A review by linguisticali
Celestial Banquet by Roselle Lim

adventurous medium-paced

3.0

 I received an audio ARC from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The best thing about this was the food. I don't watch cooking shows (except Gastronauts - shoutout to Dropout), but I really enjoyed the descriptions of food and some aspects of the challenges. I also like the concept of humans having to deal with the power struggles between minor and major gods.

The worst thing about this was the love triangle. I personally hate love triangles (which is a real hindrance to my enjoyment of YA fantasy in general, to be honest), but this one felt especially pointless. I said "OH COME ON" out loud at least four times because the characters kept getting hung up on the romance when they should have been focusing on the life-threatening challenges. It felt so unnecessary and unconvincing.
I was really hoping Cai would go off on her own or with the big strong woman at the end instead, but no luck there.

On top of that, Cai was a bit of a nothing character, and I never felt like she surprised or impressed me in the challenges. I would have liked to see her come up with some ingenious solutions along the way.

I didn't think this was bad, but it wasn't for me. That said, Natalie Naudus is one of my favourite narrators, so I still had a perfectly pleasant reading experience despite not being very into the story. 
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