This was not at all what I expected, it manages to be both distant and intimate, exploring the way love can be shown through actions and objects and food, rather than words.

The author flits from one subject to another without a clear connection, at least at first, but the calm tone and flowing prose stops it from feeling jarring.

I have seen reviews complaining that there are no details about her previous relationship which seems to be the reason for the estrangement from her parents but I don’t believe it matters. This is not a book about past mistakes, but about moving forward and the difficulty in figuring out how.

this book was good! it was bittersweet. It is interesting to read about different love languages and how cultures affect the way we show love. It was a good book, lots of empotions!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

3.5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the e-arc.

I read some other reviews on here and they hit the nail on the head- this book was marketed wrong and the blurb doesn’t accurately reflect the book. Setting expectations is really important when marketing books, otherwise it leads to disappointment which is incredibly unfair to the author. I was expecting a lot more around familial love but it was more of a memoir of her love life. That being said, I did really enjoy parts of the book.

The first half of the book felt somewhat disjointed and the narrative was difficult to follow. The humour was witty edging towards sardonic at times. It’s often alluded to a rupture but it doesn’t explore this until later on.

The second half of the book I really enjoyed, as it picked up more around the theme of her family. I wish this has been explored more in the first half. You can feel the emotions they are holding back, the things left unsaid hanging in the air between them
“You can always come home”. I found it really touching , I cried a lot at the 90% mark.

Dotted throughout the book are references to her parent’s life before emigrating to Australia and their experience as immigrants. Food plays a big role in all their lives but I did think it would be a bit more central to the story.

The parts of it that are good, are really good and I would still recommend this as a read.

This was a bit of an odd one. The book is described as "... she’s determined to tackle what's left unsaid. To find a way to unscramble what her family has been trying to tell each other all along – not in Cantonese or English, but with food," and we are told she takes her parents to review restaurants with her for her job, which implies it's a family memoir, but actually it's more an emotional and relationship memoir around Chung herself. There is a fair bit about their move from Hong Kong to Australia and what it's like living in Australia as a Chinese woman, but a lot of it is working through the minutiae of her current relationship while also discussing her previous 13-year one which coincided with a period where she didn't see her parents - but as far as I could see, there is no explanation as to why that is, and she has made contact with them and introduces the new guy to them. I was aware of this emphasis from other reviews so it wasn't a surprise, and I did read through it quite happily.

Once more, I found myself sympathising with her mum, obviously experiencing culture shock and doing her best; to be fair, she is described positively and lovingly and the portrait of her isn't as harsh as some portrayals of Chinese mothers. And an interesting background being based in Australia.

Blog review published 17 April: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2025/04/17/two-east-asian-second-generation-immigrant-stories-tuyen-do-summer-rolls-and-candice-chung-chinese-parents-dont-say-they-love-you/

Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You is a multi-faceted story of love, family, identity, culture and belonging, all through the lens of food. What I loved most about this book was how I kept forgetting this was a memoir and not a literary fiction novel. It was so beautifully and considerately written with a clear narrative woven through anecdotes and vignettes into the author’s life. Candice Chung is honest and reflective, able to find nuance and connections in even the small and seemingly mundane that tie into the greater themes of her story.

While I expected from the title and blurb for this to be focused almost entirely on the author’s relationship with her parents, it instead follows multiple different relationships, both romantic and familial. The main ones are those with her estranged parents, and the breakdown of her long-term romantic relationship with her partner. The story is not linear or straightforward, Candice Chung jumps between time and thoughts which might be a little unsettling or hard to follow for some readers, but I loved how the narrative wove together, making me as the reader connect some of the dots and reflect myself.

I would love to read anything else she publishes, whether that is nonfiction or fiction, both of which I feel she has and would excel at. I implore anyone with an interest in any of the topics listed above (love, family, identity, culture, belonging) and/or food to read this book.

I’ve been sidetracked with Asian April and have been prioritising NetGalley requests over my Asian picks, but this is both a NetGalley request and one of my Asian picks, putting me right back on track.
I’m just back from 2 weeks in Japan and didn’t have as much reading time as I usually do, as I was busy exploring, (so warning for the incoming Japan content) but I finished this just before I left and I really enjoyed the concept/message.

It’s autobiographical in nature, but doesn’t offer too much insight into the author’s life and that’s the point or premise of Chung’s story/ upbringing within an Asian household. They don’t talk about the big issues or big questions in life, they revert to what they know and what they’re comfortable with, like instead of how are you managing moving to a new city? It’s where do you buy your rice? She jokes about her parent’s photo album that once held pictures of her and her sister has now been replaced by memorable meals.

She shares how this upbringing has moulded and formed her, how she referred to her partner as the geographer, who remains nameless and how her love story formed a different turn of events when it became expedited as a marriage for visa purposes. I’m not sure if it’s me just overthinking that the loveless life (or rather the non atypical loving family) she was born with leaked into her marriage of circumstance, but that just may be me going too far!

Thank you so much NetGalley and Elliott & Thompson for this early release copy. It’s out on 25th April and definitely recommend

Although this has "food" and "memoir" in the title, do not mistake it for a food memoir. Food is not the main dish here and while it serves somewhat as a vehicle for the storytelling, it doesn't integrate as well with the relational aspects. For me, the writing style didn't land. There were beautiful phrases here and there, but the overall effect of it was floaty in a way that was distracting. I can absolutely imagine that there are people out there for whom this writing would be delectable; I am not that person.

I found this memoir to be interesting and well written. While we don't get a lot of insight into the authors parents (as the title suggests) we get insight into dating and food. I enjoyed this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced digital copy.

Iwanted more talk on the food front. I wanted to crave the things on page and sneak in some late night chocolate but alas the food was talked around. The restaurants she went to were just listed without any distinguishing features, till now I have no idea which ones she would return to in a heartbeat outside her job. The mystery of why her parents disapproved of her previous partner was never solved ( leaving me to assume just classism) even though it was brought up throughout. I almost thought that guy would have a cameo based on jow often it was mentioned. I wanted more insights into how her job works from start to finish but only got breadcrumbs.

“Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You” by Candice Chung is a poignant memoir that captures a transformative year in her life, set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through her intimate reflections, Chung examines the intricate connections between food and the relationships that shape her identity. As we continue to navigate the aftermath of the pandemic, personal accounts like hers provide a compelling lens through which to understand how this unprecedented time reshaped lives.

While the memoir delves into her relationship with her parents, it increasingly centers on her romantic journey during the pandemic. At times, her parents feel more like supporting characters than pivotal players in her story. Nevertheless, Chung's lyrical prose invites readers into her experiences, and her skillful integration of food into the narrative elevates it beautifully—food often takes center stage, highlighting its significance in her life.

Billed as a food memoir, Chung's work is not merely about cuisine; it's a narrative about navigating love, reviewing restaurants, and deepening her understanding of her parents amid a global crisis. However, I found the initial chapters a bit challenging to follow, as the narrative shifts between different time periods.

While I anticipated a memoir focused more on food and family, it leans heavily into the themes of food and dating, which diverged from my expectations. I also hoped for deeper insights into Chinese food and immigrant culture, aspects that felt somewhat underexplored.

Ultimately, "Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You" offers a unique perspective on love, family, and the role of food in connecting us to our roots. While it may not have fully met my expectations, it certainly sparked reflection on the complexities of relationships during a time of isolation and change. If you’re seeking a memoir that intertwines food with personal growth, this one might resonate with you.

Thank you NetGalley! How to rate a memoir is difficult. Is one’s life more important or interesting than another’s? Personally, I thought the title didn’t fit the book. Yes, there is food related parts of life and her job is a food journalist but it didn’t feel like the main focus of her writing. Although well written, it didn’t live up to the expectations of the title for me. That said, still a charming memoir.

As a memoir this was disappointing to me. I was drawn in by that punchy title, the lovely cover and I do love food memoirs.

But I felt the book was missing the personal, emotional pull that I crave from memoirs and I had a hard time emotionally connecting to it. The author is a food journalist who reviews local restaurants and her parents join her to enjoy the food. I felt as if the author had taken herself completely out of the story and was a journalist looking objectively at her own life as if it were a quirky rom com. It mostly follows the author's misadventures as she dates her way to lasting love, with her parents a small part of the story.

But I never found out why her 13-year relationship ended, other than she felt she was just hanging out and her parents didn't approve. It felt like the elephant in the room that she was too afraid to broach. While the scenes with her new love interest were cute, it felt like she was just hanging out and rushing things in this relationship too, albeit presumably to a better guy. We are only told the men are the "palm reader" and "the geographer" and no names, further distancing the reader from them. I can understand the intention of this but I struggled understanding everyone's motivations.

I also thought this was going to be a family story but we really only got surface level with her relationship with her parents. I felt as if I was reading someone's sanitized, flirty social media posts where they are too timid or embarassed to get too vulnerable or reveal deep emotional truths.

So this was not what I was expecting at all and fell flat for me. I also was hoping for more insight into Chinese food and immigrant culture and it was more the author's relationship with food in general, but from a very journalistic lens.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book! Below is my honest review.

As a fellow Chinese person myself, I sorely requested this book based on the cover. But the plot is nothing of what I imagined and doesn’t seem like much like the description. I thought it would be more food and family focused, but it’s more food and dating related, at least in the first 27%). For that reason, I’m DNFing it. The prologue is pretty much the only part where she talks about her family, but I was expecting a little bit more in terms of explaining Chinese culture and social norms.

I know you should never judge a book by its cover, but I did, and given the book's name, I was let down. While the book was well written, I expected it to focus more on her relationship with her parents than on her romantic life. While I enjoyed learning about her relationship with her parents, I preferred to read more about that.

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.