Taleen Voskuni is a beautiful writer and an integral voice in the romance community with her stunning work in Armenian + LBGTQ+ romances. Everything she does in representing the Armenian culture is gorgeous, thoughtful, and enormously informative within the community. Armenians are such a small race, and there isn't a lot of conversation about them, which makes Voskuni's novel even more rewarding. The plot for Lavash at First Sight features one of the most intriguing and unique narratives to date, keeping the story engaging from start to finish. It's also full of so many delicious food references that reading and eating Armenian food should go hand in hand. How she weaves in the importance and complexities of platonic, familial relationships is no small feat and part of the reason why both her novels are so special.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for an advance reader copy -- all opinions are my own.

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

Ugh, I loved this so much, even as it slowly simmered away and built up the tale gradually. Such a great read, can't wait to revisit it again.

I love a foodie romance, and Lavash at First Sight was such a cute sapphic story between Ellie and Anya, with delicious food descriptions, Armenian food and culture, and all the family drama that comes with rivaling family businesses.

Their chemistry was so good and I ate up their banter, and just loved the Chicago setting and all the delicious food had my mouth watering. I read in tandem with the audiobook and loved listening to the narration by Christine Mirzayan.

*many thanks to Berkley Romance, PRH audio, and Netgalley for the gifted copy for review

This book was a surprising Sapphic romance. It's all about food, family dynamics and culture. I liked how strongly created the main characters are, and those well crafted scenes that makes this book an enjoyable read.

Is this predictable? Yes. Is this adorable? Also yes.

The romance isn't the main focus of the book, but it's heartwarming to see queer Armenian representation play out. The family drama and miscommunication are overblown in places, but it ended up being more fun than I thought it would be.

Thank you, Netgalley, the author, and Berkley Publishing for the gifted e-book! ❤️ #gifted. My review is comprised of my honest thoughts.

Read this book if you like: LGBTQ representation, competition, family drama

Loveeeee. I loved Sorry Bro and this one is just as great. I love the competitive edge and the family drama added to it. I do wish there was a tad more romance, but this was a complex story. Very well done!

I love sapphic books so much!
This one was so cute, and had such great representation.
The characters were just so sweet, and so adorable.
This was just a really fun sapphic romance!

The book follows Nazeli “Ellie” Gregorian as she travels to a food packaging conference in Chicago to help her parents market their Armenian food company. While in Chicago, she meets stunning Vanya Simonian and can’t ignore their mutual attraction… but will spending time with Vanya jeopardize her commitment to work and distract her from helping her overbearing parents?

While this has a romance story line, I would say it leans more women’s fiction. A big chunk of the story is spent on Ellie’s troubles at work and navigating her relationship with her parents.

This was my first book with Armenian main characters, and I enjoyed learning more about the culture, traditions and family dynamics. The food competition added a fun twist to the story and made for some comical moments.

However, the romance in Lavash at First Sight left me wanting for more. Most of the book takes place in under one week during the competition. During her first day in Chicago, Ellie is still trying to get back together with her tech bro ex-booty call. Then boom, she meets Vanya, and all thoughts of her ex disappear, and it is full speed ahead. I think given the length of the book and the other plot points the author wanted to cover, there wasn’t enough time to fully develop an insta-love romance. It didn’t feel as genuine because Ellie went into the week still lusting over her ex.

Read if you like:
• Sapphic romances
• Books with complicated family dynamics
• Food and cooking competitions
• Steam level: closed door

Thank you to Berkley Romance for a finished copy of this title in exchange for an honest review; all thoughts are my own.

I can't resist a foodie romance, especially a queer one! I loved the food aspects, the reflection on queer Armenian identity, and the family dynamics. The romance could have used a little more attention — I feel like I didn't really get to know the love interest at all — but overall, a fun journey.

I need characters’ jobs to stop taking the forefront in what are supposed to be romances!! that is so incredibly boring and takes away from the romance plot. I was disappointed, especially since this is summarized as a star crossed lovers vibes. that posits tension, not snoozing!

Voskuni always writes such heartwarming, sweet, character-driven romances. I love reading about her queer Armenian heroines finding love, and this one did not disappoint!

The sophomore novel from Taleen Voskuni does not disappoint! I love this author and her contemporary sapphic romances! The characters feel so real and still so realistically messy with interesting motivations and desires. The family aspects of the novels also just feel so well done. I will truly read anything from Voskuni moving forward

Family drama, millennial coming-of-age story, with a cute modern-day romance in the mix.

I love books where the MC is in a generally long-term toxic situation and doesn’t realize it…could be at work, in a relationship, whatever. And then throughout the book, we see them have this moment of “oh! This is what work/relationships/life/etc COULD be like!” And then there’s a storyline that helps them work things out for themselves.

This is that. It was cute. The relationship was pretty basic, but man those dates sounded AMAZING tbh.

Overall a quick, light summer read.

I enjoyed Sorry, Bro, Taleen Voskuni’s first novel: the main character breaks up with a non-Armenian tech bro, falls in love with an Armenian woman, and struggles with her identity as a bisexual woman. What’s not to like? I also appreciated the opportunity to learn about Armenian culture and the Bay Area Armenian diaspora.

Unfortunately, Lavash at First Sight is not as good as Sorry, Bro for one simple reason: it is too short. I am actually not bothered by the fact that the plot follows the same sequence described in the previous paragraph. What I don’t think works is that the novel reads like an extended Before Sunrise/Roman Holiday situation in which the girl has to leave home to find love on vacation.

Of course, it isn’t really a vacation–Nazeli works for a Bay Area tech company, after all. (Yes, using PTO, but still having to do work is gross, and no one should do it.) The bulk of the novel takes place at PakCon, a food packaging convention for vendors and distributors. If that doesn’t sound very Jesse and Celine, that’s because it isn’t. In between scenes at PakCon, which features an old family rivalry (yes, there’s also some Montague and Capulet action in Lavash), Nazeli and Vanya tour some of Chicago’s sights while they get to know each other. To review, there are the plot beats of Sorry, Bro, PakCon and the reality-esque competition that occurs there, family rivalry, and a Roman Chicago holiday. As I said, Lavash at First Sight needs to be longer in order to support everything Voskuni wants to include.

Two quick asides:

1) If you like your novels on the shorter side, I understand; however, you’re not often going to see me suggest than an author cut/edit. Just write more stuff for me to read!

2) It is actually kind of a Roman holiday because there is a scene set in a Roman bath. No, really, there is.

Perhaps the bigger problem is that Before Sunrise and Roman Holiday don’t have HEAs. (They don’t, and I will not be taking questions.) The plot structure of those films won’t work in a romance novel if the expectation is an HEA. It seems like Voskuni knows this and inserts the family rivalry and the competition at the food convention to give the story a place to go, but those elements belie the breeziness of Nazeli and Vanya’s budding relationship. And while we’re on the subject of too much going in too little of a page count, here seems like a good point to bring up the fact that Lavash at First Sight is a fade to black romance.

To me, none of these elements go together. Again, I think more time was needed to knit everything together in the most successful way. I liked the story, and I would have liked it better if it had time to breathe.

One thing that I really appreciated about Lavash, however, is the way that Voskuni deals with cell phones. There are text message conversations in almost every book that I’ve read this year, so my reaction to what Voskuni does definitely merits notice. Okay, now I know how this is going to sound, but hear me out: I miss long phone calls. I’m talking about the phone calls that go on for so long that you actually run out of things to say and someone falls asleep. It’s not like cell phones and texting replaced those—if anything, emails and instant messaging did. Plus, you can still call someone on a cell phone, and you don’t even have to worry about phone cords anymore.

What I’m trying to say is that I learned what “dry texting” was a couple of months ago. I mean, I already knew what it was; I just didn’t know that there was a name for it. This will come as a surprise to no one, but I don’t usually write short texts. If I send a short text, I can guarantee that something has been edited out (probably either an aside that begins with the word “also” or has parentheses around it). And, sure, in terms of texting, some people can do a lot with a little. Within the first few chapters of Lavash, we’ve seen multiple exchanges between Nazeli and the tech bro. Not a spoiler alert: he’s not one of those people. Nazeli’s first text to Vanya, on the other hand: quality flirt.

The cell phone thing is a relatively small detail, but that small detail drew me in. In a genre that is well-known for its conventions and tropes, the small details are often what make us remember a novel or an author. If it isn’t completely clear by now, I wanted more from Lavash at First Sight. That said, I still recommend it, and I will happily read whatever Voskuni writes next.

This was marketed to me as a romance, which led me to dislike it quite a lot. I didn't love the writing style and found the romance very lacking and based entirely on insta-love. I also wasn't a fan of Ellie's "corporate girly" energy. That said, after talking with friends about this book, I think it could be successful if marketed as sapphic fiction that's part love letter to Chicago and part love letter to Armenian culture and food. The food competition was one of the best parts of the book!

Lavash at First Sight serves up a fun romantic comedy sprinkled with delicious food and sizzling chemistry. When tech-savvy Ellie Gregorian finds herself at a food packaging conference in Chicago, she meets the witty and charming Vanya Simonian. Sparks fly between them, but their budding romance is complicated by their families’ rivalry in the Armenian food industry. As Ellie and Vanya navigate their attraction while competing against each other, they must confront their parents’ suspicions and their own feelings, all while serving up a side of love.

As much as I love a foodie theme, I wish the author had focused a bit more on the romance side! It felt like Ellie and Vanya’s attraction to one another was the garnish of this quick read. It was still an overall good time, so I’d recommend it to those who like a good dollop of plot with their romance novels!

I unfortunately had to DNF this book. I found the main character to be whiney and hard to read about. I tried to like this but I just can't bring myself to finish. I like that it's sapphic and the cover is cute though.

I struggled with this one. I just didn’t connect with our first FMC, Ellie. She’s Armenian, but basically is doing all she can to not be associated with her culture and heritage. An Americanized nickname, lives away from her family, works in tech, etc.

She meets Vanya, another Armenian, at this big food convention. And wow, surprise, their parents have rival companies. But there wasn’t much substance to their relationship, and I didn’t get any spark.

Look, Ellie fell asleep underneath her parents’ table at the food convention while working her laptop. HOW? I can’t get past that. That’s when I was done with Ellie and this book.

And thus, add another to the list of DNF 2024.

Lavash at First Sight is a delightful romcom about Ellie and Vanya, whose parents own competing Armenian food businesses. Both from California, they meet at a convention in Chicago, and are immediately attracted to each other, though Vanya is more carefree and Nazeli "Ellie" is running herself ragged trying to earn a promotion at a fast paced job that takes her for granted. Thank you so much to Berkley Books, Netgalley, and Taleen Voskuni for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.