A Pho Love Story author Loan Le recommends five YA stories with Asian protagonists
By Lacy Baugher
As we all try to decide how to get through a winter unlike any other, we’re all turning toward comfort food of all varieties. Whether that means literal food (yours truly has eaten what might be considered an unhealthy amount of boxed mac and cheese) or escapist entertainment, this is a time of year to indulge with no guilt whatsoever.
Author Loan Le’s debut YA novel A Pho Love Story is a perfect mix of both these tried and true comfort methods: A fizzy, charming rom-com about two teens from feuding families that’s full of delicious food.
Talk about timeless.
Described as When Dimple Met Rishi meets Ugly Delicious, the book tells the story of two Vietnamese-American teens who fall in love amidst the ongoing rivalry between their two families neighboring restaurants.
Bao Nguyen and Linh Mai have avoided each other for most of their lives, thanks to the longstanding feud between their parents and their competing pho restaurants. He’s stable and steady, she’s a firecracker with dreams of becoming an artist. But when a chance encounter brings the two together, sparks fly.
Le’s story is charming and sweet in its own right, but it’s also meaningful in ways that go beyond the story on the printed page. YA fiction has long struggled to truly incorporate diverse characters and experiences, but A Pho Love Story does so effortlessly, in a way that helps move the genre as a whole forward.
To celebrate the release of A Pho Love Story, we asked Loan Le to tell us about her favorite YA stories with Asian protagonists, and what about their stories speak to her.