Number One Chinese Restaurant - Lillian Li
I am very biased toward Number One Chinese Restaurant for reasons that have nothing to do with the book itself. It’s a debut novel by a writer from the DC area—plus, her name is very close to mine. Usually, when I’m biased toward a novel for such silly reasons, it then disappoints me. Not this time! Number One Chinese Restaurant is a delight. Its food writing is as good as you want it to be, its characters are wonderful and wonderfully awful, and Li is expert at braiding together her high level of insight with her great sense of humor. Early in the book, one of her protagonists remembers ruefully, “Love came slowly, as weaknesses in the body often do.” As soon as I read that, I was sold.