4.5* rounded up.

This book is so sweet. The romance itself follows the usual Young Adult beats, and was enjoyably fluffy. However, the way that both girls' lives change as a result of these shared few weeks was really beautiful.

Above all, this story is a love letter to Sài Gòn---from the sites to the architecture to the history. I got so hungry reading this book. Lan's story is all about loving the city while wanting to leave and explore, while Vivi is coming to her mother's childhood home for the first time.

It's really difficult to write about dark/heavy topics without writing a dark, heavy book, but Trinity Nguyen does a great job walking that line. There are definitely sad parts, and the characters are forced to confront the history of the country and their parents' experiences. Even so, the book is really hopeful, and follows themes of maintaining a connection to the characters' pasts while also looking forward. Several of Vivi's chapters in particularly made me choke up, especially a conversation she has with a mentor about the history her family has kept from her. It's really beautiful.

The pacing is a little fast at times, and the end is somewhat abrupt. This worked for me, personally, because I don't necessary feel like the romance is an HEA, or even the focus of the book. It feels like these girls encourage each other to do hard things and grow in ways that will change their lives forever, even if they go their separate ways in the end. I read so many YA romances that imply that the relationship only matters if it lasts; but it's enough to leave a lasting impression. <3

If you want a sweet sapphic romance that will leave you craving fish sauce, and a story about two girls who find themselves, I highly recommend this one. Thank you to the publisher for the ARC. My thoughts are my own.

THOUGHTS

This book is cute. The romance is soft and sweet, and Trinity Nguyen's love for Sài Gòn comes through on every page.


PROS
Sài Gòn Love: Nugyen clearly loves Sài Gòn. The city as she paints it is vibrant, full of color and life and spectacular food. Explored through the perspective of both a local, who adores her city, and a foreigner come back to reconnect with the city of her mother's birth, the nooks and crannies of this city are replicated on the page with such affection. It is always nice to read a book so strongly rooted in place that you can hear, smell, and taste the city--and that's exactly what Nguyen provides.

Heavy Expectations: Both of these girls have some pretty heavy expectations they're shouldering--expectations that their parents have, yes, but that they've also set for themselves. Vivi wants to know about her heritage, about the Vietnam her parents knew and left behind, and she's willing to skirt her parents' expectations to find that--even when she feels the weight of her lies. Lan wants to be there for her mother, to support her family, to take on the legacy of the family food truck... but she also wants more than that. Both of these girls want so much, and they're not sure of how much they can want, how much they can dream. They wrestle with that, and I appreciate it.

Quest For Heritage: Vivi really wants to know where she comes from, to know her heritage, and she can't get that from her mom. Her mom doesn't want to talk about it--maybe, as Vivi realizes, her mom can't talk about it. But Vivi really does need to know, for herself and her own growth. And I love that this is one of the perspectives used to explore Sài Gòn, because we don't just get to see the wonders of the city through the eyes of a tourist. Vivi is a tourist, but she is a tourist looking to reconnect with her very recent, very tangible heritage. And that love, that longing, bleeds through onto these pages in a really lovely way.


CONS
One-Dimensional Mother: One of the relationships here that I wanted more of was Vivi's relationship with her mother. It is clear Vivi loves her mom, despite the fact that she's come to Vietnam without her mother's consent (and without her mother even knowing). But it is very frustrating to listen to their conversations, because Vivi gets cut off every time she broaches the subject. And I know this is because of her mom's own baggage when it comes to Vietnam, but... I wish we had explored that more. It does get wrapped up in the end, but so briefly it almost feels like an afterthought. I just really wanted more of this relationship to make it onto the page.

Study Abroad?: So, Vivi's on a study abroad program... but we never actually see her studying or going to class or anything. Which is fine. I get that this is a romance, and that's the main point. But still. Stuff like this bothers me.

Too Similar: Dual POV books can be great, and I do think there are a lot of strengths to the two points-of-view here, too. But there's one major drawback here, and that drawback is that Vivi and Lan sound... so similar to each other. When Vivi is still settling into the city, their narratives are different enough that it is easy to distinguish who is speaking. But by the end of the book, if you forget to check the POV at the start of the chapter, well, it can be a little difficult to parse because they both sound the same. Their voices aren't distinct, and in a first-person narrative, they really, truly should be.


Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
8/10
Fans of Abigail Hing Wen's Loveboat, Taipei will love jet-setting with Vivi. Those who enjoyed immersing themselves in Sheba Karim's The Marvelous Mirza Girls will love how the love of Sài Gòn bleeds through these pages.

Here's what I loved!

The unconditional acceptance of Lan and Vivi’s love story - We need more 100% positive depictions of sapphic romance in YA literature. Both Lan and Vivi face challenges throughout this book, but none of them are because of homophobia.

The fact that this is a food book - As someone with a desire to explore Viet Nam, I loved getting a glimpse into Sai Gon. All of the food mentioned had my mouth watering. As a whole, the setting is expertly written. I truly felt as if I had flown to Viet Nam alongside Vivi.

The dialogue in Vietnamese - I am a firm supporter of including dialogue in other languages when it makes sense for the story.

On Trinity Nguyen’s “review” of A Bánh Mì For Two on Goodreads she says that, while this book does discuss tough topics like the war and the refugee experiences that ensued, this book is first and foremost a rom-com.

I completely agree. Don't get me wrong, there is so much sadness to this story. But ultimately, I finished A Bánh Mì with a happy heart.

Bottom line: This is a summer must-read!

This is a delightful "clean" sapphic romance about two ~18-year-old girls falling in love over food in Saigon. Vivi is Vietnamese American and, while she's lived in Little Saigon her whole life, she knows next to nothing about the real Saigon. Her mom, who grew up in the post-Vietnam war years, refuses to talk about it, and her dad immigrated too young to know much, so she signs up for a study abroad program and spends a semester in Saigon without telling her parents.

There she meets Lan, the author of her favorite food blog. Together they explore Saigon as Lan writes an essay for contest. A local having her eyes reopened as Vivi sees the city for the first time.

Both girls experience a lot of character growth as they define new roles for themselves in their families.

This book is not only a very enjoyable story, but also a great addition to American YA literature. In the book, Vivi points out an important fact: in the US, Vietnam is often only thought of as the location of a violent and controversial war, and those thoughts still only tend to center Americans and not Vietnamese people. It was a great change of pace to read about Saigon as a vibrant, modern city full of life and delicious street food.

I listened to the audiobook and found it really enjoyable to hear the (presumably) correct pronunciations of the Vietnamese foods and names.

While the romance was a little cheesy (I mean, of course it was! That’s kind of the point), what really made this book resonate was how both Lan and Vivi are trying to honor their parents (Lan honoring her dad’s wishes and Vivi trying desperately to understand her mom) while also learning to understand themselves and grow beyond where they’d been raised. Both of them had such believable circumstances with Vivi’s desperate search for her mother’s past overshadowed by her mother’s trauma and shame (as well as the particular perspective America has on post-war Vietnam) and Lan’s desperate need to care for her mother and be the perfect daughter.

What really struck me was how immersive the writing is: the streets, festivals, and markets of Saigon come alive on the page as Lan and Vivi weave through stalls, pet festival lions, and, of course, eat all the amazing food. Plus the particular way food is used in the story - the way each street food vendor has a story and how every meal is meant to be shared - just made each moment more special.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this arc! what a cute story! i also love that the first edition is going to have those pretty edges hehe. I've looked forward to this one for a long time and it did not disappoint! such a cute one!

For a book that looked like a cute queer romance, I sure felt a lot of emotion!

Lan has writer's block, so she busies herself with her family's banh mi stall in Sai Gon after her father passed away. Vivi lied to her parents about a study abroad program so she can go to Sai Gon and find out what her mom ran away from. Lan and Vivi decide to help each other only to find themselves catching feelings fast.

This is an incredible story about family, generational trauma, grief, and filial duty. AND it's a cute queer romance. I love Vivi's journey to find her family, and I related so much to Lan's grief. The romance is adorable, and the side characters are meaningful. I can't wait to read more from Trinity Nguyen!

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

🧼 - squeaky clean new adult queer romance. A daughter of Vietnamese immigrants goes to study abroad in Vietnam and meets and falls for her long-time favorite food blog. The story covers family traumas and their effects on young adults' life pathways. It was cute and probably worth a read if you are a fan of YA/New Adult reads.

Tropes:
•Vacation flings
•Fish Out Of Water
•Destiny

This was everything and more! It made me cry at the end! I just love love so it caught me in my feels. The way the author brings in trauma and the effects of trauma on the world around someone is beautiful. I could see the city and smell the food. I was fully entranced. This book was very nicely paced and ended exactly how I wanted it to. The bravery to be true to one’s self is so hard and the author did a wonderful job at showing all the stages to get there.

5/5 stars for family, trauma, love. I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS STORY ENOUGH!

**Thank you to NetGalley for providing a free review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily!

I gobbled this book up in one day! I loved learning about Vivi and Lin and was gushing along with them as they fumbled their way into love. Vivi wants to know more about her heritage and lies about her study abroad plans to do so. Then we have Lin, a hard worker and foodie locale blogger, who has to regain her ambition for telling stories while also taking care of her mom.

This story and their struggles felt so real, especially with Vivi’s mother. I was a bit sad at how quickly it ended and the events transpired but I think Trinity Nguyen did very well for squeezing all of those details and emotional impact into so few pages. I loved this story and where the characters left off. I think a cute novella of Lin’s travels would be very cute as well ( or maybe that’s just me not being able to move on).

Lastly, the title and the reasoning behind Lin calling her blog the same name was so freaking cute. Can someone please make this into a movie???

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. BYR Paperbacks for the DRC! Please get this made into a cute romcom movie.

This was a very cute, low angst, sapphic romance. I really enjoyed the look at culture and food through the eyes of the main characters. I also enjoyed the queer joy found within this story.

I did feel like the characters read as a little younger than they were. This wasn't a hinderance, I just expected them to be slightly younger than they were.

Regardless, this was a fun YA book that I will definitely be recommending at my library!

This is a beautiful book about identity, founding yourself in your culture and within yourself, expectations and love and the relationships between families.
As an immigrant it is hard to find a balance between your past, your present and your future and this book showed that very well and the relationship between Vivi and Lan showed so well how we can be so different but so similar in a way even if you grew up so far away and how you can meet in the middle.

A lovely read that pairs well with Hayley Kiyoko's music. It's also filled a hole in me about wanting more Vietnamese Sapphic stories. It's also a good reminder that our parents and caregivers in general are still kids themselves learning on what to do in the world one step at time. And that the Vietnam War like any war in history was just generally messy and not as black and white as I was taught to believe. Yet out of that messiness comes a resilience, hope, and creativity to make the place you love beautiful with the people that you care about and who also cares about you.

This is a beautiful story about discovery. Discovering how to recover from grief, finding a path that you want to walk in life, reclaiming your past, healing past wounds. Lan and Vivi are such lovely characters, both lost. Yet together they challenge each other to take risks and really find out what they want. This book is healing, and beautiful. It has such lovely representation. I think readers will truly enjoy meeting Lan and Vivi.
Thank you so much to Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, Henry Holt and Co. BYR Paperbacks, and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this title.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for the advance electronic copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

I have always known that I was half Asian, but since doing ancestry testing, I have become more interested in learning about all of the different Asian countries that appear in my genetic background. This book was of particular interest to me after I learned that I am 8% Vietnamese.

I love that Vivi travels to Vietnam to learn more about her background and to try to find her family. Although my situation is very different, I relate to both girls having complicated relationships with their mothers. My heart hurts for Lan grieving her father and trying to be everything for her mother.

This book truly gave me all the feels. The way Vivi planned much of her trip around her favorite food blog was admirable--that she made it to Saigon and found the writer of said blog was stunning. The way the two girls explore Saigon on a quest to find Vivi's family brought me so much joy that I was ready to book a ticket there myself.

This is a story about finding your roots, and about family, and finding the balance between taking care of yourself and responsibility to your family. It's about cutting yourself off from a painful past and assuming you can't go home again. It's about seeing your home through fresh eyes while you're falling in love. And it's about Viet Nam--a little bit of history, and a lot about how the country has survived and thrived, incorporating bits from other countries, especially into its cuisine.

I want to read more by this author--and I still want to visit Viet Nam.

Trinity Nguyễn, please write more!!!!!! This was so freaking precious and swoon worthy. I loved this sapphic romance and I need more. I am also hungry. How could you do this to me? lol

What a delightful queer romance! As someone who would love to visit Vietnam and really enjoys Vietnamese cuisine, I wholly enjoyed this novel. Reading it made me so hungry - the food descriptions were great! Additionally, both main protagonists Vivi and Lan were quite well-developed and interesting.

A sweet story of love, family, history, and food. The descriptions of street food in Sài Gòn and the way it connects to the history of the country were beautifully rich with detail. The author clearly cares deeply both for this place and her heritage. I was fascinated by the history of the emigrants who moved to Viet Nam and those who eventually left after the war and reconstruction.

The relationships between parent and child were also incredibly detailed and realistic. That feeling of wanting to protect them, wanting to know them, and not wanting to lose them felt so real, as was the grief and fear Lan felt after the death of her father. Vivi’s feelings of disconnect to her heritage, of never feeling like she belonged anywhere, also felt authentic. There's a generational trauma that often exists in children of immigrants, especially those who fled and haven't been able to talk about their life in "the beforetimes." Even the good memories and beloved family and friends are kept secret, because everything is connected to that which was lost.

While I loved the concept of this story and the way food, history, and the city were described, the character development and romantic interactions felt clunky and awkward. The relationship between Lan and Vivi was simplistic and unbelievable, with them coincidentally running in to each other and feeling instantly attracted to one another. Even once they figure out that Lan is Vivi’s favorite food blogger and Vivi is one of her most supportive fans, there’s an uncomfortable awkwardness that persists. I think their relationship would have felt more natural if we had been allowed to see their online interaction grow from comments to DMs to finally meeting in person. Yes, we’re told that they interact online, but it doesn’t feel like it. Vivi almost seems like a bit of a stalker, with how much she knows about Lan from her blog.

Even once the women starting seeing each other more regularly, helping one another with their projects (Lan’s writing and Vivi’s family search), there seemed to be an unevenness to the writing of their interactions. Maybe it’s just inconsistency in the writing that will be edited before publication, but some descriptions of actions didn’t make sense - how does one “kiss a forehead deeply”? Also how can there be too much smog to use the telescope but, at the same time, they can see the big and little dippers twinkling in the sky?

Overall, I enjoyed reading this one - the story was sweet and ended as happily as you could expect (with both Lan and Vivi finally communicating with their mothers, THANK YOU). Hopefully some of the writing/characters issues will be worked out before publication, but if not, I still feel it’s worth reading for the story and Vietnamese history alone. And who knows, maybe the things that bothered me won’t bother you!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

I loved the Asian representation and being able to learn about a culture different than mine. The blossoming of the love story between these girls was so cute and pure. I would definitely read more from this author and commend this book to others.

Wow!!! Honestly I thought this was just gonna be a cute/light summer YA read but it was so much more. learning about Vietnam through Vivi and Lan’s perspectives was an eye opening experience—the author truly went the extra mile to provide the reader with a foundation of the history of Vietnam and background about their culture and experiences that happened during/after the war. Both Vivi and Lan's stories felt fleshed out and had me rooting for them to find their place. Really powerful coming of age story. The romance dialogue felt a little off occasionally and I would’ve loved to have had more time with her mom visiting Vietnam at the end—but it was such a beautiful story I can look past those small things! AND the food descriptions?!? perfect!!! Wonderful debut, can't wait to see what's next 🩷🇻🇳🏳️‍🌈

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.