3.75⭐️

[a copy of this book was provided to me by the published from netgalley. thank you!]

gorgeous cover. a love letter to family, food, & belonging.

I honestly had to go back and check the blurb because this book was not at all what I was expecting. With comparisons to both the beautiful, gut-wrenching familial reflection of Crying in H Mart and the incredible food writing of Butter, I was expecting something entirely different to what I got.

The focus is on the author and her romantic life. Primarily, we accompany her off the back of a breakdown of a 13-year relationship for which, (I think?), she's estranged from her parents. It's nebulous and never explored, remaining a huge elephant in the room for the length of the book. Instead, we spend a lot of time in the author's head with her insecurities as she navigates a new relationship. The choice to not name the love interests added further distance as a reader. Literally everyone else has a name? Even friends that are mentioned once in passing.

The parents felt like side characters and I was so disappointed at how little we got to know them. There isn't a lot of commentary of exploration of the lack of verbal affection (plus, we've got this hinted-at estrangement that likely provides some context for the supposed 'distance' between the author and her parents). I felt like we were missing critical information that would have helped contextualize a lot of the tension there. Instead, they all just pretended nothing happened and stay in this non-communicative limbo?

With that, the book suffers from a maddeningly distracted attention span. As if it doesn't know what it wanted to focus on and just sorta drifts instead. It felt navel-gazey at many points, especially the stream of consciousness style and random asides that didn't add anything meaningful. The author spends an excessive amount of time quoting authors, films, and books. It gave such a claustrophobic, insular feel.

I've read a lot of strong food-themed books lately that have made my mouth water and transported me to the meals. Sadly, I didn't get that same experience with this.

I liked the pictures of the lorikeet and the moving boxes as well as Yeye's art. I wish there had been more pictures! There were some beautiful turns of phrase sprinkled throughout the book too, hints at the author's capability. The prologue was one of the best intros I've ever read. This frustrated me more and I wish the author had just written what she'd wanted rather than trying to write a story she was clearly hesitant to tell.

Ultimately, I went into this book excited to explore themes of familial reconnection (and maybe complexity) through food but was disappointed that this wasn’t really what the book’s focus was.

Perhaps it's worth exploring the book's unique selling points and adjusting some of the expectations (and book comparisons) prior to release. I'm sure there's a readership for stories about finding your partner, but I felt really misled by the blurb.

A book’s description (blurb), title and cover are huge factors why a reader picks up a book especially before reviews of it float around freely. Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You by Candice Chung, a memoir of saying the unsayable with food promises to work deeply on the connection between food and emotions, food as a parent’s way of saying that “I will always be there for you my child, come what may”, especially with Asian parents for whom telling their children ‘l love you’ feels queasy. But the book doesn't deliver too well on its promise. The parents whom we expect to be at the centre of the book are relegated to a secondary position gaining eminence only in the last one-third of the book and its epilogue. The book heavily dwells upon the author’s love life and her relationships, one that failed after 13 long years with a man she refers to as ‘The Psychic Reader's and a new one that’s blossoming slowly with a man she refers to as the Geographer, it takes the form of a dating/relationship manual for more than half the time.

What leads to the author's estrangement with her parents who aren't overly doting or overbearing or heavily sentimental stays fuzzy till the end. Though the author is married to the geographer at the book's end, she doesn't reveal his real name even when she reveals where he hails from, names of his parents and grandmother, I wonder what's the reason behind the non disclosure. Maybe this leads to an emotional disconnect between us readers and the author.

As the pandemic shrinks the world and closes off borders, the author slowly begins to trust the geographer as a reliable partner for life, spends more time with her parents with food playing a central role - food cooked at home, food eaten in a restaurant or eaten as a part of the job with an intent to review it for the newspaper. (Candice Chung is a writer, editor who wrote restaurant reviews for The Sun Herald.)

The references to the Cantonese way of life are colourful - what’s an astronaut family, to have ginger meant to have courage, having a small gallbladder meant getting scared easily, gone off to see the world meant someone passed away et al. What it means to find a home away from home is explored well - be it the author's parents starting life anew in Sydney after leaving Hong Kong, the geographer who is on the move constantly missing his home in Canada, the author leaving Sydney and moving to Glasgow where the geographer gets a job.

What stopped me from appreciating the memoir wholly is its heavily disjointed structure, it being flooded with references by the author on what Deborah Levy, Patti Smith, Bhanu Kapil, Nora Ephron and so many other authors thought and wrote in their books, the latter I felt diluted the author's individuality.

Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You by Candice Chung is a buffet where the portion size of the main course is restricted but the sides are way too many, very random and unlimited.

Billed as a food memoir, this is Chung's story of fishing love, reviewing restaurants, navigating a pandemic and her evolving relationship/understanding of her parents.

It is an interesting read, although I found it hard to grasp initially as the narrative seems to bounce between different time periods. I wonder whether this be is also harder to grasp on an eraser where the formatting of quotes and stylised text isn't as clear as it would be in print.

I enjoyed the last section the most, when the story was linear and easier to grasp. It's also the pint where you really see the role of food in her life. If you want to read this as a foodie, I think you'd be disappointed - it seems to mostly be about the role food plays in her relationships, without really I I g the food a spotlight. The theme mostly seems to be discovering an understanding of her parents and navigating a new relationship.

Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You is exquisite. The author weaves a tale of food, finding love, cultures, and parents. I love that she wasn't afraid to play around with the way that certain chapters were formatted, and didn't keep everything linear.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but at times I found it disjointed—though I believe this was intentional. The author is telling her story, and at times, her life is confusing, emotional, and challenging, and this is reflected through the structure of the book.

She writes about a breakup and alludes to difficulties with her parents, who didn't acknowledge her boyfriend for many years. They also experienced distance in their relationship, only meeting outside their homes. I would have liked more information about their relationship, and why this happened.

I liked how she refers to her current boyfriend as "the geographer," preserving his anonymity.

I was drawn to this book because I’ve lived in China and enjoyed reading about the different dishes. It was clear how certain Chinese dishes were special to her and served as a love language within her family.

I also would have liked more details about her role as a food reviewer.

I appreciated the references to other writers and the inclusion of memorable quotes—it made me look up other authors.

Finally, I wasn’t expecting the pandemic to be part of this book, but it was interesting to see how it affected her story.

I received an advanced review copy from NetGalley and this is my honest review.

“Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You” by Candice Chung is a reflective and intimate memoir that captures a pivotal year in her life. Set in the months leading up to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chung explores the deep connections between food and the relationships that shape her world. Now that some time has passed since the pandemic started, it’s fascinating to read personal accounts of that period and how it reshaped people’s lives.

While the book explores her relationship with her parents, much of the focus shifts to the romantic relationship that develops during those months. Sometimes, her parents feel like background characters when they could have played a more central role. That said, I enjoyed Chung’s memoir. Her lyrical writing style pulls you right into her experiences, and the way she weaves food into the narrative is beautifully done—it often takes center stage in the best way.

I’d recommend this to anyone looking to explore more Asian writers and their nuanced takes on relationships, identity, and family.

Hi, I just published my review on Goodreads! Thanks for Candice Chung and Elliot & Thompson for allowing my request to read this beautiful book. Hence I show you the link of my review instead. Once again thank you so much.