Love Can't Feed You by Cherry Lou Sy

 

Publisher: Dutton

Expected On Sale Date: October 8th 2024

Pages: 336

I reviewed a  digital review copy from the publisher

In this coming of age novel, Queenie is a seventeen year old woman who immigrated with her family  from the Phillipines to New York City, in search for a better future. Her mother was in the USA already before Queenie arrived with her elderly Chinese father and her younger brother Junior. This earlier arrival created a gap betweenher mother, who works as a nurse in the Brooklyn,  and the rest of the  family. Her mother has changed in New York, and she is not the same mom as in the Phillipines, and this makes things worse when troubles arise between her and her husband. It is Queenie's dream to go to college, but as there are two children and not a lot of money, Queenie has to find work as a nurse first, caring for elderly and ill people. She dates a guy named Yan, but their relationship lands into nothing. Her brother lands in trouble at school, and her father has also problems of his own Their years in New York are difficult, full of ups and downs and is this the better future her parents had in mind for her, her brother and themselves?

Love Can't Feed You by Cherry Lou Sy that portrays the struggles and hardships of immigrants in the USA, of a family split between cultures, and a family which gets broken after the move. The promise of the storyline is very good, but at some points the story dragged along and lacked some interesting plot development. I really liked the style it was written in (Queenie's point of view) and the honest realistic, sometimes harsh realities and circumstances of Queenie and her family's life. Queenie struggles to find her place in life, and to find her identity as a young woman. She makes some though choices and also some pretty stupid ones (especially in the third part of the book). The characters of her parents and how they where portrayed, I still am confused what to think of them as their characters where a bit one dimensional and not worked out that well to really get to know them as a reader.

Love Can't Feed You is a nice read with a more serious undertone, about the difficulties of live between cultures. It had it good and it less good parts, but overal I found it okay and moving at some parts.