Thank you, NetGalley and Zando Project, for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Celestial Banquet follows a young girl named Cai who enters a cooking competition with a minor god, a nomad, and a friend. The competition is filled with deadly challenges given by the three most powerful gods, who are also the judges.

The premise sounded interesting and fun. The writing was decent, nothing repetitive or clunky. It was also fast-paced and jumped right into the main plot without taking too much time. And while I appreciated its pacing, it also had a downside.

Because of its fast pacing, we're not left to settle with some things that happen, and a lot of things are left unexplored and unexplained. I'm guessing this might be the start of a series, but with how quickly everything was going, it just didn't make sense.

The challenges and competitions weren't properly explored, and I wasn't fully immersed as I would have liked to be. I couldn't feel the high stakes with how quickly everything was going, and it's disappointing because I was looking forward to reading more about the cooking parts.

It's told through a first-person point of view, so we're seeing this through Cai, and she's an okay character, but I couldn't connect with her, and her priorities in the middle of the deadly cooking competition made me side-eye a bit.

For some reason, there's a love triangle. I am the biggest hater of love triangles, but I can tolerate them if they're actually interesting and make sense. Her two love interests, Bo and Seon, are both one-dimensional and caricatures: Bo, the childhood best friend, and Seon, the pretty rich boy that's where both of their characters end. They both have no interesting quality that would make me even want to root for her to end up with either of them.

A lot of the other minor characters fell flat and were uninteresting and forgettable. There's a lot that could have been done that would have elevated the story for me if it had more depth.

I want to start by saying I know this is supposed to be YA and I believe you can read YA at any age. If you love YA books, I love that for you! I even do read and enjoy some YA books here and there. But in this case I found the love triangle first of all confusing because love triangle where? Cai liked Seon period. And Bo made it weird. Sorry if Bo is your fave, I just. He was giving major Gale (from The Hunger Games) vibes and I never liked Gale. Also it was just grating, to me the triangle nonsense got so much in the way of the story. I'd say keep this edition as is for the young adults & the romance readers, but then also release an edition without the romance stuff for those of us who just care about the cooking competition.

If this was all about the competition, I would be all about this book in return. It really was the forced romance aspect that brought this down so much for me. I felt like every time I started to get into the world and the stakes of the completion we were dragged back to who will Cai choose. Like girl, no one, if you don't let this poor girl focus on her cooking, her life is at stake!

What I will say is the cover is absolutely STUNNING and I do really like that we wasted no time jumping into the story itself. Sometimes I feel as though authors don't trust young readers to pick up the story as it progresses and therefore wastes a lot of time with unnecessary and prolonged setup, but that was not the case here and we love that.

I also had a feeling this might become a series, which, good for the author, truly! But if so, I am going to bow out of any future books, it's clear to me I am not the intended audience here this time.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Celestial Banquet is perfect for all the foodies who love fantasy. It screams Roselle Lim in the best way and I'm so happy for her! If you love cooking competitions, fantastical and magical trials, and swoons this is for you! I loved Cai immediately. She's clever, the ultimate underdog, and is increidbly resourceful. The competition delivers danger from the beginning as Lim wraps us up in an atmosphere of magic and danger. Because everything has a price even failure. I found myself immersed in the action and adventure and forgot to take notes!

An incredible fantasy debut! The story is thrilling, fast paced and hunger inducing! As someone who loves watching cooking shows and cooking games, this story is pretty much a fantasy version of that. I loved every moment of it!

Thank you to Roselle Lim for an ARC of this. You have no idea how happy it was to get book mail from Zando and seeing that it was this one. Yes, I squealed. I've been anticipating this one for awhile.

This cover and the blurb attracted my foodie attention. I loved the world building in this and of course all the descriptions of all the foods. It sure did make me hungry. You can not go wrong with this book. Major Gods having a cook off banquet competition that's deadly. This concept is unique and I quite enjoyed it very much. There's a love triangle between Cai, Bo and Seon. I enjoyed the face fast paced of this and I definitely would read this again. I'll be daydreaming of the foods in this story for awhile.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy

Celestial Banquet by Roselle Lim is a first person-POV YA fantasy. The prize for winning the Celestial Banquet is a bunch of Peaches of Immortality, which grant twenty-five years to mortals and more for minor gods. Cai not only wants the peaches, but the fame and fortune that comes with winning to open her own restaurant and accomplish her father’s dreams. But it won’t be easy as the Celestial Banquet isn’t only about cooking, contestants also have to kill monsters and cook with brand new ingredients.

Cai has two potential love interests in her childhood friend, Bo, and a disgraced noble, Seon. Both are very much interested in her and have different relationships from her, though both do push her to make a decision. Seon is a flirt, which makes her not take his feelings seriously at first and her previous feelings for Bo have morphed into something more platonic until he says something. The back and forth between the two doesn’t take up a lot of the plot, but it definitely is present. I found myself rooting for Seon despite feeling bad for Bo. Seon just felt like the choice that would respect Cai’s feelings more, which is what I usually go for.

There is a cozy quality to this in all the cooking elements and how it uses a tournament. The leads don’t spend that much time with the monsters and more time is spent focused on the cooking, romance, and the results. I think the focus on relationships also helps to sell the coziness even though many of the relationships are more on the tragic side. I wouldn’t call it a cozy fantasy but it is cozy-adjacent since the stakes are more personal and the plot elements are closer to cozy than they are to epic.

I really liked the little worldbuilding blurbs that appeared between every chapter. All of the blurbs have citations that help enrich the world and show there are a variety of sources being drawn from. Things like this make the world feel bigger and in a book that is more claustrophobic, it provides a sense of balance that makes it feel lived in and rich without sacrificing the focus on relationships.

I would recommend this to fans of Iron Chef who are looking for a YA fantasy and fans of cozy fantasy

So something everyone who reads my reviews might not know about me is that I absolutely love cooking competition shows. When I saw this was Iron Chef meets The Hunger Games, I knew I needed to read it.

Since this was a fantasy debut, I gave this book a bit of grace. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the love triangle or the romance in general because it felt under developed but I did really love the cooking aspects and the magic / world building. I think it could have done without the romance entirely.

I’m also a bit unclear if this is going to be a series or stand alone story. If it’s a series, I can see why the romance was not entirely developed but if it’s meant to be a stand alone, I think there could be more set in this world.

Overall, I really liked the concept and the found family vibes in this book and hope there are more books in a series or spin off because I’d love to read them.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

DNF at 10%

The premise of this sounded amazing - Iron Chef meets Hunger Games? I was so excited for this. Unfortunately, I struggled to get into this one. We're thrown immediately into the action with so many names thrown around and not much of an explanation of who they are. I also started this one immediately after finishing a fantastic fantasy novel and that did this no favors.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

I really enjoyed the cooking tournament and everything related to that within this story. The trials and the cooking were well described and unique!

What brought this down was the romance and the love triangle aspect, it seemed rushed and not necessary. Without the romance or at least if focused on one relationship (even just the platonic friendship) that would've really elevated this one! It detracted from the really enthralling tournament.

While I enjoyed this story and its fast pace, it felt like it moved too fast or wasn’t developed enough. I think the premise of the book is great and would recommend it to younger middle grade readers or my readers who want a high interest/low work level of reading.

This book honestly did have some great potential! The idea is entertaining, reminiscent of certain video games and anime, and it does have the makings of something captivating. There were moments where the characters and trials were interesting, and the descriptions of the food were nicely done. What lost me was the pacing. It felt rushed. The characters had little time to develop and show themselves, and often relied on sudden and short exposition dumps to convey anything about themselves.

The relationships between characters were also confusing and seemed a bit forced and hurried. This left me a bit disappointed, as the idea of some of the relationships and how they could evolve seemed like it could have been interesting if more time and care had been put into this aspect. The plot points concerning characters and their pasts, and how they relate to each other, felt a bit flat due to this.

The trials and entire competition were also portrayed as being very high stakes. While they technically were (people died, etc.), that aspect felt so glossed over and rushed that it just didn't feel impactful when anything significant happened in that respect. All of this combined led to an anticlimactic, lackluster ending for me.

I tried to be fair, given that this is for young adults, of course, but even young adults can recognize when a story is told with too much haste and doesn't take time to slow down and let itself be conveyed. Overall, I had higher hopes for this book and was slightly disappointed, but I can tell the author had a great idea here and a passion for the subject, so I hope to read the next novel from them eventually.

Lately I have been loving reading books related to food, so I thought this would be the perfect read for me. It has a high-stakes food competition, and it is also fantasy, but I feel sad to say that it did not satisfy me.

My favourite thing about Celestial Banquet was the competition; I really liked the way it played out. Cai was a wonderful protagonist to follow. Cai’s thought process while making dishes was cool, and I would have loved if the book had focused on her cooking even more.

I feel like the romance could have been written way better, and at certain parts I felt like it was taking away from the main plot. I really didn’t care who Cai ended up with because both Bo and Seon felt distant to me.

Throughout the book these big moments drop on us, but they actually don’t do anything to make the book better. This made the ending not satisfactory because I thought everyone would get closure or it would all connect, but it just didn’t.

Celestial Banquet is a wildly imaginative and compelling YA fantasy debut by Roselle Lim, centered on Cai, a young noodle chef who enters a deadly cooking competition hosted by the gods to win a peach of immortality. The concept alone—a celestial banquet judged by deities, full of magic, mythology, and high-stakes trials—is one of the most unique I've encountered in fantasy. It’s steeped in Chinese and Southeast Asian folklore, and as someone who loves Asian-inspired fantasy, this book absolutely delivered on that front!

The worldbuilding is definitely one of the novel’s strongest aspects. The vivid descriptions of the cities, the divine settings, and especially the food are incredibly immersive. I also really appreciated the little snippets of lore and history placed at the end of each chapter. They were a clever way to enrich the world without overwhelming the reader. Everything about the setting felt natural and well-thought-out, and the gods brought a deliciously cruel and vibrant energy to the page.

However, while the plot and world shine, the emotional core of the story didn’t land as strongly for me personally. The pacing is incredibly fast, especially in the beginning, which left little room to truly connect with the characters or understand their inner lives. Cai witnesses brutal and disturbing events, like death and literal melting hands, but her emotional reactions feel muted or brushed aside too quickly. Because of this, the stakes don’t hit as hard as they should. The writing style is vivid when it comes to setting and action, but tends to tell rather than show when it comes to emotions, making it difficult to fully invest in the characters, at least for me.

The romance subplot also felt underdeveloped. There’s a love triangle between Cai, her best friend Bo, and a noble boy named Seon, but the emotional progression of these relationships happens almost entirely off-page. We’re told that feelings exist, but we don’t really get to see them unfold. Because of that, the romance lacked tension and depth, and both Bo and Seon felt more like plot devices than fully fleshed-out characters.

Still, there are bright spots in the cast! I liked Cai overall, even though I wished we’d seen her fail more (really struggle and nearly break) rather than glide through most of the trials with minimal consequence. In a story framed as a deadly competition, the tension would’ve been stronger if the danger felt more personal. My favorite character, though, was Kama, a minor god who initially seemed unimpressive but quickly became one of the most complex and well-developed figures in the story. His arc was a pleasant surprise, and by the end, he had completely won me over!

Celestial Banquet is a beautifully creative debut with dazzling worldbuilding and a wholly original premise. Though the emotional depth and character development didn’t always live up to the promise of the plot, I’m still very intrigued by what Roselle Lim will write next!

Thank you to NetGalley & Sweet July Books for giving me an E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Iron Chef aspect of it mixed with the mythology of this rich world really intrigued me. After finishing this, I still crave some answers and kind of wished there were higher stakes, slower pacing, with less romance/love triangle aspect. The cooking could have been heightened. I think the concept of this story is really fun, using the scrolls in between the chapters was a nice touch.

Review: 3 stars

Celestial Banquet depicts the story of Cai, a inspiring cook who dreams of participating and winning the “Celestial Banquet” cooking competition to win the magical peach of immortality. To do so, she must convince Kama, her minor god, to participate in the competition and journey to Xianling to cook for the major gods. However, things take an interesting turn in this deadly competition as each contestant goes through deadly tasks for every round of the competition to reach the final round. Will Cai succeed?

Ok, I have very mixed feelings about this book. Hence, the mid-star rating.

Great
-I find Cai a wonderful main character - steadfast in her belief and so determined to win this competition
-The worldbuilding was easy to follow yet wonderfully pronounced to the Asian theme centering around 5 major gods followed by the minor gods
-There was some aspect of found family here as the contestants have to go through the competitions with teams of 4 people
-The plot was interesting and fast paced. It was never dull where the story line was moving forward, it also makes this a fast read as I finished this in 2 days.
-The depiction of Asian food was amazing. I find myself drooling with hunger when reading this book
-The cooking competition depicted was not just a cooking competition but also involved the task of obtaining the main magical ingredient, the prep that goes into it and the cooking aspect

Not so good
-A love triangle: WHYYYYY?!! I feel like the book could have done without a love story. The love story where 2 boys vy for attention is soo distracting. In fact, there were times where Cai admits to feeling distracted. AND also why is everyone so interested to know who she picks?! It’s like everyone right down to the major and her team wants to know.
-More time could have been spent on Kama and his history, eg: what made him not participate in the competition the past years and what made him change his mind to do so when it was Cai’s generation?
-For a fantasy book, this book is surprisingly morbid in its deliverance of punishment
-I feel like some of the major emotions the characters experienced are very surface level, eg: the deaths of the others, it was like oh, this happen - moving on, then…
-More depictions of the history of the competitors could be provided to make the stakes more pronounced which was only casually mentioned at the end
-There were also some unexplored plot holes which might be explored in Book 2

Overall, I did find this an interesting read but the execution was somewhat lacking. So, I am unlikely to be reading book 2 to continue the story.

Thank you Zando Projects and Netgalley for the arc. All thoughts are my own.

Celestial Banquet was a foodie dream, but it felt more like a novella than a full novel. The lore was really interesting, the characters had potential, and the idea of a conflict was there, but the pace was too quick and many actions lacked motivation. The romance was unnecessary and seemed like it was added in just to add drama, and characters were spilling deep secrets at the drop of a hat. There needed to be a lot more development in relationships and in the characters themselves before so many intimate details were shared. The 0-60 in the lead up to war on the Peninsula was abrupt, too. But the lore is fairly well developed and unique, and the cooking competition aspect was cool. I enjoyed Cai and the team hunting down the ingredients and Cai cooking, but the importance of cooking in a cooking competition seemed downplayed until it was important to remind readers that "Cai can't contemplate romance right now because she has to cook for our lives!" All in all, Celestial Banquet feels like an early draft of what could be a really cool foodie-based book.

This was a cute little read!

It was very fast paced and I usually love a fast-paced plot however, this felt slightly too fast.
Even though I was 100% rooting for them, I struggled to connect with the characters on a deeper level, which I guess isn’t imperative to this kind of story but, it made the romance kind of redundant since, I wanted them to win but, I didn’t really care whether they got together or not.

Celestial Banquet has a really solid idea, major gods hosting a deadly cooking competition? I WAS SO EXCITED!
I especially liked the little scroll excerpts at the beginning of each chapter!
And while it didn’t disappoint, it was definitely lacking.
The concept was so unique and I would read something like this again, but it lacks overall depth.
The detail however, was amazing; the foods sounded delectable, and I found myself getting hungry as I read on.

Overall, I wasn’t invested as emotionally as I would have liked to be, but i enjoyed it nonetheless and will recommend my friends - that like food competitions more than me - to give this one a go, upon release!

I wanted to love this so much but it did not land with me.

I was confused on who where the gods. And what God did what. I didn't understand why of FMC lived in an area that was considered so poor.

I found it very quick. So quick that it too much for me. I didn't get to fall in love with what the celestial banquet was or my characters.

It wasn't bad. But it was not my normal go to.

Celestial Banquet is a creative merge of the poor versus wealthy class battles and of competition cooking shows. I do not disagree with the publicity stating "Iron Chef meets The Hunger Games" - but I would like to qualify the cooking competition by saying the format is closer to that of "Chopped" with greater access to additional foods. Since I love competition cooking shows AND reading books with a political bent, this book was just right for me. I loved it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this eARC ahead of the publication date.

Celestial Banquet is a sensual delight. The food-related imagery that stretches far beyond the confines of the cooking scenes leaves a warm and satisfying sensation in one's stomach. This novel is well-paced and exciting, with a wrenching twist at the end that has me desperate for another instalment. I thoroughly enjoyed the main character, Cai's personality and story arc, and my favourite side characters have to be Kama and Tala without doubt.

Overall, a wonderful read! I'll be eagerly anticipating the official publication date.