Author: Emery Lee
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

From the author of Meet Cute Diary comes a delectable rom-com that’s brimming with zest and a sprinkle of sweetness. A must-read for fans of Casey McQuiston and Julian Winters.

Theo Mori and Gabriel Moreno have always been at odds. Their parents own rival businesses—an Asian American café and a Puerto Rican bakery—and Gabi’s lack of coordination has cost their soccer team too many games to count.

Stuck in the closet and scared to pursue his own dreams, Gabi sees his parents’ shop as his future. Stuck under the weight of his parents’ expectations, Theo’s best shot at leaving Vermont means first ensuring his parents’ livelihood is secure.

So, when a new fusion café threatens both shops, Theo and Gabi realize an unfortunate truth—they can achieve their goals only by working together to cook up an underground bakery operation and win back their customers. But can they put aside their differences long enough to save their parents’ shops or will the new feelings between them boil over?

Café Con Lychee is a dual narrative of two high school teens, masterfully crafted by Emery Lee. It is mid-September in Vermont, where we are first introduced to Theo Mori, a teen of mixed-race origins. (His father is Japanese, and his mother is Chinese.) Theo is a cool, athletic, confident teen, and he is the captain of the school soccer team. He is also comfortable with his sexuality to the extent that he is known as the most openly gay person in school. However, Theo struggles in his studies since he was diagnosed with ADHD and does not have high hopes in higher education. He also feels that his parents hate him and that they only love his brother Thomas.

In the alternating chapters, we also get to know Gabriel Moreno (Gabi), a sixteen-year-old Latinx teen with Puerto Rican parents. Gabi is Theo's arch-enemy, who is always crossing his path in the field and even in school halls. Unlike Theo, Gabi is shy, always self-doubting, restrained in everything he does, and he is afraid of coming out of the closet due to fear of his parents and other students. Gabi has revealed only to his best friend Melissa (his best friend who is also the president of the homecoming committee) that he is gay. Gabi also reveals to his dance trainer, Lady, his love for dancing, something that his parents have been totally against since he was seven because they felt that dancing was only for girls.

Aside from Theo's and Gabi's dislike for each other, Theo's and Gabi's parents are business rivals who are always competing for customers in their cafés. The food business has gone down, and Gabi's parents are planning to sell theirs, while Theo's Uncle Greg wants the Mori's to close their cafe so that he can convert the building into a spa. However, when a new café (World Fusion Café) threatens to put both of their cafés out of business, the two teenagers try their best to find solutions, and even work together to help their parents keep the restaurants. What follows is a story with a lot of suspense, love, drama and heartbreaks.

Emery Lee employs suspense well and keeps the reader hooked throughout the novel. The author also uses realism and humor and tries to balance love and heartbreak to bring out the love-hate story.

I liked how the story revolved around rival restaurants (the Moris’, the Morenos’, and the new World Fusion Café) and two high school teenagers. While I disliked some of the characters, such as Theo (his frequent use of course language and sexual reference around his parents makes him appear too rude, and he is also too full of himself) and Melissa (she is a control freak – yelling at Jeff for making a mistake on the flyers which were supposed to go up the next day), I liked how Gabi and Theo influenced each other.

The author also touches on youth and culture – Meli working on Pinterest boards, Gabi and Vivi both having interest in Kehlani, Gabi wanting to show off Keiynan Lonsdale swag when apologizing to Theo, Gabi and Vivi texting each other memes during the meetings, Gabi scrolling Instagram, Lady having a Zoom interview, and many others. Through the teens' perspectives, Emery delivers some great lessons on parenting, relationships, homophobia and coming out of the closet.

The complex family dynamics, teenage relationships and LGBTQ+ issues are particularly well-presented, making this an excellent read for anyone looking for a contemporary novel that delves deeply into family, LGBTQ+ and high school teen relationships.

- Weldon Ngetich