I don't understand why anything in the last 40% of the book happened but did enjoy the first part

this is my third book by this author. and now i'll be honest with myself and say that i think they're just not an author for me.

their books tend have the kind of premise i would gobble up with the kind of greed the bible warned you about. yet, somehow, perhaps it's just me, going in with a wildly different expectation than the kind of stories they want to tell, they always fail to deliver for me.

this one is about an almost self-isolated priest's slow realization that he's falling for a demon he exorcised as part of his duty. i will give them a thumbs up for not going for the popular boys (they even lowkey made fun of that in this which did made me giggle too), instead opting to write about berith, an ars goetia demon. don't see that often in this side of niche queer stories, i can definitely appreciate that.

reading back to my own reviews on the previous books i've read (#1 and #2), my problems with the writing has remained consistent. they really enjoy writing these supposedly terrifying beings in an otherwise very domestic scenario. however, this is once again too much... fluff for me.

sebastian and berith talk to each other a lot. and i mean a lot a lot. so much that this whole book is, for the lack of better way to put it because it has been misued to death, just talking and Nothing Ever Happens. sebastian has a moment of self-hatred? they talk. sebastian goes to exorcise demons? they talk. real trouble finally arises and baal came knocking? you guessed it, they talk. the talking is so convenient and solves practically every single problem that ever comes their way that it becomes wildly unbelievable.

not even mentioning the fact that the last two chapters slip into Crazy Cliches territory, with the power of love and friendship, and the ol' classic, "i know you're still in there" like OH that one hit. not the way the author probably intends to. right in my cringe bone. felt like they were testing me with the final confrontation.

lastly, there's a non-insignificant amount of grammar errors in here. this is for the kindle unlimited version. some lines are missing the opening quotation marks, some lines are said by the wrong character with relation to context, and i'm not sure if books can just do this, but there are dialogues that literally goes, Name: The line they are speaking. like as if you're reading a screenplay if you get what i mean. i'm wholly unsure if that's truly intended, or the author were just getting the lines out and forgot to edit it in post. it was nonetheless very bizarre to read.

i did also enjoyed the (very small) pov switch to berith, and i think the story could've used a bit more of that, because while knowing sebastian inner turmoil matters, it is just the mostly the same thing over and over again, and seeing how berith views that more often maybe could've staved off the boredom i started to felt in the latter half of the book.

i think this is me throwing in the towel. i wish them the best in their publishing journey but after three books, i know my limits and it's for the best if i don't read their work anymore.

Livonia Chow Mein does a lot. It's like American Chinese food- not completely a Chinese story- but a Chinese-enough dish full of contributions from America and a history of its people. 🥡🥠 Nom.

The book primarily circles around the story of one building/lot, 78 Livonia Chow Mein. To tell this story though, the book cycles through the POV of 4 generations of one Chinese American family and one Black/Puerto Rican community elder. Five perspectives over decades of diverse content, with little to help keep the reader situated within the story, can be difficult to follow at first as you learn to differentiate the characters and their names.

In the 1970s, the building was burned down. In the present-day, local activists are fighting to get the land community-owned so that there could be shared spaces that the community could use. Interspersed throughout, there are nods to the immigrant experience, US history lessons, local politics, and racial tensions. There were quite a few points where I felt like I (and Savitch-Lew tbh) lost the plot and I desperately wanted to return to it.

However, I could tell this book was a labor of love. Love for the community, the people, and the history of what makes Brownsville/Brooklyn special. Abigail Savitch-Lew did her research and clearly want to share the feeling of community building and ownership, as well as spread the dream among her readers so that they too can imagine a better world. New Yorkers will probably love this book a lot.

I did feel that the author did a little bit of a self-insert (as many debut authors end up doing), as one of the main characters was also Chinese-Jewish. The Jewish aspect of the character though, didn't really pay a significant role in the story otherwise.

For a debut, Livonia Chow Mein is very good and I hope Savitch-Lew continues to hone her craft.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with the ARC copy of this review. All opinions are mine.

This is my favorite book of the year so far, no question. It won’t be for everyone, though. I’d absolutely check trigger warnings first, especially for eating disorders, food addiction, and body horror.

I was hooked from the start. Emmett felt incredibly real to me. I don’t share his exact struggle, but the emotions underneath it—the shame, the addiction, the messiness—feels deeply familiar to me. He’s not good or bad but a combination of both. He’s got some flaws. I found his character to be very believable and relatable.

I will say it’s a slow burn. The beginning is a little repetitive and takes its time, but for me that worked. It builds the tension and lays the groundwork for everything that comes later. Once the horror fully kicks in, it really takes off.

This book digs into trauma, abuse, and addiction. It’s pretty heavy and I can absolutely see how it would trigger someone so take care of your mental health and DNF if you need to. I thought it was phenomenal. Memorable. True horror because I was deeply disturbed the whole time.

Also, Dumas does mention in his acknowledgements that this book is very personal to him. I get the feeling Emmett is an extension of himself. It helps to know that the author is writing about something he’s personally familiar with. It’s a sensitive topic.