The Family Recipe by Caroline Huynh
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I was super excited to read Caroline Huynh’s recent novel since I enjoyed her debut novel, The Fortunes of Jaded Women.
The Family Recipe is story of family drama, generational trauma, historical fiction (Vietnamese fishermen in Texas) and a bit of mystery. It touches on so many topics - dysfunctional family relationships, the struggles and hardships of immigrants (Vietnamese), depression, sacrifice, identity and love. Wow when I put it that way, it sounds like a heavy novel. But Huynh does a pretty good job of making it more lighthearted with some laugh out loud moments.
Duc the owner of the famous bánh mi chains announces his retirement plans to his 5 children (who are in their 20s-30s and so different from one another). His “retirement plan”is more of an inheritance competition. Duc assigns each of his 4 daughters a sandwich shop in different states to revitalize for one year. However if his first born- Jude gets married first then he will win all the inheritance. As each child accepts his challenge, they each learn a little more about who they are and reflect on their childhood (their mom who left and their unsupportive father). If you enjoy family drama, generational trauma this book is for you! And if you like bánh mi, as much as I do, you will find yourself craving bánh mi for days! Thank you to @atriabooks @netgalley and @carolynkhuynh for the advanced ebook of The Family Recipe.

The Family Recipe follows the Trần family as the five estranged children battle for the inheritance. In the year that the four daughters revitalise the once famous bánh mì shops and the son tries to get married, they uncover their family secrets and history. The Family Recipe is also a sweet ode to Vietnamese food and culture!

The book is strongest when Huynh tackles the history of the Vietnamese diaspora in the U.S. and what they had sacrificed. I wish she had explored more of that through interactions between members of the two generations. I didn't know about the tensions between the KKK and Vietnamese fishermen so that was really interesting to further research into. I'm glad I know Vietnamese and can understand the intimacy of the language used. The story features two queer Vietnamese women, which I didn't expect! There are a few chapters that take place in Vietnam and Huynh describes it so vibrantly.

Unfortunately, this story didn't touch me and I do think that it's due to its ambitious almost 7 (? ) perspectives and 2 different timelines. I didn't know enough about each character to grow enough attachment and when my interest begins piquing, the perspective is changed. I came in expecting the format of this book to be more literary fiction-adjacent, which at times it was and that's when it shone. However, I cringed a little at quite a number of sections due to the melodrama that was almost soap opera-like. In addition, I didn't feel like the children's stories got concluded by the end but I'm happy with how Evelyn's story got wrapped up. The mystery of the book was fairly clear to me from the beginning but it was fun to see the children individually realise it. Sadly, I don't think I would've finished this if it wasn't an ARC.

Thank you Atria Books, Carolyn Huynh, and NetGalley for this ARC!

Carolyn Huynh's sophomore novel has a brilliant premise--take a quintet of siblings, desperate to escape the clutches of their wealthy father's gasp, and give them a chance to win the family inheritance by turning around a piece of the family business, in this case, a series of Vietnamese sandwich shops. A nuanced exploration of Vietnamese history in America is also explored on the page here, which adds nice depth to a relatively lighthearted story. However, this one struck out for me for a pair of reasons. First, with eight narrators and two timelines, this novel, which takes place over the course of a year in the present and a decade in the past, just tries to cover too much ground, leaving each story to be rather shallow and sketched. Second, I love a story with unlikeable characters, but there was a particular level of nastiness that all these siblings held - not to mention, the adults in this story, living with far too many secrets - that made it hard to root for anyone. The ending of the novel leaves much to be desired as you learn what parts of the story pay off, and which ones do not. I think I'd love the movie version of this, all the same. I think there was just too much bitten off here.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I just couldn't connect with the characters and the jumping around of POVs just didn't make it easy to pick up when I only had a few minutes to read.

When the five Tran siblings are summoned home by their estranged father, Duc Tran, they learn about his shocking conditions for inheriting his bánh mì empire inheritance. For the daughters, turnaround a failing sandwich store in one year. For the eldest son, get married. But as the feuding kids play dad’s game, they are forced to confront fractured relationships, buried secrets, and the legacy of their parents’ sacrifices. 🥪

Now this is a story that touches the heartstrings and reaches into the depths of the Vietnamese diaspora experience, especially in Texas. Huynh brings intimate emotion and layered history, exploring identity, generational trauma, and the unspoken cultural rules of the Vietnamese community. They were some amazingly tender moments, especially as we explore the past generation. 💔

That said, the book has structural issues. Too many characters, too many shifting narratives. I couldn’t really get invested in any of the 5 kids and their character arcs felt really rushed. Sometimes, the book defaulted to just telling us “this character went through a character growth”. Probably would’ve been better to actually merge some characters so you’d get deeper storylines with stronger characters.

But in the end, I think it’s all a bit misleading. The inheritance game and feuding siblings were the hook, but I think it’s actually more of a story about the older characters – the father Duc, the mother Evelyn, and Uncle Ngo. Their story was compelling, emotional, and offered the book’s most powerful moments. ⛵

Overall, a story worth telling and a heartfelt and meaningful look into the unique Vietnamese-American experience, even if execution is a bit scattered. Pick this up if you're in the mood for a family saga with cultural depth and emotional nuance. 💛

The story delivers a heartfelt exploration of family dynamics and the weight of expectations. However, I found that at times, the pacing felt uneven, which made it challenging to stay engaged. Additionally, certain sections were somewhat repetitive, leading me to lose track of the narrative thread. Enhancing the variety of scenes and deepening character development could strengthen the overall impact.

A family dramedy about estranged siblings competing for their inheritance by reviving their father’s bánh mì franchise and unraveling family mysteries in the process.

The timeline alternates between present day following the siblings at Duc’s Sandwiches locations across the US and to 1980 in Seadrift, Texas where we see Duc’s story.

I loved the historical fiction parts of the book. It was an interesting look into a specific place and community, following Vietnamese refugees working in the fishing industry. It was easy for me to get invested in the characters in this timeline.

The present day story was harder for me to get into. 5 siblings in different locations, each with their own life problems aside from the inheritance plot was a lot to squeeze in. Many of their conflicts had to do with looking for romantic love, which felt a bit forced for the plot because we didn’t get to spend that much time with each character.

Even though I didn’t love the present timeline, the last 25% of the book bumped up my overall enjoyment. I liked how things came together and the character interactions helped me feel more connected to the siblings.

I also want to say that the dramedy angle was refreshing to read. I think this book hit a good middle ground that has comedy mixed in, but doesn’t take away from the complicated experiences.

Pretty good and love the message and ending. My only downside is i didn’t get to connect much with all the characters. I think one less sibling or POV would’ve helped. I can’t wait to read her other works.

3.0/5.0

THE FAMILY RECIPE – by Carolyn Huynh

‘Duc Tran, the eccentric founder of the Vietnamese sandwich chain Duc’s Sandwiches, has decided to retire. No one has heard from his wife, Evelyn, in two decades. She abandoned the family without a trace, and clearly doesn’t want anything to do with Duc, the business, or their kids. But the money has to go to someone.’

THE FAMILY RECIPE is a touching and heartbreaking story. However, due to the filler and repetition, I struggled to read it, skimming toward the end. Overall, it was a good read.

Thank you, NetGalley and Atria Books (Simon & Schuster), for providing me with an eBook of THE FAMILY RECIPE at the request of an honest review.

Thank you to Net Galley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This was a fun read about four siblings vying to inherit their gather's banh mi franchise. We meet the family as they are called back home to Houston and are told each sister must revive a store in a different city and whoever can make the most profits will inherit the franchise. The only son will get the franchise if he gets married before the sisters can make their store a success. Yet, Duc Tran, the father is no where to be found and their mother deserted the family year's ago. This is a story of family, community and the secrets that family's keep. I very much enjoyed this story as it was light in moments and had heartfelt in others.

The family in this novel are messy and complicated with multiple pov's. A father gives his family quests to complete in order to inherit all of the inheritance. The Characters are messy and hard to connect with and hard to root for. I'm not a big fan of messy characters with no redeeming qualities. I tried to enjoy this book but I never could connect.

Thanks to Atria for the gifted copy!

I adored Carolyn's debut and am so happy that THE FAMILY RECIPE was full of similar family drama and Vietnamese perspective. I love that her stories always just put the mess out there, because honestly, that's life! In THE FAMILY RECIPE, the Tran family is estranged, but brought together over the inheritance of their father's Vietnamese sandwich franchise. Each sibling's storyline was unique and engaging, full of hard relationships and sometimes division and gentrification, but brought together by this family mystery. Immigration history, the notion of the American dream, and generational trauma all come into play. Yes, you will get hungry and potentally order a bahn mi sandwich, but you'll do it while also devouring this family saga!

If you love books by Allison Larkin, Jennifer E. Smith, or Ethan Joella -- small-town family drama -- and also want to read more diversely, pick this one up!

In my early reading, learning the initial conceit of the plot, I thought it was too silly to enjoy but I was wrong. This is a really enjoyable read with lovely writing and enough historical detail and insight to be moving. All of the messiness, generational trauma, history and food writing rolled into one was really effective.

I was super excited for this author’s second book as I really enjoyed her debut. Sometimes I think I read books at the wrong time as this story took me way longer to read then it should have

Told in multiple POV, we find five adult Vietnamese American children in different paths of their lives. When their father Duc challenges them to a “inheritance game”, they are forced to different parts of the country in hopes of rebranding the family sandwich shop, while the only son’s challenge is to marry. Whoever makes the most money first, or if Jude marries first, wins the money

Duc’s motives for this inheritance game are as mysterious as he is. Hidden away and unreachable, the lives of all five children change throughout the year.

Love and loss, missed opportunities and last chances, and decades worth of secrets, this story is an entertaining read while also having some periods of lull. I do think I would have enjoyed it more if I read it at a different time. I felt that some of the story had some unnecessary details while other parts I would have wanted more

Overall, I recommend this book to those who enjoy contemporary fiction, family drama, and multiple POV

I was immediately drawn to the historical aspects of this novel. The story of the Vietnamese fishermen who immigrated to Texas was particularly interesting, (and I immediately searched out the resources recommended by the author.) The Trans are a messy family, with more than their share of trauma and resulting drama. As they work to reunite their family, and heal some of the long standing, mutually inflicted wounds, we get a small glimpse into the lives of Vietnamese immigrants across America.

I found it interesting that I finished this book on the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

“We all need to feel needed. Otherwise, what’s the point of living?”

Carolyn Huynh made her authorial debut in 2022 with The Fortunes of Jaded Women. It was one of my favorite novels not only of that year, but of all the thousand-plus galleys I have read since I began reviewing. She’s back again with The Family Recipe, and it’s every bit as good as the first. My thanks go to NetGalley and Atria Books for the invitation to read and review, but make no mistake: I would have hunted this thing down and bought it with my Social Security check if it came down to it. I wouldn’t have been sorry, either.

This book is available to the public now.

Once again, our protagonists are Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Americans, mostly women, and once again, they are siblings and other family members that must come together; it isn’t a voluntary reunion. And that’s where the similarities between the first book and this one end.

Duc Tran, the patriarch, has laid out the terms by which his children may inherit his fortune. Once upon a time, he was the Vietnamese sandwich king, and in order to become his heir, each of his four daughters must relocate to a city she doesn’t want to live in, and revive a down-at-the-heels restaurant in a now undesirable end of town. It’s a contest; that is, unless Duc’s one son, Jude, succeeds in getting married within the one year’s time limit of the contest. If he can do that, he wins. (His sisters aren’t worried; who would marry Jude?)

The story is told from several points of view; these include the siblings, their uncle—a shady lawyer, and Duc’s best friend; their mother, who abandoned them when they were small, when her mental health collapsed, and never went back; Duc’s second wife; and briefly, Duc himself, who mostly serves as a mysterious figure that doesn’t even return to the States to lay out his children’s requirements, sending their uncle as his proxy. As the story unfolds, we learn more about each sibling, and about the traumas they have experienced, as well as their successes.

The thing that makes it work so well is Huynh’s unerring sense of timing. It’s a dramatic tale, but it’s shot full of humor, as we see at the outset, when we learn the sisters’ names. Their father was a huge fan of the Beatles, and so the girls are named Jane, Paulina, Georgia, and (wait for it…) Bingo!

There are plenty of twists and turns, and the dialogue crackles. The internal monologues are mesmerizing. This book would make a fantastic movie.

Since I was reading this galley digitally, I highlighted quotes that I thought I’d like to use in this review, but there are 28 of them. Obviously, I cannot share them all here, but let that inform you, if nothing else here has, how much I love this book.

Highly recommended to anyone that has a beating heart, at least a passing interest in Vietnamese-American culture and/or family stories, and can use a few good laughs.

2.5⭐️ I went into this one with such high expectations after loving the author’s first novel. Unfortunately, I struggled with the story.

Too many POVs and backstories made it hard for me to keep everyone’s story straight. It also made the book too long and all I kept wishing was for the story to end.

Will keep reading this author in the future, this one just didn’t work for me.

Every family has their own set of drama to keep them competing with each other. Who has the best house/car? Which one is the favorite? Why did my sister get to do things I wasn't allowed? Carolyn Huynh takes this family dynamic and sets it in a Vietnamese household. Five children, four women, one man, must compete, using a set of guidelines set forth by their father as he plans his retirement. If they want to be the winner and run the family's chain of sandwich shops, the race is on. While not exactly an original plot line, the circumstances and treatment certainly put a few twists on it! THE FAMILY RECIPE is an entertaining read as these siblings decide just how far they will go to best each other or please their father.

Unhappy families are unhappy in their own unique ways, and just like their familiy finances, Duc, Evelyn and their five kids are extravagant in the comic misery. This novel mines the humor of the costs and challenges of making it in America as first and second generation Vietnamese Americans. Estranged from their parents and largely each other, the five siblings are summoned home. Each child is pitted against each other to win the family fourtubw. The five daughters are tasked with turning around a sandwich shop, and whoever creates the most profitable business within 1 year wins. However, their brother is challenged to find and marry within that same year, and he'll snag everything from his sisters if he makes it down aisle.

It's a creative premise that is a solid page-turning family "dramaedy". The perspective flips between a wide range of characters, which might make the audio harder to follow. (Reading it in print, this wasn't an issue for me.) All in all, this is an easily digestible book that explores important themes of loyalty, self-preservation, and what we owe each other and ourselves. 3.75 stars rounded up to 4.



Thanks to Atria and NetGalley for an ARC. As always, all opinions expressed are exclusively my own.

Duc Tran, founder of the Vietnamese sandwich chain Duc’s Sandwiches, will retire and wants to leave the business to someone. His wife Evelyn left years ago, and he's estranged from his five children. To earn their inheritance, his four daughters must revitalize run-down shops in old-school Little Saigon locations within a year, but if his son Jude gets married first, he will get it all. Each daughter is trying to figure out messy lives and gentrification, and Jude tries to decide if he wants to marry at all. Duc has a reason behind the inheritance scheme, and his children soon discover it as well as the secret their mother kept hidden.

Duc was a refugee from Vietnam after the war, and tensions were high in the postwar period. Even years later, people in the southern United States hated him for being Vietnamese. Despite that, he was able to create a fortune and successful banh mí sandwich shops. Unfortunately, his family life suffered. His son Jude felt weighed down by the insistence that he had a bright future, and his daughters all fled as soon as they were able to leave. His second wife was certainly there for material comfort

We see the four daughters as they struggle to learn how to run a store and build a life in each of the four cities they are sent to. Jude tries to work with the first woman he meets through a matchmaker but doesn't feel like it is real. We also get flashes to the past, with Duc and Huey meeting soon after their emigration to America, bonding when traumatized. The scenes of being scorned, threatened, and downright chased out with a shotgun pale in comparison to the ones with the KKK terrorizing the burgeoning Vietnamese community growing in the South. The five children all deal with different issues, the lost children with different levels of trauma from being abandoned by their mother and left with two men who couldn't handle the needs of young children. As the youngest, Georgia felt like she missed the most; she can't speak Vietnamese, has few memories of her mother, and feels like she doesn't belong anywhere.

This is the tragedy of any child born from a diaspora. They don't feel like they belong in the country they were born in but also don't belong in their ethnic country of origin. There are traumas the older generation unwittingly visit upon the younger, even while doing their best. This novel deals with the fallout of this, with the secrets that everyone knows other than the ones it directly affects, and the search for belonging. I felt just as invested as the Tran children in seeing if they would make it, if they could build lives and forge a path forward as a family again. Identity and family are intertwined here, and it felt so familiar while reading the book that I felt like part of their community as well.