there is a special place in my heart for books like this one: love letters to the vietnamese diaspora 💛

vivi is a 2nd gen việt american from california whose mom has never opened up to her about her experiences as a refugee. to learn more about her roots, vivi embarks on a study abroad trip to saigon (which she keeps a secret from her parents). there, she meets lan, the girl behind her favorite food blog. lan, however, is not much of a blogger these days — in a writing slump, overwhelmed by working at her family’s bánh mì stall, & grieving the loss of her father. the two grow close with two goals in mind: help vivi learn more about her family & help lan break her writer’s block to enter a writing competition.

vivi & lan’s relationship was filled with support & encouragement — such a wholesome thread in this story. their budding romance had me smiling & kicking my feet fr :’)

they both had pretty hefty amounts of teen angst that felt incredibly familiar — vivi’s frustration with her mom for the secrets she kept & her feelings of in-betweenness as a diaspora kid who was “not vietnamese enough”, lan’s fears of letting her mom down & her competing priorities of familial responsibility vs individual aspirations. i will say i felt a little like a boomer reading this book though because there were a lot of moments where i just wanted to shake vivi & make her feel a little more empathy for her mom!! you know you’re getting old when you side with the parents in a ya novel, am i right

the characters’ & their relationships were sweet, but the real star of this book was how absolutely immersed in saigon it was. the descriptions of street food, scenery, & people are unbelievably vivid, i was in awe (& so hungry!!). i felt like saigon was a character in & of itself, a setting i was almost more invested in than the actual plot at times because it felt so alive!!

like vivi, i’ve never been to việt nam but the desire to go “back” tugs at me constantly. i want to eat street food sitting on plastic stools & to swerve through motorbikes on a crowded street. i want to explore where my family came from & to see where i fit in there. this book truly brought saigon alive for me & i am so grateful for a little taste (pun intended!) of what’s to come when i can finally make a trip there.

I haven’t read such a satisfying book in such a long time. As a queer girl who misses her home country dearly while living in the States and struggles with family dynamics, this book hit all the feels. It’s so well written and bursting with love. I felt like I was exploring Sai Gon with Vivi for the first time, falling in love with the city, its food, and its culture. I related to Lan and cheered for her to grow into herself. I gained new insight into Viet Nam and its history. And among it all, I explored myself and my relationships with India and my family. I loved this book and is going to be one of my top reads of the year for sure.

I normally have a pretty tough time visualizing things when I’m reading, but the setting was so vivid in this book that I couldn’t help but feel like I was in Việt Nam with Lan and Vivi. So much so that Việt Nam felt like a third main character! I lasted about as long as I could—half way through the book—before googling bánh mì near me. I would’ve liked a few extra chapters at the end to wrap everything up, but overall it was such an atmospheric read and a wonderful sapphic, coming-of-age romance.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25/5


I received an eARC via NetGalley. All opinions are honest and my own.

Thank you to author Trinity Nguyen and NetGalley for an ARC!

Oh how I love stories where characters both have a self discovery journey and fall in love. Perfectly balanced.

This book hits on a personal note if you also have immigrant parents and feel obligated to take care of them and felt like you got hit by a truck when you visited their hometown for the first time. It’s a feeling I can’t ever explain, yet, Trinity made such a good job on portraying what it’s like. I could feel the characters emotions throughout the whole thing, they were so easy to connect with whatever you could relate or not.

Both Lan and Vivi have some internal struggles that most of us face daily and it was so great to read about how they feel and how they deal with those while falling in love. This book is a journey on three sides; Lan’s self discovery, Vivi’s self discovery and Lan and Vivi’s love story. None of these was overshadowed by the other- which is a hard balance to find.

This book gives you both emotional moments by making you feel like you’re in the characters minds (and possibly tear up if you relate too much) and also makes you kick your feet and giggle, it was so hard to put down!

Did I expect to be full on crying at 2am while reading this? No
Did that happen? Yes
Am I super freaking hungry at 2am during and after I read this novel? YES.

What a great introduction to the delicious and wonderful world of Vietnam and of two girls from two different worlds finding their way in the world and unlocking a way forward. I loved this book so much and I would love to see more about Lan's adventures around the world and Vivi's journey of learning more about her family's history. 1000000/10, a definitely AMAZING read!!!!!

i’m not sure how many more “me and who? when?” i got left more in me.

This is such a cute book (both the cover and the actual story)!! I love both Lan and Vivi both their backstory and their family and the ties to Vietnam. I do know a general idea of Vietnam’s history, what I really like is how we do see the difference in Lan and Vivi lives with parents that did stay in Vietnam, and parents who fled/left. I wasn’t expecting this bit but I really love it and I feel like it gave the story more depth.

THE FOOD!! When Trinity said “this is a love letter to street food” oh she meant it. There’s a good handful of vietnamese food that I didn’t recognize so I was googling as I read and I was SALIVATING (and then searching closest vietnamese restaurant to me). It truly goes again to show how large of a role food plays in culture. We see Lan writing blogs about theses food places all throughout Sai Gon, and how those blogs resonates so much to a reader like Vivi who never been to Sai Gon before, but finds the familiarity in the food.

THE ROMANCE!! IT’S SO CUTE SO CUTE!!! I was screaming, giggling, twirling my hair, sillyyy. I absolutely loveeee how much Vivi and Lan come together, help one another with their goals, and grow together.

I love books that make me cry but in a good way. Such a wholesome read. Oh my goodness, I just love Lan and Vivi. But the vivid descriptions of the foods and the city make me want to book a flight immediately. Thank you Net Galley for allowing me to read an arc of the book. I loved it.

I thought this book was good but I got to about 50% and just couldn't finish it :/
Kinda a shame too because it's such a beautiful cover and the way the story flowed wasn't giving me anything to work with. I will say that the world building was good, so that does bump it to three stars ⭐⭐⭐

A sweet book about teen girls finding each other at the right time and explores grief, diaspora, delicious food, and keeping secrets.

For the newbs, I am a Vietnamese American millennial whose parents grew up in Saigon. I have been dying to read this book ever since I met Trinity, and she graciously sent me a copy. As much as I like crossing off lists, I'm very much a mood reader, and enjoyed starting and finishing this book on my first trip (of many) to Vietnam.

So often, beautiful covers are a juxtaposition to what is inside the book. Not here. While I also enjoyed Lan's story, I resonated so much with Vivi's that it hurt my heart at times to read. My parents would've never allowed me to study abroad in college, but like Vivi, I know more about my dad's refugee story than my mom's. Again, like Vivi, I used to think I was entitled to my mom's story. I'm not. I will hopefully never know the trauma of fleeing my birth country in the midst of war. Something to think about.

Enough with the generational trauma. This is a story about love. Not only love between Vivi and Lan, but also self love, and the love of a city. While my trip certainly had its highlights, I too fell in love with my parents' birthplace. As I wandered the city, I wondered if my dad had been to a certain coffee shop, or my mom had wandered down a certain alleyway.

This book is about following your dreams. Whether that is Vivi's dream of discovering a country her parents left behind, or Lan's writing, this story has it all. While uplifting, it did make me emotional enough to cry a couple of times. To be fair, I also cried a fair bit in both Saigon and Hanoi, but I'll let you read about that on Instagram.

such a tender and heartfelt homage to Vietnam & a beautiful portrayal of what it’s like to feel connected and disconnected (at once) from where you came from.

the romance was so sweet & soft!! i loved getting to know both Lan and Vivi, and despite their opposite struggles, I saw myself in both of them.

if you don’t know anything about Vietnam, MUST READ. if you love love, MUST READ!! just do it!

This book was a delight from start to finish. On one level, it's a fun rom com that takes you on a journey of discovery through Sài Gòn, filled with cute street food dates and romantic moped rides. And at the same time it's a layered story about growing up, making sense of the traumas of the past, about the things that are too painful to say to the people you love, and about balancing what you owe your family and what you owe yourself. The diaspora feelings were so relatable and well handled, and the final scene made me tear up. Can't wait to see more from this author.

Lan is so much braver than I am, because if I ran a blog and one of my readers found me and tried to become my friend, I would file a restraining order. Good thing she didn’t, because then they fell in love :’)

What really gets me about this book isn’t even the romance, though, it’s the family drama. Any time I read anything about a girl finally understanding her mom’s past… there go the waterworks. What a fantastic book; Trinity is truly an incredible writer, and I promise I’m not just saying this because we know each other.

a charming romance not just about first love but also diasporic grief, vietnamese food, and the city of saigon. i loved reading all about the food and culture and really immersed myself in vietnam.

This is at the same time a cheesy cute romance, a love letter to Viet food and life found in the messy vibrant textures of a city, and also such a poignant coming-of-age about two girls helping each other fall in love with Sai Gon and each other while also finding themselves. I kicked my feet and then I cried.