This book bills itself as "Iron Chef meets The Hunger Games," in which street chef Cai enters the gods' once-in-a-decade cooking contest to win money to start her own cook shop and fulfill both her and her deceased father's dreams. Unfortunately, she has no idea what she's getting into because the gods wipe the memory of anyone who survives the contest (and quite a few do not). There are a series of escalating challenges with magical ingredients while Cai's team endlessly teases her about a sort-of-love-triangle whose outcome is a bit too obviously pre-determined. A fast read and a solid if not outstanding YA fantasy novel.

I only came across this whilst researching upcoming releases for June and was immediately hooked and felt my tummy rumbling in anticipation of the fantasy feast to come.

Great cover, and an even greater concept. A YA fantasy about a cooking competition for the gods??? Sign. Me. Up.

Cai has worked and scrapped for everything she has achieved and decides to turn her “never say die” attitude towards the Celestial Banquet. She persuades drunken but loveable outsider minor god Kama to be her godly patron and finds the flirty nobleman Seon joining her team too. After Kama chooses a different final member for her team, Cai’s childhood friend/crush/it’s complicated, Bo, joins up with a different team to ally with Cai and improve her chances. If the banquet wasn’t stressful enough, Cai finds herself torn between two love interests who can’t help but trip over themselves to declare their love for her (guys, she has a lot going on right now, this isn’t about you, save it for later!). She also discovers that it isn’t a simple cooking contest, there are challenges along the way, some quite literally deadly!

A fun fantasy read tinged with a few surprisingly serious and sober moments. I devoured this book in a matter of 48 hours. Don’t worry, I made sure to still savour the taste!

The best part of this book was the uniqueness of the trials along with the descriptions of the foods and the ingredients. Other than that, it felt flat and almost rushed in some parts.

I loved the concept and the thought behind the book, but I realized that I wasn't connecting with the story when one of the love interests kicked the bucket momentarily, and I kind of shrugged and went "eh". Even in the back half of the book where people were kind of dropping left and right, I didn't necessarily feel any kind of grief. I also will say that I would not have made the same choice as Cai at the end of the book, but I guess, you do you.

Nice concept but not executed at well as I hoped.

This had me when I read food games and the author said The Mummy (1999) vibes.

This slightly lost me but I think for a debut it's a solid, engaging and a fun quick read! The very idea of the story is, I would say unique, I haven't read anything like this yet and I really liked it, and I liked the world building itself.

Where the book lost me is the romance subplot (and that choice in the final competition... what? Omurice?). Of course, I will preface this by saying I am not a love triangle fan and I am even less of a fan of love interests being jerks. So I am sad to say I did not vibe with this entire part. However, I loved Cai, such a good main character and I enjoyed spending time with her.

Besides the romance subplot, I think 3/5 stars is also because while this feels very unique and fresh story idea wise and world building wise, I just kept feeling as if something is missing. Maybe it will come up in the next installment (I am of the belief that this isn't really a standalone because of some things in the book), maybe not, but the feeling was there.

This novel is a deliciously magical tale that captures the charm of cooking shows with high-stakes fantasy. Cai, a passionate noodle stall owner in the Peninsula, dreams of opening her own restaurant. She teams up with her childhood friend Bo and the minor god Kama to enter the Celestial Banquet—a deadly culinary competition judged by gods and the Empress. The prize? Peaches of immortality, which could change everything for Cai.

Filled with mouthwatering descriptions of Asian cuisine, high-tension challenges, and a touch of romance, this story blends food, fantasy, and fierce determination. While a love triangle simmers beneath the surface, the focus remains on Cai’s journey and survival. Perfect for fans of Chopped with a Ghibli vibe, this book will leave you hungry for more—and noodles.

First, thanks so much to the publisher for the opportunity to review this e-Book and the audiobook for this book. Both were remarkable as far as a debut novel is concerned. I am really excited to read the rest of this series. The explanation of cooking show meets hunger games is absolutely correct and it is incredible. The one issue I had is the love triangle. First of all, the FMC is wildly naive and the whole ingenue thing doesn’t work super well. Additionally, the audiobook narrator sounds significantly older than Cai and it undercuts the young ingenue thing in a way that takes you out of the narrative. Lastly, she chose the wrong guy so hopefully she will pick again in the next book! lol!

Once every generation, the Major Gods hold a Celestial Banquet, inviting chefs from all over the Continent to prepare mouthwatering feasts in exchange for the opportunity to win the ultimate prize... the fabled Peaches of Immortality, along with a lifetime of fame and fortune. Cai is a noodle chef who enters the competition with dreams of owning her own restaurant and supporting her impoverished Peninsula town. Cai is determined to prepare a feast fit for the gods—even if she loses her life.

I loved this book. It was like a combination of Hunger Games, Squid Games and a cooking competition. The world is inspired by Chinese and Southeast Asian folklore, Every round the contestants had to hunt down mystical (and often deadly) creatures, and then prepare a meal to serve the Major Gods. They would sample the offerings, judge them, and then the least pleasing meal would cause that team to be eliminated from the competition, and in turn, punished severely by the Gods. Then the remaining teams would move on to the next phase of the competition. The competition was cutthroat, and the tension was palpable. I loved reading about the dishes they prepared. In between each chapter were short lessons from the Gods that pertained to the story. There was also a bit of romance, since Cai was juggling the affections of two different boys at the competitions - her childhood crush-turned-friend Bo, and dreamy Seon, who is part of her team,

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

I was entranced by the cover art and intrigued by the premise, but unfortunately, this book was severely underbaked. The author delivered with her descriptions of all the mouth-watering and fantastical ingredients and dishes that pop up throughout the book (I started getting very hungry at some parts), but everything else was...lacking. Though the beginning was promising, we are quickly thrown into the Celestial Banquet without much room to sit with the world the author creates or to learn about Cai's experience and reputation in her hometown as a renowned noodlemaker. While we are given the opportunity to see her ingenuity, it's still hard to believe that she could be the best chef suited to be a candidate out of the entire Peninsula from just one challenge. This disbelief continues in the actual competition; it's difficult to understand why and how she wins the Banquet when we aren't given the opportunity to see what her competitors cook in comparison.

Speaking of the actual competition, for being so deadly and overseen by fickle gods, while the stakes were high, they never felt that way. The majority of the book felt like a detailed summary; we're told so many things instead of actually shown them (except for the food), and we're overwhelmed with tons of info-dumping at the exact moment whatever concept is introduced. For the trials, they were described and solved so quickly that it was hard to develop any emotional investment in the outcome when Cai and her team succeeded for the most part without any major risks or injury. I also found it odd and kind of a cop-out for Cai to mostly just copy her competitors' solutions or get the exact thing she needs from her teammates (like Tala somehow possessing a surprise spice that makes objects float so Cai doesn't have to swim??) instead of relying on what should've been her own ingenuity when this competition is supposed to be about showing how skilled and talented she is. Despite the competition leaving Cai and her friends mostly unscathed, it is severely deadly for the other competitors yet their deaths are not really handled with the appropriate weight, mostly again because of the author's writing style. I never believed that Cai felt true regret, horror, or even fear for her own life because of how underwhelmingly everything is described.

Speaking of Cai herself, I know that she is described in the synopsis as hot-headed but she can be immensely frustrating, with the way that she is in a deadly competition serving food to gods who can kill her if they don't like her tone, yet she can't stop herself from speaking out and somehow everything turns out fine for her. It would've been more interesting if we actually saw consequences for Cai's hot-headedness and would've made the competition seem more lethal, as well as enhance Cai's later realization that the Banquet was a means of fear and control. The story was also heavily bogged down by the love triangle, and frankly, Cai's indecisiveness made her deeply unlikable to me. It was annoying how each boy kept pushing Cai to choose between them in the middle of a life-changing competition, but they had a point that she should choose instead of stringing them along because she even admits to herself she *knows* who she wants more. To Cai's credit, she does keep insisting that she needs to focus on the Banquet first and foremost but this is unfortunately undermined by her actions where she keeps kissing each boy a few pages later and constantly thinking about them. Still, she refuses to give an answer until the very end, and despite the losing boy being understandably heartbroken and pissed at her for stringing him along, she selfishly keeps pushing things to go back to normal. I really wish the story had solely focused on the Banquet and didn't have the love triangle forced in at every turn; even the minor and major gods were all pressing her for a choice, which just made things ridiculous.

As for the other characters, they were all terribly one-dimensional and their dialogue mostly very bland. I also didn't understand at all how they came to grow bonds with Cai, particularly Tala and Songwon; it just felt like after an eternity of ignoring her or being stand-offish, a switch flipped and they were suddenly best friends revealing deep secrets to each other. Tala's revelations were particularly baffling and not given enough weight. I also thought it was pretty inappropriate of Cai to get excited about her status the second Tala says her parents were killed. Lots of backstories were given as unnatural info-dumps, which again was underwhelming. The Empress, the overarching antagonist, was disappointingly one-note with not a hint of cunning or grace, just a caricature of a tyrant. How is this the woman who conquered most of the Continent and who has the privilege of dining with the gods?

I did enjoy the last surprise twist about the immortal peaches, but I found it slightly odd that Cai changed her mind about them solely to save one person and not, like, for the people of the Peninsula that she keeps telling the reader she would do anything to help protect against the Empress. Cai's vendetta against the Empress and ambitions to help the Peninsula felt kind of out of nowhere for her character and perhaps even too large for who she is, not to mention they aren't properly fleshed out to make us believe that that's what Cai wants. Aside from the tasty food descriptions, I also did like that the major gods were genderless, embodying both male and female, but that and the Empress's prominent position felt a little dissonant with the fact that strict gender roles supposedly still exist (which also weren't really enforced as a struggle Cai experiences despite us being told so). Additionally, the book could use another round of editing, as I found multiple typos including a misgendering of Indulgence, though I know this is an early copy and hopefully most were caught before publication.

Overall, I was really disappointed with this book and probably won't be picking up the sequel if there will be one.

Did not finish book. Stopped at 21%.
This book is, unfortunately, deeply not for me. I loved the premise, but the delivery just isn’t keeping me engaged. Additions to the plot don’t feel natural, the main character annoys me, and don’t even START me on the unnecessary love triangle - one of whom isn’t even a good option!!

I really do hope this works for others, because the premise is so intriguing, but it’s just not for me. If it sounds like it is for you, give it a go, and I hope you love it!

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5)

I really liked the idea behind Celestial Banquet. The idea of cooking competition had me excited from the start. But as I kept reading, I felt like the story didn’t quite live up to its potential.

The biggest issue for me was the love triangle. I get that romance can add drama, but here it felt like it took over the entire plot. I wanted more focus on the actual banquet and the curse, but instead, almost everyone seemed to care only about who Cai would choose, Bo or Seon. It pulled attention away from what could’ve been a much more interesting story.

Cai herself was a character I mostly loved. She was thoughtful, driven, and her love for cooking really came through. I just wish she wasn’t so indecisive when it came to the romance, it made her feel stuck sometimes.

Overall, it felt a bit too much like a YA romance. The love interests seemed pretty young, and the curse didn’t feel as scary or intense as it was made out to be at the start. I still enjoyed parts of it, especially the food and Cai’s personal growth, but I wish the story had stayed more focused on the banquet itself.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Cai, chef of the Peninsula, faces off against other skilled cooks, magical creatures, and cruel gods in a cooking battle to the death. The first chef to attend from her region in ages, she is belittled, doubted, and almost killed. The price- peaches of immortality that would set her up for life, and protect her region from impending conquerors.

I had so much fun with this book. It was pretty exciting, as our heroine faced trails to even get the ingredients, not to mention cooking with hazards, each round more difficult than the last. Kama, her sponsor deity, was great, I really enjoyed everything about him. And the twists and turns of the tale kept me locked in until the very end. There is no sequel listed that I can find yet, but I really hope for another one.

Cai is a great lead, I enjoyed watching her both cook and problem solve throughout the story, maintaining her strong morals in a way that was pretty amazing.

I thought the world was pretty interesting, the minor gods and the major ones all felt pretty unique and interesting, excluding the minor gods we don't really meet, but that's understandable. I enjoyed the different creatures they used for the meals, each a new test for them to solve.

The only mild grievance I had was the romantic subplot. It felt more intrusive than relevant, and I thought it was the weakest part. I would have enjoyed more on friendships with Kama or Tara over her trying to decide between Bo and Seon.

Fast-paced, droolworthy fantasy adventure with excellent world-building. Great concept. A cooking competition for the three major gods by mortals. The grand prize is a peach of immortality for each team member. Not winning could cost you your life. Cai is the main character, she is a poor orphan who wants to fulfill her father's dream of competing in the Celestial Banquet. She is a smart, skilled, hard worker. There is a love triangle in this book, but it's so secondary and unnecessary. The only part of the book that wasn't well written, it was too much too fast. One star off for that. (Sorry). Bo is Cai's best friend from childhood. I never thought he resembled a love interest. He's such an amazing and supportive friend. Soen is a rich noble who sponsors the team in the Celestial Banquet. He is kind and honorable. All of these characters had enough to them and their story that to add the romance needed more pages and build. I'm glad Cai chose well in the end, though.
My other beef is that this book wasn't long enough. I finished it within a 24 hour period. It is 384 fast paced pages that I wanted more of. I don't know if it will end up being a series but the author did leave room for that to happen, which would be awesome. I loved Roselle Lim's food and setting descriptions. She did such a great job. She also described the people and creatures so well. I could picture everything in my mind.

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.