Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You: A Memoir of Food, Family and Finding Love

by Candice Chung

'If only my Cantonese parents weren't so allergic to the word love…'

What is the most unsayable thing you have ever wanted to say to your parents? For newly single food journalist Candice Chung, there's been one thing on her mind 'If anything happens, I love you.' Simple. Reasonable. If only her estranged Cantonese parents weren't so allergic to the word 'love'.

Still, 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.

As Candice dives into the rituals of family dining, and her parents offer to join her at restaurants she's due to review, she begins to unravel how a decade of silence and distance have shaped their relationship. Through shared meals and culinary adventures – from steaming hotpots to pasta at uncomfortably romantic trattorias – they begin to confront the unspoken. And to unpick what it means to show care when you come from a culture where saying 'I love you' isn't the norm.

Set against the backdrop of a burgeoning new relationship, grasped-at date nights mid-pandemic and an uncertain future across seas, Candice reflects on migration, solitude and intimacy.

How can we rebuild closeness when we've drifted apart?

Can food fill the gaps where words fail?

For anyone who has ever found their loved ones' emotional worlds unreachable, Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You is packed with heart, humour and those bright-hearted moments around a dinner table that bring us together.

The next word-of-mouth obsession for readers of Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, Butter by Asako Yuzuki and I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Audiobook, Biography, Family, Biography Memoir, Food and Drink

336 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 29, 2025

Reviews

[Bloss ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

I had my request to review this book approved by Elliot & Thompson on NetGalley.

[Caitlyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.25 stars

ARC review

Candice Chung's memoir, Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You, explores her complex relationship with her family and how their culture influences their ability to be vulnerable with one another. Candice was estranged from her aging parents for over a decade due to a relationship they didn't approve of, the end of which gives her an opportunity to try to reconnect. Candice uses food as a centre for a journey through her adut life, and how emtionally unavailable parents impact all facets of her life.

I want to start by saying I see the vision, and I know exactly what this book was *trying* to do and I think the concept is beautiful. The narrative ebbs and flows - the reader gets a piece of the puzzle that is the author and her parents, then how this has effected another part of her life, rinse and repeat. The attachment we are allowed to develop to our parents has an unfathomable effect on all other relationships throughout our life, so this si a really solid foundation. Unfortunately I think the parents are not central enough given the title and premise of the book. The story veers too far away from the central themes too often and, not saying I want people to be miserable, but I'm not engaged in stories about people having nice albeit boring relationships.

I was excited to read this book because I loved Crying in H Mart and I had a feeling they would be similar due to the blurb, which is not a good comparison. I am a very empathetic reader and it is not often that I don't get emotional reading a memoir, but I feel like this book didn't go deep enough. The author tells us: my parents don't use their words to express their emotions - and it really doesn't go much deeper than that. I do think the writing was really unique and I would love to read literary fiction by this author if that ever came about.

[Mai H.]

Memoir March TBR

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Elliott & Thompson

[Denise Ruttan · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The stomach is a simple animal. But how do we settle the heart—a flailing, skittish thing?” A vibrant essay collection spotlighting food and family. The focus is on 2019–2021, a time of huge changes for Chung. She’s from Hong Kong via Australia, and reconnects with her semi-estranged parents by taking them along on restaurant review gigs for a Sydney newspaper. Fresh from a 13-year relationship with “the psychic reader,” she starts dating again and quickly falls in deep with “the geographer.” Sharing meals in restaurants and at home kindles closeness and keeps their spirits up after Covid restrictions descend. But when he gets a job offer in Scotland, they have to make decisions about their relationship sooner than intended. Although there is a chronological through line, the essays range in time and style, including second-person advice column (“Faux Pas”) and choose-your-own adventure (“Self-Help Meal”) segments alongside lists, message threads and quotes from the likes of Deborah Levy. My favourite piece was “The Soup at the End of the Universe.” Chung delicately contrasts past and present, singleness and being partnered, and different mental health states. The essays meld to capture a life in transition and the tastes and bonds that don’t alter. I got Caroline Eden (Cold Kitchen) and Nina Mingya Powles (Tiny Moons) vibes.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Cherie Koh · Rating 2 out of 5]

“he chose to move to this place and he is leaving. i did not choose but i had to stay”

candice chung’s memoir traipses the line between love and food as a force to express larger than life feelings. brought up in her native australia and as a food reviewer, this book charts the course over the compression of pandemic lockdowns and the suffocation defining those years.

but what i had thought what this book would be is not quite what it is. it’s littered (and i mean littered) with quotes from literary touchstones like deborah levy and other modern realist writers - i wonder what the purpose of that was, because the book felt less like her speaking to us as readers and more like ventriloquism of other passages.

chung’s writing style is melodic and delves into the experimental, using episodic create-your-own-adventure and ‘recipe cards’ to play with memory, flossing between past and present. i enjoyed the use of these devices, but felt that chung was writing with detached interest, veiled behind the use of these expositions - a buffet in her childhood is meant to have emotional weight but we were waiting for something that doesn’t seem to land.

that said, there are definitely gems where threads of candor apepar and those were the ones i enjoyed the most, in thinking about names she says: “defiant of generational grammar. how else to call ourselves the right name when everything else is inverted?” this was extremely precise, but she eases pressure and jumps onto something else totally unrelated - i couldn’t keep the pulse on what should be a sombering paragraph before getting moved on to something irreverent.

most of all, i didn’t expect her romantic life to take up so much space of the book! i thought it would be more of an elegy to family and immigrant inheritance rather than how she navigated the contours of a new relationship after coming out of a long term break up. i was a little disappointed because so often the writing felt preoccupied with intellectual seriousness of her life, including how she treats food vis-a-vis the lens of her parents…

[Well of Lost Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You by Candice Chung is a thoughtful and quietly affecting memoir that explores family, migration, identity, and the complicated ways love is expressed across cultures.

What makes the book so engaging is its honesty. The writing is warm, reflective, and often gently humorous, allowing the deeper themes of belonging, expectation, and generational difference to emerge naturally.

It’s the kind of memoir that resonates in subtle ways—you might not be able to point to a single moment that dazzles, but the overall experience feels deeply human and strangely comforting.

[Kat Kuo · Rating 2 out of 5]

my mum bought this for me lmao (she is not my Chinese parent). it bothered me that the “food as a love language” motif is so inconsistent throughout this memoir - sometimes it’s the backdrop, sometimes it’s a metaphor, sometimes it’s super literal. I’m being pedantic, but it never rlly felt cohesive and it did make me hyper aware that the book had been written SORRY!!

[Brendan Ng · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really a memoir, more of a brief snapshot of her life with some history thrown in and quite a few quotes from other authors. Enjoyable in its relatability though (hotel slippers at home anyone) and at times made me laugh, with a couple of pinpoint moments of emotion.

[Sophie-Marie Efkarpidis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this book is so beautiful and there are some moments where I felt I got what was promised by the title. But I also feel moments of it were entirely necessary or related to the premise of the book.

[Lizzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Giving it 4 stars cause debut author and Australian. I loved her writing style and definitely will read more from her. I agree the extract is a little misleading but that still let me enjoy the book and the writing.

[Jasmin Goldberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

well written, calm and patient memoir about the slower moments in life and how different people show their love. well observed and warm. I would have liked more food content and more family content but I enjoyed the normalcy of it all.

[Em · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title and cover of this book made me impulse buy, but I found the story hard to relate to. I was under the impression this was a memoir focused around navigating a relationship with your parents through a journey of 'saying the unsayable with food' but it didn't read that way.
The book is not centered around the parents or food and almost seems as if they are just side characters to a story about the Author's bland love life before and during the COVID pandemic.

[Bells · Rating 4 out of 5]

I miss my mama’s home cooking :(

[Violet · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
I expected a bit more from this memoir, and I was disappointed by how it turned out.
I can see what Candice Chung tried to do here - mixing memories from her parents, stories of food (she is a restaurant reviewer), and reflections on food and identity, a lot of them quotes from books she loves (Deborah Levy, one of my favourite authors, features heavily). She relies on these quotes a lot, and it felt a bit artificial at times - like she was trying to reach a certain word count, or gain a credibility that I would have given her without the literary quotes. Overall I found it pleasant but it didn't quite work for me as a food memoir.

A big part of the book was centred around her new relationship with "the geographer" and reminiscence of her previous relationship with "the psychic reader", and her distant relationship with her parents, but their lovely outings to restaurants she is reviewing.

I felt she had all the right ingredients for a great book but used too much of this and not enough of that. If I was asked, I would say this is a book about new love or new relationships, not particularly a memoir centred around food. Which is fine but not what I wanted to read.

Free ARC sent by Netgalley.

[Odelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an Asian Australian, I was instantly drawn to the premise of this book, it felt deeply familiar. The absence of direct “I love yous” in my relationship with my mum resonated strongly. Like many of us, I’ve grown up understanding that love is often expressed through actions, especially through food, rather than words.

In this memoir, Chung, a food reviewer, begins to invite her parents to the restaurant dinners she organises for work. These shared meals become a quiet act of emotional outreach. They discuss flavours and dishes, but never their feelings. It’s a poignant portrayal of how connection can be forged not through conversation, but through the act of eating together.

The book also weaves in linguistic insights into Cantonese, as well as reflections on a recent breakup. While I appreciated the introspection and lyrical writing, I did find the focus leaned more heavily on her dating life than her relationship with her parents, which felt like a missed opportunity given the title.

While the writing occasionally felt a little floaty, it meditates on topics that are often left unsaid in many families, love, grief, miscommunication. It's a quiet, tender memoir that speaks volumes through its silences.

Thank you Allen & Unwin for an ARC of the book!

[Emily Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this memoir in the hope of better understanding my partner’s family culture (Chinese-Singaporean, immigrated to Australia). I wanted to gain perspective on what a typical Chinese immigrant family dynamic might look like - perhaps even find examples of a “normal” or healthy dynamic - as I try to untangle what aspects of my partner’s family life are cultural and what aspects might cross into unhealthy or toxic patterns.

Candice Chung writes with humour, that is dry, reflective and yet beautifully poetic. Her parents are the classic stoic, non-conversational, communally-oriented Asian parents. Showing their love not through words, but through small, gestures and acts of service: a glance, a plate of food, a discount on white goods, a matter-of-fact statement seemingly unrelated to the emotional tension at hand, but that carries relevant weight and meaning if you pause to read between the lines. In fact I found myself rereading chapters to fully catch these nuances. Proof in itself of how subtle and layered love can be in this cultural context.

At its heart, this memoir is about the ways Chinese families communicate love and belonging, not with words like “I love you,” but through service, sacrifice, and the expectation of learning to swallow bitterness as you become an adult for the sake of the collective. Chung also captures and explores the loneliness and longing of carving out an identity separate from family expectations; the complicated shame that can accompany even the smallest personal desires; and a tendency to catastrophise fleeting moments of rejection within her romantic relationship, likely stemming from an insecure attachment style.

This isn’t a quick or easy read. It asks for attentiveness, reflection, and patience, much like the relationships it describes. But it’s rewarding in its quiet, nuanced way.

For future readers: go in knowing that in many Chinese families, love is not spoken, but rather, it’s shown in gestures, meals, and unspoken expectations. Care for the family unit is paramount, while individuality is often discouraged. With this lens, the memoir becomes both an intimate portrait of Chung’s family and a moving exploration of cultural differences.

[Aoife · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

[winnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was definitely drawn to this book based off the title, an experience that I could absolutely relate to. I went into this thinking we would get insight into the author’s tumultuous relationship between her and her parents with food at the center of it.

There were glimpses of those moments, particularly towards the latter half of the memoir when she mentions more of her interactions with her parents during a period of transition in her life. However, it seems as though her family existed more as side characters in this memoir than the focus, leaving me with little insight into who her parents are and how she was or wasn’t able to connect with them.

My biggest issue is that she mentions several times that she was estranged from her parents for 13 years, but never divulges why this was the case and how this was resolved or unresolved. 

This memoir left me wanting more and I’m left disappointed given its banger title.

If you are looking for a book that explores romantic and familiar relationships during the pandemic, this one’s for you. The story itself jumps back and forth in time, with no clear linear path, but the narrative works with Candice Chung’s style of writing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Elliot & Thompson for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

[Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite liked this memoir - it's simple in it's style, reminiscent of a seasonal, home cooked meal, just in book format. The author plays with structure and non-fiction narrative in a really effective way, that explores some deep concepts in the fleeting way that we often use when trying not to think about the hard stuff.

This book didn't have as much to do with food as I thought, nor parents; however was still, somehow, the correct amount. Candice Chung is a talented writer, and she has made even a simple snapshot of roughly a year in her life entertaining and poignant.

[Bridgette Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Challenge Prompt #7: A memoir by a BIPOC author

[Alexandra Almond]

Intriguing. Quite beautifully written, if a bit disjointed, but I suspect that’s on purpose. Despite the title it’s more about her love interest—“the geographer”—than her parents. Is it possible for a memoir to be too personal? I might have been more comfortable with it as fiction.

[Natalie]

more thought-provoking than the overdone title suggests

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

“A good story is a story of wish fulfilment.”

Candice Chung’s heartfelt and mouthwatering memoir, Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You was an emotional and tender story that I enjoyed on audiobook wonderfully narrated by Nicolette Chin.

After her thirteen year relationship ends, food journalist Candice finds herself not only losing her first love, but also her restaurant review partner. She then faces a dilemma when her retired Cantonese parents offer to accompany her instead. Over the past decade, Candice has drifted apart from them and finds it difficult to address the reasons why. As she begins a new relationship she is forced to try and express her feelings toward her parents through food rather than words.

Candice Chung’s book showed that food is so much more than just sustenance. It can provide comfort and express emotion, often conveying feelings that we otherwise could not express out loud. Her memoir was honest and perceptive and it tuned into something deeper than nourishment. Listening to this made me quite hungry and although it is very much focused on family and the things we leave unsaid, it was also a love letter to food and the joy it provides.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

thought this was beautiful

[Literary Redhead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the cover and the projected premise of the book, but the focus was too much on the author's romantic relationships. Disappointed despite the author's at times elegant writing.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved everything about this book. Once I got stuck into it, I realised that 1 - I loved Candice's writing style, and 2 - it was nothing like what I expected, it was better.

Candice references beautiful literature throughout (many I just had to write down and research during reading!), and mouth watering dishes all the while maintaining the story of her life - focussing on her childhood, her dreams, friendships and self-development - in a very natural and relatable way. You will find something that touches you, and sticks with you for some time to come. Nothing about this story felt forced, and I found myself not wanting to put the book down, or for it to finish. Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You, could easily be a Netflix movie.

The addition of the odd photo (Hello Birdie & The Grape!) and Chinese phrases and words, really made it unique and made me smile.

Candice unlocked something in the very back of my brain, and opened my eyes to my family and relocations across countries - the importance of shared moments at dinner tables and the lasting impact of cooking for those you love.

[An eARC from NetGalley & Elliott & Thompson - Thank you!]

[Sunshinegirl95 · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many amazing nuggets that are relatable as a Chinese person, and the way Candice writes is so nuanced. It’s colourful even in parts that illustrate a difficult or sad period. 10/10 !!!!

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.
This was a beautifully written book and I really enjoyed reading it. It felt almost like the author was just jotting down random thoughts, almost trailing off on a tangent constantly and a little bit jumbled up. I can see how some people might not enjoy this format but personally I found it very human and almost conversational.

I really enjoyed all of the literary references and the way that books have clearly shaped the author’s life and her understanding of past experiences.

I will say that I expected more about her relationship with her parents, as the title would suggest. It is a little disappointing that we really don’t get a lot of content about this. I did really enjoyed the writing about her romantic relationships, but this didn’t really feel like what the book advertised.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and found it very easy to read.

[Erin Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read an early arc of this book via Netgalley.

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.