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LOVE CAN'T FEED YOU by Cherry Lou Sy

LOVE CAN'T FEED YOU

by Cherry Lou Sy

Pub Date: Oct. 8th, 2024
ISBN: 9780593474549
Publisher: Dutton

The American dream proves to be elusive for one Filipino Chinese immigrant family in this debut novel.

After a turbulent flight from the Philippines, 17-year-old Queenie, her 10-year-old brother, Junior, and their elderly Chinese father land at JFK International Airport to be reunited with Ma, who has been working as a nurse in New York for the past five years. Queenie immediately sees a change in her 37-year-old Filipina mother. “She looks sleek and expensive. Like a woman we see on television.” The family’s new home, a small one-bedroom apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, is a letdown. “No white people in sight. This was not what we expected.” Also unexpected is Ma’s command that Papa and Queenie, who had her heart set on going to college, find work immediately to help Ma pay back the loan that brought the family to the U.S. For Queenie, that means becoming a temporary caregiver for an old woman. As tension between their parents escalates, Junior retreats to his video games and Queenie finds solace with her friend Yan. The author excels at portraying the domestic and cultural stresses that eventually fracture this immigrant family; part 1 is the novel’s strongest section. Unfortunately, the rest of the book is weakened by a meandering narrative that ends abruptly with no resolution. Like her frustratingly passive protagonist, who makes questionable choices for no discernible reason, Sy doesn’t know where she wants her novel to go. She introduces potentially dramatic conflicts—for example, a $500 tip Queenie earns from caregiving is stolen by a family member—and then fails to develop them.

There’s a very good novel struggling to emerge from this one.