I cannot express enough how much I LOVED this collection. I am by no means an expert on poetry, but this felt like the author really knows poetry, from crafting beautiful expressions to utilizing the structure to knowing the perfect stopping place. I read this in one sitting because I couldn't put it down but want to just keep going back and rereading in small doses so I can really let it all sink in slowly. Even without knowing many of the dishes she describes, I felt like I could taste them from her vivid descriptions alone, and I loved how the food theme seeped into her childhood stories and the way she explained her feelings as an adult. I also found so many areas of this collection relatable as someone with immigrant grandparents. From the third-generation perspective, there can be a lot of judgment from older family members for not carrying on traditions or speaking their language fluently, and it is a hard burden to bear, especially when there's the added layer of familial heartache. I may not share the author's culture, but this spoke to me personally and I will definitely be picking up a physical copy of this to annotate. I am so grateful for the opportunity to receive an ARC of this collection.

“Grain by grain, sew me into a blanket of rice, desire seeping out the seams.” 🍚

a special thank you to Net Galley, Literary Press Group of Canada & Brick Books for allowing me access to an Advanced Reader’s Copy of Familial Hungers by Christine Wu! it’s an absolute privilege to receive an ARC & i’m so honored to be able to share a honest review in exchange.

✍️ publication date: february 28th, 2025

review: ★ ★ ★ ★ (02/22/25)
with each poem digested, the reader grows to understand the different pieces & beliefs that Wu shares of herself. i loved how realistic and raw the poems were, it made the book feel more genuine.

poetry is a very intentional genre so i truly enjoyed seeing the Wu’s care embedded throughout the book. i also loved the questions raised about identity & comments about colonialism!

i found the references to another book, quote, proverb, etc. to be an cool addition!

my favorite poems: bilingual dreams, the grocery store calls them cuties, milk, memory flight & nuclear reactions

I am easily persuaded by beautiful book covers, but even more so by anything related to poetry or food writing so Familial Hungers felt like the perfect fusion of all three. Christine Wu’s debut collection masterfully intertwines culture, identity, and community through the lens of food, which serves as both a tangible and symbolic presence in exploring these themes. Yet, this collection is far more than just its beautiful cover - it is a striking and deeply vulnerable body of work.

One of the most compelling aspects of this collection is Wu’s consistent use of food as a metaphor for the immigrant experience. Certain dishes, communal spaces like grocery stores and school cafeterias, and even the restaurant industry become vehicles for exploring identity and belonging; or the ways in which both are rejected in these spaces. Here, food is more than mere sustenance for our poet - it is history, parental expectation and, at times, an emotional minefield. Beneath the sensory details of meals and flavors simmer the complex realities of colonialism, intergenerational trauma, and language loss. Wu crafts a layered reading experience that will definitely resonate with those who have similar lived experiences of being a third culture kid or a part of a diaspora community. However, there is also the opportunity for a larger audience to see outside the scope of their own experiences.

In addition to her exploration of food, Wu also experiments with language throughout the collection. She candidly reflects on her broken Cantonese and the sense of disconnect it has created in expressing herself to her family and feeling truly rooted in her cultural heritage. Through intentional wordplay and structural nuances, she brings this struggle to life on the page. Her nods to the tonal shifts of Cantonese, interwoven with English, add a level of depth and artistry that is masterfully crafted. While this was fascinating to read, I think that what truly makes this collection so engaging is how seamlessly Wu blends memoir with the socio-political context of her life. Her poems capture the complexities of assimilation, the guilt of generational pressures, and the grief of never feeling fully like you belong. Yet, through all of this, her poems are imbued with a profound love for the flavors that shaped her life and a resiliency that she can carve her own path to living a life that gives her what she needs.

Ultimately, Familial Hungers is an emotional and thought-provoking collection that captures the complexities of identity, belonging, and cultural reflections. Wu’s ability to balance personal reflection with broader themes makes this debut an essential read - one that lingers in the mind and on the plate long after the final page!

Her experiences are both informative and deeply relatable, even across different backgrounds.
The prose is beyond beautiful.

Familial Hungers, debut book by Christine Wu.

This poetry collection was so enjoyable. Steeped rich in food metaphors, recipes and tradition. I loved all of the reference to Chinese culture. Providing such a needed perspective regarding other cultures, immigrants, and the social and personal effects.

I enjoyed the setup of this poem collection and found the length to be enjoyable and accessible. The blend of language what beautiful to read, even as I am only an english speaker/reader.

I also found myself relating to a lot of the poems in relation to family relationships.

So unique and so capturing to a reader of any culture. These poems were so heartfelt and painful to read.

I will be keeping an eye out for Christine’s next book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Brick Books Publishing for an ARC copy and my honest review.

Familial Hungers by Christine Wu is a poetry collection due to be published today by the Literary Press Group of Canada and Brick Books.

This collection of poetry deals with immigrant identity, childhood memories, and grief complicated by anger and sadness seen through the lens of food. The author sticks closely to this theme, which is both the great strength and weakness of this collection. While the use of food metaphors were inspired in many of the poems, I sometimes wished that the poems went beyond the limitations of it in others.

The poems that hit me hardest were "Why I Stopped Coming Home for the Holidays" and "Nuclear Reactions". These, along with "37 Ways to Make Rice" really highlight a reality of the immigrant experience -- the feeling of not fully belonging in either place or culture.

I recommend this unique poetry collection to anyone who can relate to its themes.

Thank you to the Literary Press Group of Canada, Brick Books, and the author for making this collection available via NetGalley for early reading and review consideration.

A gorgeously delicious collection of poetry. Centered around her Chinese heritage, Wu uses meals/food as a tool for storytelling. One of my favorite ways to connect is through food and poetry so this was an incredibly satisfying read. Her small nods to the tonal shifts of Cantonese in wordplay is masterful and inspiring. Identity, colonization, and family ties are all on the table in this feast. Those who know the sting of nostalgia and diaspora will devour this.

My favorite poems are: "The Grocery Store Calls Them Cuties", "The Sixth Love Language Is Cut Fruit", and "Unnamed Laundryman Feeds His Earthbound Family."

Food is such a powerful storytelling device. A single dish can evoke a wave of emotion or tell the history of a country. It’s also inevitably tied to nostalgia.

Familial Hungers is a poetry collection by Christine Wu, a Chinese-Canadian who reflects on her identity, family, and culture through food. A lot of it is painful. There’s generational trauma and a lot of hurt. There’s a sense of identity loss by being a first-generation immigrant who can’t speak her parent’s language. But there’s also warmth and love. A mother welcomes her daughter home with homemade soup. A fridge drawer full of clementines.

I did notice a few words and phrases scattered in there that hold a deeper meaning if you know the background. For example, the line “She disappeared tone by tone: a vanishing mother, a horse, question.” — doesn’t seem very coherent but the sounds for “mother”, “horse”, and “?” all have the same sound. These specific instances happen infrequently though and the poems are beautiful even without the context.

Coming from a similar background as Wu, this book hits a lot of notes for me. The familiar dishes, the sense of cultural identity, the nostalgia. It’s actually my first time reading poetry and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The book’s blurb describes it as “bittersweet, numbingly spicy, herbal and milky” and I think that’s perfect. No matter who you are, this tiny book will feel incredibly meaningful.

✨ Review ✨ Familial Hungers: Poems by Christine Wu

Thanks to Brick Books and #netgalley for the gifted advanced copy/ies of this book!

This is one of the most engaging and accessible poetry collections I’ve read lately. Many collections of poetry feel hit or miss where certain poems make sense or resonate, but this was a hit all the way through.

Her poems focus on themes of food, family, and belonging and tackle big concepts of immigration and colonization, especially through discussion of food.

One of my favorite poems "Nuclear Reactions" ends with these words:
“Chain reactions occur / when your body is a by-product / of colonialism. / A misplaced birthright, / a paperless map, / a homing pigeon / flying in circles.”

If you're looking to try out poetry, this is a good place to start!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: poetry
You'll love this if you liked Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner
Pub Date: Feb 28, 2025

Absolutely loved this collection of poetry. I'm not normally a big poetry reader, but this one was extremely visual and visceral. I definitely really felt the pain Christine Wu was going through growing up as a foreigner within her own family, and could really resonate with a lot of what was in here. Some of the poems required a bit more patience from me, especially those where the structure of the words were a bit varied and scattered. I think the food as a connecting thread was brilliant and really appreciated the way the poems are categorized. Definitely some gold mine poems in here.

Wasn't a big fan of the title honestly. The book felt more like a journey, and because the title is the same as the last section, it feels like all the emphasis is put there.

I found Familial Hungers deeply relatable even though the author and I come from different backgrounds. She, a Chinese-Canadian daughter of immigrants and the struggle she has to relate to her parents. The only way she knows how is through food. This was a solid collection of poems and I would love to read more of her work.

In Familiar Hungers, Christine Wu examines her identity through food, language, rituals, and familial relationships. The poems play with forms, visually and structurally. I want to preface this by saying that poetry is the most subjective of writing forms and this collections shows a lot of merit, but not something that I look for in poetry. The structure often felt like a gimmick and some of the poems were just sentences broken up by lines. The verses were not tight enough, often being repetitive. For a collection that had sections in Cantonese, English, and French, the language was not used nearly enough, whether to draw parallels or find a unique intersection of languages to create something poetic. That being said, I will look out for more work by Christine Wu because I am still very interested in topics she explored in this collection.

An immersive and poetic undertaking of race, family, the immigrant experience, and of course soup.

I loved the continued use of food as a metaphor for the immigrant experience. The repeated use of food in all forms; cooked, uncooked, the act of cooking, the community housed in grocery stores and the lack of it in school cafeterias really highlighted everything Christine Wu was trying to say.

Wu’s poetic voice is lyrical and strong, a true feast of a collection of poetry.

This collection stays tightly on theme—complicated familial relationships, the immigrant experience, and religious trauma illustrated by poem after poem about food. The poems are accessible, sensory, and at times deeply moving.

A powerful collection of poetry that combines 90s nostalgia, broken families, Chinese culture, food, and the struggles of being a second generation immigrant into a gorgeous web.

The exploration of food and memory and emotion in this collection was powerful and moving; the readers experience the authors sad memories just as equally as the good, and we join the author on this journey to reconcile the two.

I deeply enjoyed this collection and look forward to reading more of the authors work.

A powerful collection of poetry from Christine Wu, she speaks on the difficulty and trauma of being a first generation immigrant. I gave this collection a 4/5 because some poems in the collection were more powerful than others. I can see a lot of this trauma playing out in my students, which only made the impact these poems had on me that much stronger. The way that Wu speaks on language, food, and her familial relationships is raw and devastating, especially the way she speaks on the staples of her childhood and their mixed origins.

Hauntingly beautiful and painful. Wu captures a feeling of fragmentation and loss that is relatable to many immigrants and immigrants’ children. Some of her phrases really lingered with me: shadow histories and hungry ghosts to name a few. It was also striking that Wu was honest and vulnerable about shame, guilt, and family dynamics (re: abuse, lack of contact, resentment). I was comforted by seeing myself in her poetry while learning about her culture and generational trauma/history that is different than mine yet somewhat similar. This is truly a beautiful collection of poems that is unapologetically raw, honest, and mournful. Thank you for allowing me to review this book.

This was a beautiful and mouthwatering collection of poetry. Discussing the ins and outs of the authors life as a second generation immigrant and her relationship with her family’s food, history and culture as a result. I absolutely fell head over heels into this collection and was enthralled the entire time. The food imagery was exquisite, all around an amazing read.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars.

This isn't well written nor is it very inspiring. I get it, the constant enjambment is meant to punctuate the author's own feelings of fragmentation but my God it reads like someone is having a stroke.

Gorgeous poetry collection that explores the themes of belonging, family, and identity through the lens of food.

I found myself savoring each poem. Each felt like a meal that took time to digest and tended to sit with me throughout the day.

Wu is exceptionally gifted at evoking strong emotions with just a few words. I especially loved her vivid descriptions of food (dishes and ingredients), as well as her thoughtful commentary on how food intersects with class, race, and relationships.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!