A fun read with interesting things to say about grief, family, and the immigrant experience. Despite enjoying the themes, I had trouble really getting engaged with the actual plot and characters, and the major conflicts seemed to resolve a little too simply and easily right at the end. Despite that, Nguyen painted a beautiful portrait of Sài Gòn, and this would have great appeal for teens.

I think it is a good book that people may like. It includes multiple perspectives giving the reading an interesting view to the story. This addition makes the story more interesting. The book contains a few twists and turns but not as many as I would have liked. For example, Lan says she looks at Vivi like another tourist after everything they had been through in such a small amount of time. I think that the way both of the main characters envy each other’s life styles makes for a funny irony. Lan wishes she could roam the globe and Vivi wants to live in Vietnam. The differences between the two characters are amplified through the development of their relationship. All these factors make for a fun book to read.

I loved this book so much. Not only was it so cute and adorable but it also taught me so much about Vietnam. I love how this book includes so much culture and food in the vietnamese culture. I felt like I learned so much while also enjoying a cute story. I was really happy with the ending and think the author really did a great job with this book!

A Bánh Mì for Two, by Trinity Nguyen, is an adorable sapphic YA, set in Vietnam. Two foodies, Vietnamese-American Vivi and Saigon native Lan, spend Vivi’s study-abroad semester eating delicious street food together and falling in love.

This entire book is vibes and setting, not plot, and the vibes are great. Young love, an exciting city, and loads of delicious street food, all good. There are off-camera family secrets from the start, but that’s not the main feeling of this YA novel. It’s about hopping on a motorbike with your crush and going off to eat something new and great.

Lan works at her family’s food stall and writes a food blog, also called A Banh Mi For Two. Although it’s a wildly popular food blog — so popular that Vivi reads it in the US — Lan has been preoccupied and not updating it. She has a shot at a prestigious writing contest, but feels like ditching the food stall is also ditching her family, and she doesn’t feel like want to even enter the contest. (Yes, just roll with that, at no point does it feel like Lan will really drop the blog and contest.)

Meanwhile, Vivi applied for a study abroad program in Vietnam, convinced her bestie to do it too, got both sets of their parents to sign on, while convincing them all that the program is in Indonesia, and any Vietnamese background sound is just a Vietnamese-language soap opera on TV. Look, the book’s all about the vibes, ok?

There are serious elements of family struggles for both girls. Lan and her mother are coping with the recent death of her dad, and Vivi’s main reason to come to Vietnam is uncovering her mother’s secret story of why and how she left Vietnam. These added some depth to the romantic lead characters, but somehow the more serious storylines didn’t really have tension for me. I knew in a warm YA romance like this, Vivi would learn more and come to understand her mother better. (Another recent read, Mai Nguyen’s Sunshine Nails, had similar references in the narrative to the parents’ experiences fleeing atrocities in Vietnam, before returning to the main family-comedy storyline.) Same for Lan’s struggles with her family responsibilities, it’s always clear to readers, if not to Lan herself, that there’s a way to balance both.

Some of the resolutions are slightly facile and slightly obvious (it never crossed my mind that Lan would really quit food blogging) but remember, this book is all about study-abroad romance vibes and amazing international foods! It’s a fun young-love adventure! Enjoy the sweet romance all around the food stalls in A Banh Mi For Two.

If you are looking for a sweet and sizzling summer romance to end your summer on a high note, A Bánh Mì for Two by Trinity Nguyen is a sweet romance between a Vietnamese American college student and a food blogger in Sài Gòn who is looking for her inspiration again after the death of her father. I would like to thank MacMillan for providing the Lesbrary with an ARC—A Bánh Mì for Two comes out on August 20th. I greatly enjoyed this novel; the romance is sweet, and both characters have interesting arcs as they struggle to deal with what becoming an adult means in terms of dealing with family and making big choices for themselves. Plus, I learned about street food in Sài Gòn and got very hungry in the process!

The romance takes place between Lan, a girl who currently helps run with family bánh mì stand with her mother and cousin, and Vivi, an American college student in Sài Gòn for a semester abroad. Vivi has told her parents she’s studying in Singapore, but in reality has come to see if she can track down the family history her mother refuses to speak about. As a bonus, she hopes to visit the places that her absolute favorite food blog has written about before they went on a long hiatus. Lan is helping her mother with their stand after the death of her father—she had had aspirations of going to college and being a writer, having enjoyed the popularity of the food blog she had started with the help of her father, but has felt both adrift and drowning under the weight of family expectations. A chance encounter in a park connects the two girls. Vivi, upon realizing that Lan is her favorite food writer, is excited, a little starstruck, and determined to help her find her writing inspiration again; Lan realizes that her deep roots in Sài Gòn could be what Vivi needs to discover her family’s past. As they spend more time together, they grow closer, they begin to realize that this may be more than a summer friendship.

I thought the romance between Lan and Vivi was very cute. Both girls, after a rocky start, are smitten with each other. Through Vivi’s eyes, Lan once again falls in love with her home city and her passions, and through Lan, Vivi is inspired to be bold and reach for what she wants. Both girls inspire and help each other and their feelings grow from that. If you are looking for some sweet first love, this is the place—even their first fight is barely worth the name, and they’re soon back to being joined at the hip.

Besides being a cute romance, this book also has a lot to say about growing up and figuring out how to deal with your family as a newly-fledged adult. Although they come from very different backgrounds and life experiences, Lan and Vivi are both at the same stage of life, where they are technically grown but still trying to figure out how to make their life their own. For Vivi, this study abroad experience is her chance specifically to make decisions that her parents wouldn’t approve of. Lan, on the other hand, is having trouble not taking all her family’s problems on herself, even when they urge her to live her own life. Throw in Vivi’s hidden family history, and there’s a lot for the girls to deal with on top of their burgeoning romance, but it is, in my opinion, the meat of the story.

All in all, A Bánh Mì for Two is a cute romance that successful drew me into a wonderful mood and distracted me from the simmering summer heat. I would again like to thank the publisher for the ARC. A Bánh Mì for Two comes out tomorrow, and I absolutely recommend it if you are looking for a cute summer romance to round out your summer.

“Because of you, I think I’ve finally learned how special this place I call hom really is.”

A Bành Mi For Two was a really cute novel. Located in Vietnam, Vivi and Lan’s story unfolds around the roots they both have in the country, though in a different way. As Vivi, helped by Lan, discovers the country her parents were born in and never returned to, they mostly learn who they really are, and learn to understand their relationship with Family and grow together.
I really loved how the whole story revolve around food (Vivi and Lan’s love language is definitely food!), as an example how the cultures blend and mix, and how it makes people closer to one another, making it a mirror of the MCs. With that, the author questions the identity, the sense of belonging, how and why a place feels like home.
Colonialism was another central theme. Own voice novels approaching this subject always have a special place to me and as a French person I loved to read that book, and how everything was mentioned, especially the differences of how History is mentioned (and taught) depending on the country you live in. That’s something I realized pretty late in my life during a trip to Ireland, and I loved how it can be told in a YA novel. I truly believe we (all) need to read more of these books.
The love story –two girls, food, and a city– was absolutely cute, tender and sweet, making the book an absolute easy read.

Thank you MacMillan, NetGalley, ColouredPagesnbt, Fierce Reads and Trinity Nguyen for the free copy of the book. My opinions are my own.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

This book. This book has my whole heart. I absolutely adored this! From the incredible characters, to the plot, to falling in love with everything so quickly- I couldn’t put this down. I highly recommend this!

I appreciate having a diverse, sapphic read. I think this book for me might not have been the right day/right time.

i cannot tell you how much i loved this book. it's on the top of my list for this year and probably for the rest of my life.

a banh mi for two follows vivi and lan. vivi has lied to her parents about her exchange program and secretly gone to their home country, vietnam, which her mother had always been strictly against. she's determined to learn more about her mother's past and why she is so adamant about never saying anything about her life back in vietnam.

the other character is lan, who loves writing and sharing her love for her city saigon's rich street food culture on her popular blog. after her father's death though, she has not felt like writing. vivi is a big follower of lan's food blog, a banh mi for two, and admires her so much.
when the two meet in saigon, they make a deal to help each other with their respective problems. vivi helps lan find her love back for her writing she lost amidst the grief she felt after her father's passing, and lan helps vivi find her relatives and learn more about her family's past in the city.

i don't know where to start tbh, the setting? so beautiful. the characters? loved. their relationship with each other? crying. both their growth throughout the book? sobbing. the food descriptions? salivating. my need to visit saigon? increased tenfold.
let's go with the setting and everything that comes with it first. the city of saigon was so beautifully portrayed that i felt like i could step into the book and grab myself a banh mi from lan's stall and risk my life crossing the streets. there were so many aspects of vietnamese culture featured, and it was all so interesting to read about. perhaps what i loved most was that the author didn't just focus on vivi and lan, but also on lan's relationship with her family and the other locals.

while vivi and lan have such a cute relationship together, i loved that both lan and vivi's stories were so important to the novel as well. it never felt like the romance between them overstepped each of their own stories and i appreciated that so much, as i feel like that's something that tends to happen often in ya contemporary romance novels. i also feel like this would be even harder to achieve in a book shorter than usual for its genre, but a banh mi for two did it so beautifully.

this also made me cry a little towards the end. both vivi and lan's stories and feelings were so touching to me and it was written in such a way that the reader could feel it through the pages. i don't know how one can do this, but i'm impressed.

i've been following trinity and a banh mi for two since she posted a moodboard on twitter years ago, and a banh mi for two was entirely worth the wait. i'm making everyone around me read it and i will not be stopped anytime soon, or ever for that matter. pick this book up if you too, like me, need sapphic vietnamese girls with family trauma falling in love with each other in your life. because you do, even if you don't know it yet. <3

thank you sooo much to the author trinity nguyen who kindly let me have the e-arc when i dmed her and told me that me reading and enjoying it was enough when i said i didn't have many followers. and for writing such an amazing little book.

A BÁNH MÌ FOR TWO is a sapphic ya romance about two teenage girls who connect over their love of street food and việt nam. lan, who works at her family's bánh mì stand and moonlights as a secret food blogger, hasn't been able to write since her father's passing. when vivi, a vietnamese-american student and devout follower of lan's writing, asks her for help to find her mother's family, the two girls find themselves exploring the streets of sài gòn and catching feelings along the way.

this was such a sweet story and i loved every part of it, but what stood out the most to me was how much i learned about vietnamese culture, history and cuisine. one of my favorite parts of reading is learning more about the world and this book was the perfect way to do that. along with that, vivi and lan's romance was so cute and i loved seeing them fall for each other, all while being on their journeys of self-discovery and growth.

read if you like:
- so much talk of delicious food
- study abroad flings
- grumpy/sunshine

thanks to netgalley and henry holt for the advanced copy!

If you’re looking for a sweet romance set in a beautiful city and packed with tantalizing descriptions of food, you will not want to miss this book. It’s also a super quick read at a little over 200 pages.

I love the descriptions of the city of Sài Gòn. The author describes the book as partly her love letter to the city, and that affection comes through on every page of this novel. I felt like I could hear the noise of the city and smell the food made by the street vendors.

Lan and Vivi’s relationship is really sweet. Spending time together and showing an actual person the things she loves about Sài Gòn reinvigorates Lan. The fog of writer’s block that surrounded her begins to dissipate, and she begins writing again. Lan also helps Vivi find her family through her connections with people and her knowledge of the city.

The only thing that seemed a little odd was that we never really see anything about the educational part of Vivi’s study abroad program. I don’t remember there being descriptions of the university or even her traveling to and from classes. It wasn’t a major part of the story, so it wasn’t a big deal. Just something I noticed.

The story alternates between Lan and Vivi’s points of view. Both share complicated relationships with their moms. After losing her dad unexpectedly, Lan wants to protect her mom and support her so much that she’s closed off other parts of her life. Vivi desperately wants to know about her mom’s past in Việt Nam, something her mom refuses to talk about despite their closeness in other ways. I like that the book explores different mother-daughter relationships and the roles of parents and children.

“My Sài Gòn, I realize, is vibrant, full of life and, for me, full of love.”

A Bánh Mì for Two is one of the most beautiful books I’ve had the honor of reading in a while. It brought me to tears so many times, there was just so many beautiful moments and I literally closed the book after the last page and just had to sit there in awe for a few minutes. Lan & Vivi were such wonderful characters to read about, both with so many layers to them and written in a way that I think so many will be able to relate to. Getting to read about Việt Nam and it’s culture through both of their different experiences was such a gift, the way both of their journeys is written was phenomenal in my opinion and it’s one of the best YA books I’ve read this year! I also loved seeing Lan & Vivi just getting to be two girlies falling softly in love, it was so cute and heartwarming. I loved this book so much that no words will do it justice but I highly encourage you all to give this one a read and go on a journey of love and discovery that is full of culture, food and people with complex stories that will tug at your heartstrings!

Additionally, I’m super happy to see this book get a dual release as it will be available in both paperback and hardcover and both with stunning sprayed edges! I think this is so important for teens to be able to have access to meaningful books like this one, I would love to see more of this in publishing!

I have been waiting to read this for so long. I am a sucker for pretty covers, and as soon as I saw this one and then learned it was about food, I KNEW this was basically written for me lol No for real, this had all the makings of a Nikki book and I called it as soon as I heard about it.

Ok so the romance was so cute! Their meet cute was adorable and I always love the secret identity thing. In this one it’s over a blog that serves as so many people’s guide to getting food around Vietnam. (As a fellow blogger I thought this was so cool!) I thought it was the cutest thing that brought the two of them together. It was a lot more emotional than I was expecting, but I loved it all the same.

I really just wanted to hug Lan. I knew she was taking care of her mom, but I felt so sad for her. I could tell she didn’t give herself time to grieve. She took his passing hard and got up for work with her mom every day. She was so strong, but I was upset with her because she needed more. And then there was Vivi who also deserved more. Her mother wouldn’t tell her anything about her history. It clearly stemmed from a bad situation, but it wasn’t something that Vivi was willing to let go of. She deserved to know where she came from and more about her history. I thought she was also so strong. I can’t believe these were two teens. They were stronger than me as an adult lol And yes, I understand that this may be the product of their cultures. (I am not Vietnamese, so I won’t speak on that, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say I was sad for both of these girls and I admired their strength)

Watching the two of them fall for each other had to be my favorite part tho. I loved the different foods they tried together, and I loved the apprehension that Lan had when Vivi told her that her parents didn’t know where she was. I loved that they helped each other with the things most important to them, like the family part and the food blogging contest. It felt like they were doing so much, but still found love in each other. And that was how I knew it was real. I did wish they had a little more time together at the end tho. It was a slow burn, but they were so cute as they were flirting, but they were never official. I wanted to see more of them official, to celebrate with them.

This was a super cute book that I knew I was going to love. I don’t think there was one bad thing about this book. The narrators were amazing, the story was super cute, and the theme of family and love throughout the book were amazing. Definitely a book that I knew was going to love. I hope that y’all pick this up and y’all like it too!

I love a good foodie book but this was so much more than a story of two girls connecting through their love for food.

Vivi’s dream is to go to Sài Gòn, and try all the places her favorite food blogger posts and raves about. But even more so to find out about her family and why her mother never mentions anything about her life in Vietnam. So when she lies to her mom about a study abroad program, Vivi flies off to Sài Gòn with her best friend Cindy.

Miraculously, Vivi bumps into Lan, the blogger herself! The two strike a deal: Lan will help Vivi navigate the city, and in return, Vivi will help Lan with her writers block to enter a journalism contest. But as the two girls spend more and more time together, they start developing feelings for each other and realize that there might be more to dreams than what they thought.

A Bánh Mì for Two’s writing was enchanting, from chapter 1 I couldn’t put it down, all the descriptions made me feel like I was in a city I’ve only seen through pictures. I loved the dual POV because it let us see both sides of the coin, the city from a local perspective and from the side of someone who dreamed to be there.

Like I mentioned it was so much more than a foodie romance, it is a book about grief, dreams, opportunities and about leaving; and that’s what made it so relatable. My only issue with it is that I wish it would’ve been longer and that we got to see a more developed ending, I was hoping to get more of the family background story.

Thank you to Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group | Henry Holt and Co. BYR Paperbacks for a copy of A Bahn Mi for Two in exchange for an honest review.

The beginning of A Banh Mi for Two, by Trinity Nguyen, is a love letter to food. Vietnamese dishes are passionately described by Lan — a food blogger — and Vivi, her superfan and tourist to Sài Gòn. Imagine narration of paté melting in your mouth and fish roe bursting on your tongue.

As the novel progresses, these images of food become fewer and farther between as Lan’s and Vivi’s relationship deepens. The two work hard to solve each other’s problems, and the settings are still vividly written, but the focus shifts to the city at large. The two young women’s worlds become wider, and so must the text.


The sweet, fluffy romance between Vivi and Lan puts Nguyen’s book squarely in the YA category. The love story is cute, but A Banh Mi for Two has more intriguing elements. Much of this novel deals with complex cultural and historical issues.

One of Nguyen’s most successful ways of handling these issues is by never getting too preachy or leaning too hard into overt explanation or exposition. Part of this is possible because Vivi is learning along with the reader. Nguyen does an excellent job of “dropping” the reader into the cultural landscape. These pages are filled with Vietnamese that is often untranslated — a strength in the writing. Both Vivi and Lan have much to learn about Sài Gòn, and we explore along with them.

Vivi is the Angeleno child of two Vietnamese immigrants. She doesn’t feel like she’s quite American or fully Vietnamese, a familiar feeling among second-generation folk. Vivi desperately wants to know more about her family history, but she can only push so hard because she needs to respect her parents. It does stretch believability that Vivi can get away with lying about where her study abroad program is; however, the fact that she has that plan is a strong choice that speaks to her desperation.

Meanwhile, Lan is plagued by filial piety of a different nuance. She promised her deceased father she’d always take care of her mother. Essentially, Lan has put her entire life on hold to do so. Neither her mom nor her cousin-cum-brother have asked her to do that. More importantly, they don’t want her to. That Lan cannot look past her internalized guilt feels real.

A Banh Mi for Two is a tightly-paced, quick read. There’s much to love here. It has a broad audience but might be especially meaningful for Vietnamese Americans. The book also works as a novel about travel and food.

A Banh Mi for Two comes out on August 20, 2024. You can grab a copy at bookshop.org or your local library.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co for the chance to review this book, all opinions are my own.

Beware, you are definitely going to want to eat a bánh mì sandwich after finishing this book!

A Bánh Mì for Two is the story of teens Lan and Vivi, Lan runs a Sài Gòn bánh mì cart with her mom while also writing a super popular food blog about Sài Gòn. She is also still grieving her father who passed away 4 years before. Vivi is Vietnamese American and has always been curious about her family back in Vietnam but her mom refuses to talk about them. So she fakes a study aboard trip to Singapore and instead does one in Vietnam! Very sneaky. She is also a huge fan of Lan’s blog.

The two girls run into each other (literally) in Sài Gòn and become friends. Lan helps Vivi find her family, and Vivi helps Lan fall in love with writing about food again. Feelings develop! There is drama! So much delicious food is eaten!

Overall I thought the story was very sweet and I loved getting to learn about Sài Gòn through Vivi’s eyes. While it didn’t blow me away with its emotional depth, I did feel Lan’s grief over losing her father and her struggle to do something for herself instead of her family. The story truly shines in its vivid portrayal of Sài Gòn (the visuals were so well written) and I was dying to try all of the street food they were eating.

A very sweet sapphic love story that will make you crave a trip to Sài Gòn and a bánh mì sandwich!

4.25 stars

This book is sweet, heartfelt, and explores complicated relationships in a way that feels believable. The tension between the teens and their parents is realistic, and i love the way the romance develops!

Thank you so much to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Colored Pages Book Tours and the author for the free copy.

I loved this book. The romance, the food, the family dynamics, there are so many things in it that made this reading experience everything I wanted.

I loved the blog aspect, Lan and Vivi sharing a bond through food and words, exploring Sài Gòn and its magic. The story will definitely make you hungry and also wish you were walking through the street food markets of the city. We see the characters getting to know each other during their time together and the romance that develops between them is the sweetest thing ever.

I loved both main characters, but I think I related to Lan a little more. They are both dealing with conflicting feelings about their respective families in different ways and we get to see this dynamic play out, especially with their mothers.

Even though this is a romance, I think there are other parts of the story that will stick with me for a long time. The conversation about heritage, grief, generational trauma and diaspora make this a story with so many layers that you just have to read.

thank you so much to netgalley and colored pages blog tours for the early copy! all opinions are my own!

4.5 stars of SUCH CUTENESS AND HEARTBREAK 😱😱😱
i didn't expect to fall in love with Vietnam so much after reading this book. and i feel it deserves more love because the way it highlights the story of those who suffered too much during and after the war, something even i didn't know because history never talks about it. and i adored how it described the city and how important street food is for everyone, i really need to try Vietnamese food after this lsdkfj and don't get me started on the characters. VIVI AND LAN ARE SO FREAKING CUTE AND I ADORED THEM WITH MY ENTIRE BEING 😭😭😭 i really enjoyed how they met and how everything came together, they made me smile so much. my only complaint is that it goes TOO FAST!! i literally had to force myself to stop because i didn't want it to end and the story was flowing so smoothly and wanted to enjoy it more. i still think the ending was too rushed and the drama didn't last long but that's my only complain.
and yes, in case you haven't realized, you HAVE to read this beauty 😍😍😍 long live my beautiful sapphics and vietnam!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fine book. Not spectacular, not particularly bad - just fine. Good. Incredibly short, leading to a lot of underdevelopment.
The conflict between Vivi and her mother was resolved WAY too fast and WAY too easily. The same can be said about Lan and Vivi's relationship. They barely know each other, and suddenly they are saying that they love each other - too much insta-love for me.

Cute overall, and great themes of figuring out where you belong in regards to immigration and displacement.