My critiques might be the same as many people's, but I wanted to mention a few things anyway.

It often feels as though there is a very surface level feel to many interactions and an unnecessary amount of information that is incredibly unnecessary and adds nothing of value. It also seems to pull you away from the story and the characters.

I will say, of note, that I liked Jasper, and while I can't speak on being gay and Vietnamese, I felt for him as a character.

But that only seems to highlight my earlier point. I don't care about lectures on something, I want to connect with the characters in the books I read. That connection just never lasted more than a few sentences.

With all that being said, I do want to reiterate that for all of its flaws I did enjoy certain aspects and, if nothing else, it did pique my interest in reading more by Vietnamese authors specifically.

Thank you for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In Cà Phê Đen by Sebastian Thach, we are given a novel that has an authentic voice, one that explores what it means to be an expatriate of Vietnam and an immigrant in the United States. The story explores the history of Vietnam through the emotional point of view of one man and his life.

In the novel, the author does an amazingly compelling job of reflecting on the importance of the name Saigon and what it meant when Saigon was taken over by Communist forces. He also explores how his character Jasper feels returning to Vietnam and the importance of his work in creating something to contribute to the growth of the city. I really appreciate the personal history between Jasper’s aunt and his own emotional conflict with his boyfriend, Anders. 

One of the elements that did pull me out of the story was the tendency to drop a lot of history of the area within the dialogue. It was also harder to connect to the character at those times or feel the emotions of Jasper. But I love the ending and the relationships that are developed in the second half of the book.

If you like novels about expatriates returning home with lgbtq characters, this one has such an authentic voice and charming character. The rich history of Vietnam is intriguing and the colorful sayings which help you learn a lot about the culture. It is a long history that is worth exploring. Not only will you learn about Vietnam but the observations of Sweden and the United States are equally engrossing.

I wasn't sure what to expect of this book, and I'm still not sure what I got. I enjoyed following Jasper around the world, but expected more of his perspective on the various countries as a gay man visiting or living there, but the book didn't dig in that deep. It's more about Jasper himself than the places he visits.

A few other reviews mention "infodumps," and I do understand what they mean. There are chunks of text that are just giving information to the reader, and not all of these seem necessary. At the same time, I know the author has lived in Sweden for a time, and this is something I have noticed in other Swedish novels, sort of infodumping or listing out facts. I've read thrillers where the main character furnished her apartment at Ikea and the reader got a list of her purchases like we reading her receipt, or a historical novel where the author listed the animals and products produced on a farm. That's all to say, while I noticed the infodumping, I think it might just be a quirk of Swedish novels that stands out to native English speakers.

While I didn't love this book, and it definitely wandered and lost my interest in places, I did still enjoy it as a whole and would recommend it to people who want an better understanding of specifically Vietnamese gay men working specifically as designers or living specifically in these places.

Judge as you will, but I don't normally request independently published novels. However, I sometimes make exceptions for AAPI novels, and within that, anything in the Vietnamese diaspora. This one doubly pulled me in as it features one of my favorite countries, Sweden. Skål!

From a learning about Vietnam and Sweden standpoint, I say this holds its own. I marked down a few places to visit in Saigon. As a novel with a plot, it was harder to follow. I see this was originally published in 2021. It could use some edits. There are missing words and sentences every few pages. For quite some time, not that it matters, but I couldn't tell if Jasper was male or female. If you're interested, he's male, but again, edits.

There was so much infodumping. A lot of telling, not showing. And while I understand that the author is also, in fact, an architect, let's maybe leave it at that. The further and further we got into the book, the more outrageous things seemed to be. Betrayal! Coming outs! La!

Anyway, I don't wish to be unnecessarily harsh because I'm very interested in my own diaspora, but it is what it is

This novel feels like a bait and switch. I was expecting to see the world through the eyes of a gay Vietnamese boat person who comes of age in the West. However, that aspect of the story gets scant attention.

The dialogue and characters feel as wooden and manufactured as Jasper’s eco-friendly apartments. The dialogue often seems contrived to let one of the characters speak in info dump or to let the author make a point. If the author wants to use the dialogue as exposition, the dialogue should still sound realistic, but in this novel, it does not.

The first part of the book feels like a lecture on Swedish public policy. The viewpoint character and his partner cannot even pick out a bottle of wine without having the author lecture the reader on the history of alcohol regulation in Sweden, a topic that never comes up again and about which most readers likely don’t care anyway. This aspect of the book relies heavily on “Tell; don’t show.”

Then comes a lot of detail about the permitting process, which I suspect most readers will skim. The main conflict arises almost three-quarters of the way through the novel and feels rushed. By the time it is introduced, the reader will have likely stopped caring what happens to any of the characters. It is also resolved through a deus ex machina.

The ending could have made a satisfying story in its own right, with the viewpoint alternating between the characters whose story it was. However, in the novel, it feels tacked on as an afterthought.