I received an ARC from NetGalley. I had a rough start with this book. It was difficult for me to get started with it. I kept on, and I'm really happy that I did. Once I got to know each superbly done character it was effortless. The story unfolded and carried me right along. A family story, but with elements of greasy underworld, favors and payoffs... It almost reminded me of Goodfellas, only with Chinese food. LOL I really enjoyed it!

Ms Li is obviously an accomplished and talented writer. But as lovely as the descriptions of the restaurant, the food, the clothes, atmosphere all were, there was not a likable character in the bunch.

From self-indulgent recovering addict Jimmy, to wimpy, kow-tows to everyone Nan, to her impudent angry son Pat, to her wish-washy long-time love Ah-Jack, and more. There was not a single person I wanted to root for in this book.

The story, the interactions between characters, the anguish and thrill and sorrow when the character speak their innermost thoughts, all were beautifully composed.

BUT, I just could not get over my intense dislike of every single person in the book. Honestly, I just didn't care for any of them. I wanted them to grow a spine, grow up, get a life, man up, stand up for themselves, do the right thing and let right overcome wrong. Sigh.

I would love to be able to recommend this book but I just can't. I just can't.

The Han family has owned The Duck House for decades. Now, Jimmy Han has his sights set on a fancier place, his own place. But it won't be easy.

Relationships between generations, friends and family, whether hateful or loving, but steeped in loyalty are at the heart of this dark and sometimes funny book.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Unhappy with his father's restaurant he tries to start his own. A lot of interpersonal relationships among several characters keeps this story moving from a few different points of view over a rather short period of time. It was an okay read.

This was a bit of an odd story, which can be great, but in this case fella little flat for me. I found the characters to be a bit trying and almost abandoned the book at one point, though I am glad I ultimately finished it. It's not bad at all, just not really for me.

Agitated. That’s how I felt reading Number One Chinese Restaurant. I felt agitated and unsettled throughout the entire book. The characters agitated me on almost every page, as they argued with and annoyed each other on a constant basis.

This is the story of a Chinese family, the Hans, and the restaurant dynasty they’ve struggled to maintain for several decades. Alongside the Hans are their employees, friends, and business acquaintances, some of whom they’ve known since childhood.

Jimmy Han, the younger son of the deceased restaurant founder, manages the day to day operations of the business. He is on the floor, barking orders, sometimes cooking, often yelling insults to those around him. He has plans of opening a second restaurant, the Beijing Glory – a more lavish, upscale version of what he considers his late father’s old-fashioned and outdated establishment, the Duck House. Jimmy’s dream causes him to plan a desperate act with the help of an old family acquaintance, a godfather-like “fixer.” Although he decides better of his idea, wheels are already set in motion, and the plan takes off without him, involving his niece and the teenage son of one of his loyal employees.

The characters in the novel are tied intricately together through years and familial bonds, yet no one seems to like each other. Each character is pitted against the next in a never-ending swirl of insults, dislike and distrust – brother to brother, parent to child, lover to lover, spouse to spouse. I found this exhausting and couldn’t bring myself to like even one character in the story. Their incessant anger, disillusionment, and disappointment in life was ultimately so depressing that I couldn’t wait for the story to end. I persevered, however, as I really wanted to know how everything played out in the end.

The book itself was well-written, although I was consistently taken aback by the author switching perspectives and settings without warning in the middle of a chapter. I finally got used to this, although it was another reason to feel unsettled throughout the book. Maybe that was the author’s intent. If so, it worked. More agitation.

A 3 star rating, and this only because I did have enough interest in the storyline to follow it through to the end.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book immediately draws the reader into a web of relationships that fascinates. The prose is descriptive, the plot moves at a great pace and the ending is intriguing. Excellent reading experience.

Some books just aren’t your style. This was one of those for me. It was well written and the story was interesting but I didn’t feel invested in the characters. It was like they had no soul. The Duck House was owned by the Han family. Jimmy and Johnny’s father had owned it until his death and now the sons are doing their best to run it into the ground. You meet the “boys” (their grown men) eccentric mother and several of the employees from the restaurant. These employees, after working together for many years, have formed their own “work family”. This family knows each other’s strengths and their weaknesses. If you have worked at a job for any amount of time, this is fairly common. I just can’t work-up much excitement for what seemed like a long, sometimes tedious story. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy for my honest review.

I received this book from NetGalley and was excited to dive into a fiction that dealt with themes surrounding the Chinese restaurant life. I personally grew up as a product of this very niche subculture. I think that Li does some things well here. She illuminates the generational barrier that disallows a conventionally intimate relationship between 1st gen parents, who toil endlessly to pave the way for their progeny, and the 2nd gen children who yearns for the existence of some kind of a relationship and even at times resent the unwelcome gift of toil. She exposes, in rare occasions, that a language barrier can inhibit what communication there is left between generations. Her minor characters, in a restaurant setting where most of the book takes place, have fleeting qualities that lend to the vapid impressions and homogeneity of each character - this is very much accurate to the environment. She dabbles with the organism of Chinese microeconomy and microcosm that would exchange progressive methods of enterprising a restaurant in exchange for loyalty to your people. The cultural differences certainly collide when a business is passed on to children with a completely different framework of goals in enterprising.

At times, I felt like this was more a made-for-TV movie more than a novel because the characters weren't fleshed out more so they seemed a bit cliche. It was somewhat entertaining, but without adding spoiler alerts, I expected more to happen with our two youngest characters in the novel. We get to the end of the novel and are faced with a Six Months Later notice to avoid having the characters
change or reveal any self-discovery.

Even though I can't say that I connected with any of the characters, this novel was exceptionally well-written. Jimmy is high-strung, mean and constantly trying to prove himself to his deceased father and live up to his overbearing mother's unrealistic parental and cultural expectations. In the beginning, you almost think his brother Johnny is his foil, but towards the end you realize he's battling his own demons and insecurities. And Uncle Pang is the evil villain through it all. It was truly like reading a Chinese soap opera on paper, a very good one I might add.

I am mixed on my reaction to this book; although I felt the last third of the book was really good, I had trouble sticking with it. The characters are basically unlikable, even though the setting for the story is a Chinese restaurant, and the view into another way of life is interesting, I didn't feel we had insight into the characters until Johnny and Feng Fei entered the scene as more than just background players. Jimmy is the main character, and he is just someone I couldn't feel anything for. I would rate this a 3.5.

In some ways, this book was hard to get into, some of which was mechanical: I was reading an uncorrected copy and in places the formatting—or lack thereof—at scene breaks was distracting and caused me to be taken momentarily out of the story as I re-oriented myself. Also, there was such a large number of characters that, until I got well-enough acquainted with all of them, it was difficult to keep track of who was who. Eventually, though, I did settle in and enjoyed the atmosphere of the old—and the new—Chinese restaurants, particularly the relationships that developed between the bosses and the employees, even the employees' children.

Unfortunately, this was not a book that I could finish. I have a very hard time getting into books where none of the main characters are particularly likable and barely even seem to like each other. The writing itself was engaging and I did enjoy the subtle details that went into how each character was brought to life, but sadly, I didn't really like them beyond that.

I do very much so appreciate being sent an advance copy of this book to peruse!

I enjoyed this book as a whole even though I didn't find myself particularly rooting for any of the characters or storylines. Family is complicated, especially if the family business is successful but has been passed to the next generation, kind of includes the wait staff, and then there's that pesky uncle figure with Triad ties. There's no dramatic extended sequence to the motherland (they do mention Beijing and Macau), they're just trying to get on with their lives in Maryland.

I liked parts of this book and some of the characters. They were some funny moments, intense situations, and vivid characters all set against the backdrop of the family restaurant.

Although restaurants provide centerpieces of the novel, there are other invitations for potential life changing confrontations framed by the food, and the way in which that food is prepared and offered gives scenes immediacy as well as normalization of what could be explosive situations. This is true of almost every culture. Discordant exchanges are either enhanced or softened by the sharing of a meal, and Lillian Li slyly incorporates such practices throughout this deceptively light toned novel. Jimmy and Johnny Han are second generation owners of The Beijing Duck House, which was the realization of their father’s dream upon emigrating to Maryland. The two other main characters are their employees, Jack and Nan, who have known each other deeply for 30 years, but are brought together by circumstance and misunderstanding. Their story is propelled by the fate of the restaurant, and their acceptance of fate also contains elements of black comedy. As the story unfolds, the Hans and their employees are brought to life vividly, their complex lives illuminated, and this made me hungry for some Peking duck.

Thank you NetGalley for a digital advanced copy. Sadly, I did not like this book at all. I had considered DNF at 25 percent in but persisted. There was nothing about the main family to like at all. I don’t mind flawed characters, but I need to also like the characters and I did not. There were two secondary characters Nan and Jack, and Nan’s son that I had some empathy for their story. But all these characters were just sad and some of them mean. And there didn’t seem to be any resolution for most of them. Giving this book a 2 may have even been too much.

A light and funny novel about family dynamics with entertaining characters. The title refers to the family business, a Chinese restaurant that binds the family together, while also pulling them apart.

I only got a few pages into this before giving up: it was so poorly written that I could not tell which character was supposed to be speaking.