It’s a common “joke” that Asian parents don’t do emotions. They yell at you, they expect straight A’s, and they keep their childhood traumas locked away like it’s some top-secret government file.
One of the ways they do show love, though, is through food. A plate of silky bánh cuốn, a crispy bánh xèo, a steaming bowl of pho—it’s edible history. Every slurp and crunch is packed with decades of family lore, whether you want to hear it or not.
The Nguyens are no exception. Ba is perpetually overworked and perpetually tired. He yells. Me keeps to herself, quiet and self-contained. When Tommy—the golden boy older brother—graduates from high school, the family throws a big party: uncles drinking beer, swapping wild stories, chain-smoking their way into early emphysema. Ronny, 14 and already a ball of anxiety about Tommy leaving, knows life is about to change. She just doesn’t know how much.
A family tragedy hits, then an incident at a high school party—and Ronny folds inward. She starts to feel a hunger. Not like “two helpings of dessert” hunger. A different kind. A bloody kind.
Ronny tries to deal. She pushes around her thin slices of pho meat instead of cooking them. She stands at the butcher’s counter, eyeing the steak like it’s winking at her. Her stomach tells her she needs more. Something else.
Like everyone in her family, Ronny has her secrets. But when things are about to end for her, she finds an unexpected hero.
Growing up is hard. Growing up as a 14-year-old girl with a raging bloodlust? Yeah, slightly harder.
To quote The Virgin Suicides: “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.”
What Hunger is a coming-of-age story that takes a hard left turn into coming-of-rage. Catherine Dang writes family dynamics with the precision of someone who’s been at 1,000 Vietnamese party and can smell the nuoc mam from three blocks away. It’s something so specific that only someone who has listened to Uncle So and So’s barking laugh is able to capture. It’s sharp, emotional, and weirdly tender, with the kind of tension that keeps you turning pages while side-eyeing your dinner.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read this one before its release.