Love Can't Feed You

A Novel

By: Cherry Lou Sy

Narrated by: Becca Q. Co

A beautiful, tender yet searing debut novel about intergenerational fractures and coming of age, following a young woman who immigrates to the United States from the Philippines and finds herself adrift between familial expectations and her own burning desires

Love Can't Feed You is a stunning, heartbreaking, and compressed look at coming of age, shifting notions of home, and the disintegration of the American dream. It asks us: What does it mean to be of multiple cultures without a road map for how to belong?

After a harrowing flight, Queenie, her younger brother, and their elderly Chinese father arrive in the United States from the Philippines. They’re here to finally reunite with Queenie’s Filipina mother, who has been working as a nurse in Brooklyn for the past few years—building a life that everyone hopes will set them up for better prospects. But her mother is not the same woman she was in the Philippines: Something in her face is different, almost hardened, and she seems so American already.

Queenie, on the cusp of adulthood, has big dreams of attending college, of spending her days immersed in the pages of books. But there is not enough money for her and her brother to both be in school, so first she must work. Queenie rotates through jobs and settles, tentatively, into her new life, but her brother begins to withdraw and act out, and her father’s anger swells. As the pressures of assimilation compound, and the fissures within her family deepen into fractures, Queenie is left suspended between two countries, two identities, and two parents.

©2024 Cherry Lou Sy (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Astonishing . . . Sy skillfully lays bare Queenie’s wide-ranging emotions, from rage to sadness, and reveals the nuances of the family members’ relationships. Rich details of Filipino culture such as folk stories and religious iconography are interwoven with gritty depictions of the compromises made by the immigrant characters . . . It’s a knockout.”
—Publishers Weekly, *starred review*

“Strong characterizations and heartfelt emotions are well depicted in this engrossing coming-of-age story, full of surprising narratives.”
—Library Journal

“Love Can't Feed You is a stunningly written, devastating book about all manners of suspension, between countries, between parents, between identities, between what it is to be a woman and what it is to be a girl. Cherry Lou Sy is a brilliant and exacting observer of human uncertainty and desire and this book is an utter thrill.”
—Lynn Steger Strong, author of Flight

Dysfunction with no message

I really wanted to like this book. I understand it’s a novel, but there were so many mixed message and no concrete conclusions to lessons learned. Queenie seemed a lost soul but she found no purpose, her family was dysfunctional but there was no in depth monologue of the thoughts and feelings of it all. I suppose I was looking for a deeper understanding of who she really was or wanted to be.

Perfect reading!

For a story that involves characters that will have a unique accent, the person who read the book did an amazing job. It’s really adds authenticity to the story when it’s read exactly as how you would expect it to be read.

Sad, real, and very reflective off both Filipino and Filipino American cultures. Definitely a must listen! I didn’t read this, and I’m glad I chose the audible version. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to how it’s red and you’ll understand why.