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A review by shelfexplanatory
A Pho Love Story by Loan Le
3.0
A PHỞ LOVE STORY by Loan Le is a YA rom-com about two Vietnamese-American teens, Linh Mai and Bảo Nguyễn, whose families own competing phở restaurants in California's Little Saigon.
If you can, I recommend having some Vietnamese food nearby while reading this book because it will make you HUNGRY! Every food that was mentioned gave me cravings. People tend to default to phở and bánh mì when thinking about Viet food, so it was wonderful to see APLS highlight so many of the other great dishes (& desserts!) that are out there. If you haven't branched outside of phở before, you should remediate that ASAP!
Although this is a rom-com, I really enjoyed the family drama plotline. I couldn't stop reading when Linh and Bảo started to unravel the history behind their family feud. The theme of growing to understand your family through their past is a not uncommon in diasporic Vietnamese lit, but it's something that I don't tire of because it is so entwined with Viet-Am identity. At one point, a character talks about how he has questions that he wishes he had asked his mother before she died, because now he doesn't have that chance anymore. This really struck a chord with me and is something that I'll be thinking about for a while.
A PHỞ LOVE STORY is out now! Thank you to Colored Pages Book Tours for having me on the #APhoLoveStory tour and Simon Teen for sending me an ARC!
If you can, I recommend having some Vietnamese food nearby while reading this book because it will make you HUNGRY! Every food that was mentioned gave me cravings. People tend to default to phở and bánh mì when thinking about Viet food, so it was wonderful to see APLS highlight so many of the other great dishes (& desserts!) that are out there. If you haven't branched outside of phở before, you should remediate that ASAP!
Although this is a rom-com, I really enjoyed the family drama plotline. I couldn't stop reading when Linh and Bảo started to unravel the history behind their family feud. The theme of growing to understand your family through their past is a not uncommon in diasporic Vietnamese lit, but it's something that I don't tire of because it is so entwined with Viet-Am identity. At one point, a character talks about how he has questions that he wishes he had asked his mother before she died, because now he doesn't have that chance anymore. This really struck a chord with me and is something that I'll be thinking about for a while.
A PHỞ LOVE STORY is out now! Thank you to Colored Pages Book Tours for having me on the #APhoLoveStory tour and Simon Teen for sending me an ARC!