers Eden to help with "Operation Solène," the secret matchmaking scheme.
C) Rufus threatens to boycott the wedding unless Eden is included.
D) A volcanic fissure destroys half the guest list, and Arabella needs to fill seats.
Question 3.
What does Rufus accidentally broadcast to the entire wedding banquet?
A) A toast mocking Arabella's matchmaking scheme.
B) His confession of love for Eden and their kiss.
C) A business pitch for his wellness retreats.
D) His argument with Solène de Courcy about art.
Question 4.
At the Greshamsbury Hall dinner, what revelation does Bea scream that shatters the family's composure?
A) That she eloped with Cousin Aurelius.
B) That the pregnancy test found in Hawaii was hers and Gopal Das is the father.
C) That Francis hid a secret art collection offshore.
D) That Arabella faked her own pregnancy years ago.
Question 5.
What demand does Luis Felipe Tan make after Rufus punches him and breaks his nose?
A) That Eden marry him within thirty days.
B) That the Greshams repay all loans in full within thirty days or forfeit Greshamsbury Hall.
C) That Arabella publicly apologize for her racist remarks.
D) That Rufus challenge him to a duel.
Question 6.
What does Eden discover about her father, Dr. Thomas Tong, when she unexpectedly sees him at an exclusive LA club?
A) That he is secretly a competitive ballroom dancer.
B) That he lives a hidden life lunching with celebrities and wealthy heirs.
C) That he is a silent investor in multiple tech start-ups.
D) That he is planning to move permanently to Los Angeles.
Question 7.
How does Augie defy her mother at her own Hawaiian wedding ceremony?
A) She refuses to walk down the aisle.
B) She changes the music to heavy metal.
C) She wears a Valentino gown Arabella chose, then steps out of it to reveal a simple beach slip dress underneath.
D) She invites Gopal Das to officiate instead of the rector.
Question 8.
What does Thomas Tong learn when he opens the MET Trust binder at the Hotel Metropole in Venice?
A) That Rene Tan left his entire fortune to a cat charity.
B) That Eden is named as a beneficiary, inheriting a $90 billion empire.
C) That the Greshams' debts have been erased.
D) That Luis Felipe secretly had a twin brother.
Character Motivation Questions (5)
Question 9.
Why does Arabella orchestrate "Operation Solène" to match Rufus with Solène de Courcy?
A) She genuinely believes Solène and Rufus are soulmates.
B) She vets Solène through a secret elite panel and genetic testing, seeing her as the ideal bride to secure a French aristocratic alliance and grandsons.
C) She wants to anger the Thai princess who previously rejected Rufus.
D) Solène's mother blackmails Arabella into the scheme.
Question 10.
Why does Martha Dung agree to visit Greshamsbury Hall and deliberately mislead Arabella into believing a romance is blooming?
A) She secretly hopes to marry Rufus.
B) She wants to buy the estate.
C) She is charmed by Rufus's honesty and wants to help him defy his snobbish mother.
D) She is spying for Rosina Leung.
Question 11.
What childhood motivation drives Arabella's relentless social ambition and her philosophy of "fake it till you make it"?
A) She was orphaned and raised in poverty in London.
B) She was mocked as "Goat Girl" in Hong Kong and witnessed her mother being knocked down by a British woman who cut a taxi line, forging her need to command status.
C) She failed her A-levels and vowed to prove her intelligence.
D) Her father lost the family fortune gambling in Macau.
Question 12.
Why does Freddy Farman-Farmihian stop pursuing Solène de Courcy and bond with Eden instead?
A) Solène rejects his marriage proposal on the whale-watching boat.
B) He realizes his years of diet and exercise to attract Solène were futile, and he acknowledges his sister's advice to find a partner who enjoys food.
C) He discovers Solène is secretly engaged to someone else.
D) Eden saves him from a shark attack.
Question 13.
Why does Rene Tan secretly provide loans to Francis Gresham through off-the-books entities?
A) He wants to launder money from his factories.
B) He had a personal connection to Thomas Tong's family—Thomas's father made his success possible—and the loans are entangled with his own family history.
C) He plans a hostile takeover of the Gresham resorts.
D) Arabella blackmails him into lending the money.
Theme and Symbol Questions (4)
Question 14.
What does the crystal candelabra that kills Henry Tong symbolize in the novel?
A) The purity of Henry's love for Gabriella.
B) The lethal consequences of toxic masculinity and the destructive power of wealth and opulence.
C) Hong Kong's fading colonial influence.
D) A family heirloom that carries a curse.
Question 15.
What thematic role does the volcanic eruption at Bellaloha Resort play in the story?
A) It serves only as spectacular set dressing for the wedding.
B) It literally and figuratively cracks open the Gresham family's carefully constructed facade, exposing financial ruin and buried secrets.
C) It symbolizes Augie's anger at her mother.
D) It punishes Arabella for cultural appropriation.
Question 16.
What does Eden's red lipstick, worn for the first time at the Hawaiian wedding, represent?
A) Her attempt to copy Arabella's signature style.
B) A signal of her new sense of self, agency, and rejection of the invisible "staff" identity imposed on her by racial microaggressions.
C) Her secret engagement to Rufus.
D) A fashion mistake she immediately regrets.
Question 17.
In Chapter 27, Arabella sees Hogarth's "A Rake's Progress" at Sir John Soane's House. What does the seventh painting, The Prison, mirror?
A) Francis's hidden art collection.
B) Arabella's fear of debtor's prison, personal ruin, and losing everything she built.
C) Rufus's artistic ambitions.
D) The Gresham family's history of philanthropy.
Synthesis Questions (3)
Question 18.
How does the novel structurally use flashbacks to 1995 Hong Kong, 1998 Houston, and 2013 Palawan? Provide a short paragraph explaining how these timelines connect the central mystery of Eden's parentage.
Question 19.
Compare Martha Dung and Arabella Gresham as characters. In what ways does Martha serve as a foil to Arabella's worldview about marriage, money, and "the right kind of Chinese"?
Question 20.
The novel ends with Rufus carrying Eden out of the wedding ball and asking for "two tickets anywhere." How does this conclusion reflect and resolve the central tensions between love and social obligation, authenticity and performance, that run throughout the book?
Answer Key
Question 1 – Answer: B
Henry falls over a low glass balcony railing after Roger Gao lunges at him, plummeting onto a dinner table where a crystal candelabra impales him. Chapter 1 specifies the impalement on the candelabra.
Question 2 – Answer: B
Bea volunteers Eden to help with the mysterious "OS" (Operation Solène), and this sways Arabella into including both Eden and Dr. Tong. The evidence shows Bea dragging a reluctant Eden into Arabella's presence and offering her as a helper.
Question 3 – Answer: B
Rufus pulls Eden into a clearing, confesses his love, and kisses her—only for Jackie to scream that his microphone was broadcasting to the entire party. Chapter 21 (Chapter XIV) details this hot-mic confession.
Question 4 – Answer: B
Bea screams that the pregnancy test was hers and names Gopal Das as the father. Evidence from Chapter 55 confirms this revelation shatters the dinner.
Question 5 – Answer: B
Luis Felipe demands full repayment of all loans within thirty days or he will seize Greshamsbury Hall. Chapter 55 explicitly states this ultimatum.
Question 6 – Answer: B
Eden spots her father lunching with a British pop star and other high-profile figures, realizing he lives a hidden life. Chapter 43 describes this encounter at La Cienega Villas.
Question 7 – Answer: C
After Maxxie soaks her couture gown, he unzips it to reveal Augie's simple beach slip dress underneath. Chapter 19 shows Augie grinning in victory.
Question 8 – Answer: B
Thomas reads a name that leaves him pale, and he later reveals Eden inherits Roger Gao/Rene Tan's $90 billion empire. Chapters 66 and 67 detail this revelation.
Question 9 – Answer: B
Arabella vets Solène through a secret panel of elites and genetic testing, seeing her as the ideal bride to produce grandsons and secure a French noble alliance. Chapter 9 outlines Operation Solène.
Question 10 – Answer: C
Martha is charmed by Rufus's honesty in the Marrakech hammam and proposes visiting Greshamsbury deliberately to mislead his snobbish mother. Chapter 36 confirms this.
Question 11 – Answer: B
Arabella reflects on being mocked as "Goat Girl" in Hong Kong and witnesses her mother being knocked down by a British woman, forging her ambition. Chapter 27 gives this backstory, and Chapter 64 revisits the taxi-line memory.
Question 12 – Answer: B
Freddy confesses that his years of diet and exercise to attract Solène were futile, and his sister's advice to find a partner who enjoys food was correct. Chapter 17 captures this conversation over ube coladas.
Question 13 – Answer: B
In Coron, 2013 (Chapter 60), Rene Tan shows Thomas a photograph of Thomas's wife and credits Dr. George Tong with making his success possible, entangling the loans with family history.
Question 14 – Answer: B
The crystal candelabra symbolizes lethal opulence and the violent consequences of the toxic masculinity that drives Roger's rage. Chapter 1 frames it as a symbol of wealth turned deadly.
Question 15 – Answer: B
The lava fissures literally crack the ground open, mirroring how the family's financial and emotional secrets erupt. Gopal Das warns that offending Pele will bring a reckoning, and the volcano destroys the uninsured resort, exposing the Greshams' bankruptcy.
Question 16 – Answer: B
After being mistaken for hotel staff twice due to her Asian appearance, Eden purchases a Hawaiian designer dress and puts on red lipstick for the first time, signaling a new sense of self. Chapter 18 details this transformation.
Question 17 – Answer: B
The painting mirrors Arabella's terror of debtor's prison and losing her cosmetic dentist, status, and possessions. Chapter 27 explicitly links the painting to her fears.
Question 18 – Model Answer
The 1995 Hong Kong flashbacks establish Henry Tong's fatal proposal and death, revealing he had a pregnant girlfriend, Mary Gao. The 1998 Houston flashback shows Thomas recognizing Mary Gao (alias Faye Wang) as a cancer patient who faked her death. The 2013 Palawan flashback reveals Rene Tan's connection to the Tong family and a photograph of Thomas's wife. Together, these timelines unveil that Eden's biological father was Henry Tong, her biological mother was Mary Gao, and that Rene Tan was actually Roger Gao—Mary's brother—who sought atonement by making Eden his heir.
Question 19 – Model Answer
Martha Dung embodies self-made integrity and emotional intelligence. She inherited billions but transformed the fortune ethically, rejects performative elitism, and bonds with Rufus through honesty. Arabella, by contrast, weaponizes appearance and status, subscribes to "fake it till you make it," and judges Chinese people as either "the right kind or the wrong kind." Where Martha uses wealth to build bridges (paying for the Venice bridge so Bea can marry), Arabella uses it to control and exclude. Martha's friendship with Rufus exposes the emptiness of Arabella's transactional worldview.
Question 20 – Model Answer
Rufus and Eden's escape symbolizes the rejection of dynastic obligation, performance, and Arabella's relentless scheming. Throughout the novel, Rufus is pressured to marry for money; Eden is excluded, slandered, and blackmailed. The ending, with Rufus carrying Eden out and asking for tickets "anywhere," affirms that their love and authentic bond matter more than titles or fortunes. It resolves the tension by showing that genuine belonging is found not in inherited estates but in chosen companionship—and that refusing to play the game is itself a victory.