Unfortunately I had to dnf this one due to the themes of parental death and grief. I also didn't feel at all invested in the story or main character.

I found this book charming and so easy to fall into the writing/world. I loved the mix of contemporary settings and magic that Roselle Lim crafted. I will be reading more from her in the future. Full review to come soon.

A great read.

This is the story of Natalie, who has returned home following the death of her mother. She left home 7 years ago and hasn't been back since. There have been lots of changes since she left.

Will she get chance to open a restaurant, which has always been her dream?

I received a complimentary copy of Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune from NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I have actually never read anything like this. Difficult to explain, this novel is mostly realistic fiction, with elements of nonfiction (actual recipes), fantasy (magic) and the paranormal (a benign ghost). Though this blended format threw me a little at first, I enjoyed the originality and it seemed to achieve the author's storytelling goals. Overall it is a feel-good novel with Natalie almost accidentally overcoming some of her personal obstacles while attempting to help her neighbors with troubles of their own. I also learned quite a bit about the Chinese culture throughout this novel, and I always enjoy learning something new from my reading experiences.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I'm hungry now... This is wonderful and magical. But seriously, can we talk about the food? While reading this I felt like I needed to have some kind of plate with food just so I would be fine, because all that made me hungry, I feel like I gained weight just reading about it. I liked this a lot!!

A fun, pleasant read, set in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Filled with symbolism, superstition, cooking, magic, and love - I appreciated the introduction to the traditions and symbols of the culture. I will always appreciate a book with recipes, even though all the chopping and prep work looks to be a bit beyond my knife skills.

Round up to a 3 1/2

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher, I absolutely loved this book and all the characters in it. It was well written with lots of descriptions. A very worth 4 stars

This book is delicious
Rich with mysticism, tradition, family, community and mouthwatering cuisine it really is a journey to somewhere special.
The romance element was sweet and uplifting but I feel the main focus for me was on the personal relationships Natalie restores and rediscovers as she returns to her childhood neighborhood. This book is a joy

I was lucky enough to visit Chinatown San Francisco whilst on holiday this year, plus I used to visit China on business, so the background setting and insight into Chinese culture were very interesting.
Natalie returns to her home when her mother died after being estranged for years to find the neighbourhood in trouble. She decides to revive her grandmother's restaurant that her mother had closed up when she didn't want to continue the business. She finds her grandmother's recipe book and decide to try recipes out on her neighbours to see whether she can repeat the magic that her grandmother was famed for, bolstered by a seer's prediction that this would save the neighbourhood.
Certainly the recipes given were very tempting, I had eaten food similar to these, maybe without the same effects though. Throw in a touch of romance and a plot twist and I ended up finishing this book in the small hours as I couldn't put it down
Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the advance copy of this book, although this did not influence my review.

Natalie returns to her Chinatown neighbourhood after her mother dies. She hadn’t spoken to her mother in years and her sudden death causes a plethora of old feelings to resurface. Despite the problems she had with her mother, Natalie is filled with regret. She also sees how far the neighbourhood has deteriorated since she’s been gone. When a realtor approaches Natalie, trying to convince her to sell her mother’s place, which includes the long-shuttered restaurant her grandmother owned and operated, Natalie baulks. She soon discovers that contrary to what she’s been led to believe the restaurant is in working order. Her dream of being a chef could very well come true after all- however, it will not be an easy task. With the help and support of her grandmother’s recipes and friends and neighbours, Natalie looks for just the right recipe for success- one that will give back to the community and carry on her grandmother’s legacy.

What a delightful story! This feel-good story adds in just a touch of magic, to go along with family and friends, a sprinkle of light romance, and tons of great food and recipes. I loved the characters, family secrets, and character development.

This is a fun story, really cute, with a few moral lessons tossed in, such as never giving up on one’s dreams no matter what adversity must be met and overcome. However, for me the most prominent theme is giving back to the community, paying it forward, and helping others, with the right intentions in your heart, and that’s a something we should do more of!

Such a fun, sweet read. I really enjoyed it. It reminded me a lot of The Joy Luck Club

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

3.5/5 stars

What a lovely book. It was exactly as I'd expected of it when I requested it. It's a wonderful light read that includes loads about the Chinese culture, recipes and wonderful way of writing about emotions.

My expectations weren't too high with this book, but I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading it. I have to admit that I did roll my eyes at times because Natalie honestly isn't my favorite protagonist ever, but it didn't do much to the reading experience.

I really enjoyed reading the recipes and the journal entries. I don't know why, but I always love it when a book includes these little things. It just makes it so much more real for some reason.

I highly recommend Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune if you're looking for a light, airy read that you'll want to finish within a day (because I did and I loved it).

The relationship between mother and daughter is wrought with miscommunication where both wants something the other will not provide. For Natalie, it was her mother's refusal to support her career in the culinary arts. This prompts Natalie to retreat and prove her worth without any contact. However, guilt and regret comes crashing down after she returns to the home where her mother died.

Did Natalie run away? Is she still running? Upon returning, the Chinese community quickly makes clear that Natalie had skirted on responsibilities often expected of a child of immigrant parents. Her mother died alone and Natalie wouldn't have known otherwise. Yet, there were a lot of unspoken conversations and as Natalie uncovers her mother's words through diary entries, she feels maybe they we're so different.

Renewed, Natalie decides to pursue her grandmother's legacy and reopen her famous restaurant. Armed with a family cookbook kept secret from her, she is motivated to inject life back into a neighborhood vulnerable to gentrification. Using cooking imbued with the flavors of feelings, we can practically taste the memories. The magical elements are clever plot devices to teach Natalie that she can't change people's hearts, but rather if she listens she can help them along the way. This is the missing ingredient she's been searching all of her life.

The romance also serves as another chance for Natalie to grow. The idea of running away from commitment instead of chasing a dream is valid. I think she wasn't genuinely ready to entirely invest in another person. Maybe finding who she really is in a place that's all her own doing is necessary to loving someone else.

I recommend this for fans of With the Fire on High and Sourdough . Magical cooking is becoming a genre and I'm here for it.

COVER REVIEW:
Love the color scheme and the illustrations are adorable. This is definitely a keeper. I also love the little dove that holds the words "a novel".

I loved the concept here, I loved the idea of the storyline. After all, magical realism is my favorite genre with foodie fiction not far behind. But I struggled a bit with the book. I couldn’t tell sometimes what was literal and what was figurative (for example, did Natalie’s tears really, literally turn into crystals?). I also got a bit frustrated with Natalie sometimes because she seemed to think her life was beyond her control.

Natalie’s life has been tough. She was raised by an agoraphobic single mother. Natalie had to do a lot for her mother when she was growing up. She resented her neighbors for not helping with her mother.
Her mother was broken hearted by the loss of Natalie’s grandmother and by Natalie’s father leaving her. Both of these things happened before Natalie was born but you can definitely feel the repercussions in Natalie.

Natalie dreams of being a chef like her grandmother was. Her mother forbid it. Why? I’m not sure.
So Natalie and her mother haven’t seen each other in seven years. Natalie blames her mother for the fact that she failed culinary school. She blames her father for the fact that she can’t commit to a relationship.
So Natalie has traveled the world, learning new recipes.

When she gets notice that her mother has died, she goes back to her hometown for the services. She inherits her mother’s house and her grandmother’s old restaurant.
She is given a book with her grandmother’s recipes and a note from her mother giving her blessing that Natalie pursue her dreams.

The recipe book is actually magical. Her grandmother has included notes about what each recipe can make happen.
Natalie is told that in order for the restaurant to succeed she must cook for three neighbors. She must help them find what they need.

This forces Natalie to get to know her neighbors better. She has to care about their lives in order to help.

A magical book book is an idea that I absolutely love.
This book had a lot of potential. I enjoyed it but I think I would have enjoyed it more if there was more magic and less drama.

I love the idea of this story, so much! Food bringing people together, healing and making a suffering neighborhood prosper again and become vibrant once more. I am partial to a story of food bringing joy and perhaps also a bit of magic into people's lives, so I think it softened me to this story. But in the end I was disappointed by it.

The writing was choppy, with a lot more telling than showing. For example we learn right away on the first pages that Natalie's mom has died and while it's a shock for her, as a reader we don't have a connection to her, her mother or their relationship. It took many pages for me to start feeling a connection to them and how the death of her mom could have changed everything for Natalie.

I also didn't really like how much this book was Natalie wanting to cook for her love interest and watching him eat and comparing that to porn. She simply shyly gave him food, barely said a word to him, and spent way too much time overthinking a relationship that didn't exist. The woman who left a man in the altar on the other side of the globe sounds like an entirely different character.

Despite the themes of grief, gentrification, immigration and so much more, as well as being a magical realism book, this lacked depth for me. I wish the writing had been more flowing, and that the main character had been a little more. I couldn't help but have some distance from her, the problems she had to solve (which were solved too quickly and neatly, and the magic was all too convenient). I think the writing was a bit too dry for me and in the end, this book didn't bring the heartbreaking-and-mending experience which it could have been. The plot also was predictable almost scene by scene.

The reason why I still gave it 3 stars is that I LOVED that I got lots of new recipes from this book to try, and it definitely delivered on the "making me hungry and wanting to cook" department, which is why I'd picked up the book in the first place. I think a different kind of reader will enjoy this more, especially if they can relate to the main character more than I did.

This was just the right book for me at the moment.. Which is ironic, because this entire beauty of a novel is about finding (or rather, eating) the right thing at the right moment.
I devoured this book. It's exquisitely descriptive, particularly when pertaining to the food sections, whilst still deeply wrapped in the Chinese culture. There are moments that feel almost removed from reality yet they add to the emotion that has clearly been poured into each page. There's little more to say about this book except that it's rather exceptional. Blending food with grief and a great lead female character, this isn't a book to be missed.

This was a charming story filled with sensuous delights. The food descriptions were so deliciously mouth-watering that I had to order take out dumplings to eat while I was reading!

I would have like a little more nuance in the romance with Daniel.