After 5 years apart, Queenie along with her father and brother, reunites with her Mother in the US only to discover that the golden life she's imagined in America is a lot rougher and harder than expected.

As a second generation immigrant, I absolutely loved the theme of this novel. These stories need to be told and shared in nuanced ways as Cherry Lou Sy has clearly done! Many times immigrants come with the expectations of an easier life, a dream. However the reality is mostly truly grueling and difficult. Lou Sy did a fantastic job at showcasing the less than ideal situations.

I loved the lengths of the chapters, It made the story much easier to read and digest.

At first I did not enjoy the ending, however with time it grew on me.

I would definitely recommend this read!

I liked this book, but I didn’t love it. Overall, it was a decent read. I wasn’t completely immersed despite being really excited to read it. I will say that the author’s writing style is great and I liked the characterization, but the story as a whole fell somewhat flat for me.

While many readers may really love this one and appreciate the story and writing, it just wasn't for me and I had to DNF this book.

I loved the story, the world building and meeting the different characters. I felt completely immersed in the story and couldn't stop reading it.

Love Can't Feed You by Cherry Lou Sy disappoints with its underdeveloped characters and a lackluster plot. The narrative fails to engage on an emotional level, leaving much to be desired in terms of depth and originality.

When Queenie spends the entire flight from Manila to New York needing the flight's entire stock of barf bags, it's an indication of how misguided this relocation will be. She is seventeen and would prefer to stay in the Philippines for college. But her mother's been in the US for a long time and she's sent the money for Queenie, her father, and younger brother to join her.

What they find is not what they expect. Mom Mel has changed. She's more glamorous, concerned about money, and does not seem happy to have them there. She insists that Queenie and her father go to work immediately to pay off the debt of bringing them there, and finds them crappy jobs. Besides that, she is rarely home and while she's away the household becomes unmoored.

With no one to guide her, she slides down several wrong paths. One of the few people to help her is a local librarian who advises her what she needs to do in order to start college in the US. She makes a few friends, but most of them are toxic.

Queenie is never a completely appealing character and becomes less so as "Love Can't Feed You" progresses. She's pressured by the expectations she remembers for Filipino girls to be virginal and to avoid gossip in a culture that thrives on it. In New York she is uncertain about how to respond to behaviors around her.

Themes of being a struggling immigrant, dysfunctional families, cultural and sexual expectations and more are laid out here. This is not an easy novel, I enjoyed the first half more than the second, when Queenie begins a sexual exploration that seems out of character. Or maybe not. What is her character? That's where this book falls short.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a DRC of this intriguing novel from a promising writer.

This felt very much like a draft of a better novel. I was interested in reading it, since it's a coming of age story about a Filipina immigrant who finds her way in her new life in Brooklyn. I assume it's somewhat based on Cherry Lou Sy's experiences.

Queenie (short for Queen Elizabeth, her actual name because her mother loved Princess Diana, but wanted to give her daughter a name higher on the hierarchy) moves with her father and her brother to Brooklyn to live with her mother who has been there for years. Queenie barely knows her elusive mother, whose past as a sex worker hangs over the history of their family. Although Queenie is anxious to start college she must work to help her mother pay off the debts she incurred to bring the rest of the family to the USA. As she grows into her place in her new country she begins to realize the conditions and sacrifices everyone has to keep their place in the world, and how she must find her own conditions.

Despite the deep dive into desire, and boundaries, this is a surprisingly boring book. Nothing much happens, and even the philosophical parts are told with such an everyday frankness that they read as dull and clinical. I would have been more interested in the lives of Yan and Masha, the friends Queenie makes. I would have even been more interested knowing more about her mother and father. It's not a bad book, and it's another interesting book about one person's immigrant experience, but it's not very well written, or very thoughtful.

Very middle of the road. I will have forgotten I read this in about 6 weeks.

4.5 - rounded down.

I just want to start this review by giving a huge thank you to the author, Cherry Lou Sy. I have never felt more seen, more validated, or more excited throughout a story. As a first gen Filipino-America, I resonated with the main character, Queenie, so much. Even though I was born in the U.S., my mom immigrated to America as a young adult, so many pieces of Queenie’s experience mirrored my childhood. I definitely saw my mom and her friends in Queenie’s Ma and her friends.

I feel like this book panders more to someone who has experienced Filipino culture or is Filipino themself. There are many nods to Filipino traditional and Tagalog, which is not translated so it may be hard for people who don’t speak the language. Sometimes the context clues were not enough to fully understand the phrase(s), as someone who can read some Tagalog it was still difficult at points.

This story was so close to 5 stars, but the last quarter of it really brought it down. The story began to move very fast, both in terms of time and character development. Certain decisions were made and many loose ends were not wrapped by the end. The abrupt conclusion left me with mixed feelings and honestly made me kinda sad. However, I absolutely loved this story overall and it kept me very interested throughout.

Thank you so much to Cherry Lou Sy, Netgalley and Penguin Group Dutton for this eARC!

Cherry Lou Sy has an incredibly visceral writing style, which she showcases in her debut novel, Love Can't Feed You. In Love Can't Feed You, Cherry Lou Sy tells the often heart- - and sometimes gut- - wrenching story of Queenie a young girl who immigrated to New York City from the Phillipines with her family. At some points the reader feels as if they are reading excerpts from a diary and at others pieces of snippets of poetry, the end result is a powerful picture of one young girl's perspective of family, gender, and duty.

Thanks for the review copy. I like the font of the title on the cover. This is a wonderful debut coming of age novel. This one is phenomenal.

This is perhaps the saddest work of fiction I have ever read.

Love Can’t Feed You chronicles the story of an immigrant family, who, try as they might, cannot emerge from abject poverty and tenement-like living conditions. Although the mother, who preceded her husband and two children from the Philippines, has a job, it is a somewhat menial night job as a nurse, although not apparently a registered nurse, the father can barely find a job. Queenie, the daughter and eldest child, finds work here and there while trying to go to school here and there, but she, herself, is stuck in the same vicious cycle as the parents.

Although the book begins with a sense of optimism that the family will be able to make it in the US, where, after all, they came seeking opportunities and a better life, that optimism is never satisfied.

The writing is superb. Yes, this is a sad story and that might turn people off. But it is a story that we need to know, because it’s happening every day in real life.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

A devastating look at one immigrant family, for whom things go wrong from the beginning and continue to spiral downward. An elderly father and his two children travel from the Philippines to the U.S. to join their mother, who has settled in as an immigrant with a steady job. But the mother's job is not enough to provide a good life for the family, and she has changed into an independent woman who continues her American life leaving them to fend for themselves.

A story of what could go wrong with the American dream for immigrants who see the U.S. as a place for their dreams of a good life to come true. Heartbreaking and eye opening, this novel does not gloss over what reality could be for some who come to America's shores.

Love Can’t Feed You

Love this novel so much! The writing was incredibly well done and I was hooked from the first page.

Queenie travels with her father and brother from The Philippines to America. In Brooklyn they meet up with her mother who left them years ago to become a nurse. Things don’t go exactly the way everyone believed it would. It’s not really ✨the American dream.✨ Queenie has to deal with growing up, taking care of her brother, holding her family together, discovering herself, and handling her parents who are selfish in their own ways.

The main characters and characters we meet along the way are interesting and hard to forget. This is a brilliant, heartbreaking, and beautiful story. There is a lot of beautiful prose hiding in here.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for the e-ARC. ❤️

Ugh. Such a disappointment. I thought I was going to love this book from the description. I liked the book up until a certain point. I just couldn't stand the way the parents bicker with each other. They were so mean and verbally abusive. I understand that married couples fight but name-calling one another is not okay, especially in front of their children. The mother is insufferable. She's not only horrible to her husband, but she's horrible to her daughter, Queenie as well. She talks down to Queenie the whole novel - it was cringe-worthy and aggravating to read. I was expecting a heartwarming and somber coming-of-age story but there was too much complaining, and the time jumps were frustrating. Also, you can tell this is a debut novel. The writing style was too simple and clunky. I wanted more depth and substance. The cover art is the only positive. Just look at that cover, it's a work of art.

Thank you, Netgalley and Dutton for the digital ARC.

This novel was written so beautifully, it oftentimes felt like reading poetry. I loved the way Sy decided to break up some of the chapters, especially towards the end of the book. The way Sy used such rich, descriptive language made it feel as though I was watching Queenie’s coming-of-age movie play in my mind. I didn’t want the book to end, I truly could have kept reading about her entire life unfold! I highly recommend this debut by Cherry Lou Sy. Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Group Dutton for this amazing ARC.

Rating: 1.25/5

As I was browsing some new and upcoming books on NetGalley, this read sparked my interest. Not only did the plot seem emotionally intricate, but the characters all seemed to be written genuinely meaning that the author didn't try to sugarcoat their flaws. In my humble opinion, when you combine those two elements you're usually left with a wonderful book of literary fiction. In addition to these two things, the plot depicts something that counselors, social workers, and other mental health professionals have slowly begun to embark upon studying: intergenerational trauma. This topic has become more and more relevant in recent years, so I was intrigued to see how it would be depicted and written in this book. However, after I turned the final page (not literally of course, unfortunately, e-readers have not gotten that advanced), I was left feeling very disappointed and honestly a bit confused. The book starts out well enough with Queenie journeying to America and describing how her mother has been changed by American culture and how her father starts to act out on his resentment of this change. After that...the plot just seems to kind of go all over the place. I felt like Cherry Lou Sy tried to keep the reader's attention by throwing a bunch of different plot points, but then lost the whole focus of the plot. For instance, at one point Queenie tries to be a sex worker of sorts by giving massages to men. Yet two chapters later, she stops and doesn't remark on the experience again. If Lou Sy had picked just one or two plot points to further develop, I think it would've read a lot better. As I got to the end of the book, I was hoping the ending would round everything out and I could see how the different pieces of Queenie's story fit together. Nope, not a chance. Instead, the book ended so abruptly that I checked to make sure I downloaded the entire ARC. All in all, the book had potential but did not come together.

Wonderful debut that feels true to life, depicting working-class Asian immigrant life in New York. I especially appreciated the caregiving depictions - that felt hella real. While I haven't finished it yet, Lou Sy gives us much needed stories, ones obscured by the model minority myth. Thank you, Cherry Lou Sy and NetGalley!

Thank you Dutton Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

I love intergen stories so I’m really sad this one didn’t hit the mark for me. Our main character Queen Elizabeth (real name) comes America from the Philippines with her father and brother, meeting her mother who has been in American for a few years. Queenie’s family dynamic is complicated, her parents hate each other, her golden boy brother is quickly falling down the incel pipeline, and she is expected to work as an adult to help pay off the debt her mother incurred being her family to America. The question, is the American dream real and if it is, is worth it?

This is a coming of age novel so for all the times I didn’t understand Queenie’s actions, I had to remind myself that Queenie doesn’t understand Queenie actions. The point is that’s she’s trying. I feel like I didn’t get a full rounded story and characters kinda just dropped of but again, such is life.

I got this book as an ARC from NetGalley for my review. I’m glad I got this because I normally wouldn’t have read this book. It was good, easy to read, felt kinda rushed, great character and character development with some and not enough elsewhere.