Café Con Lychee follows Gabi and Theo, who are the children of two rivalling restaurants in town. Despite playing on the same soccer team, they have always kept their distance lest their parents think they’re “conspiring with the enemy”. When a new fusion café opens in town and leaves both boys’ parents’ business in jeopardy, Theo and Gabi unexpectedly find themselves teaming up to protect their families’ restaurants. What starts as a reluctant alliance with their rivals soon turns into way more than just a business arrangement.
Truly, the premise sounds divine: a queer enemies-to-lovers romance, rivals reluctantly banding together for a common cause, and a story revolving around food, food, food. Where things kind of went off track for me was in the execution of it all.
Here’s what I really liked about Café Con Lychee: the character growth both Gabi and Theo go through individually but also as a couple. Gabi initially is on the soccer team to hide his love for dancing and he is deeply stuck in the closet as well. Theo, meanwhile, wants nothing more than to escape his town and get away from his parents so he doesn’t have to end up working at their café. Over the course of the story, both boys go through a really transformative period and end up openly communicating instead of resenting in quiet which I thought was so important.
I also really enjoyed the savviness of the characters: both Theo and Gabi, for very different reasons, want to see their respective parents’ restaurant succeed and Theo’s idea to basically create an underground coffee and boba shop at their school to fight the fusion’s café’s impact was so cool. I loved how they basically showed that you can sell anything as long as you market it the right way. In turn, Café Con Lychee does an excellent job at subtly discussing cultural appropriation and the fickle minds of consumers. The boys’ parents’ Puerto Rican bakery and Asian American café is basically “dropped” by everyone in favour of the fusion café that may not have the best food or drinks but has the vibes down to a pat. There were so many subtle comments about being overlooked even when you’re baking authentically in favour of atmosphere and quirky style and, well, “coolness”. I think readers will definitely think a bit about the way they decide where to buy things after reading this novel.
There’s a lot of negativity in this book that both Gabi and Theo face (and for good reason): there are negative family relationships that cause Gabi and Theo deep anguish and anxiety, there’s overt homophobia that’s not always challenged, there’s resentment toward their friends to a point where I wondered why they even were friends with these people and then, of course, the enemies part that was tough to read in Theo’s perspective because he is pretty much annoyed and angry at Gabi at the best of times, lashing out at the worst. Obviously, all of these “negative” feelings get their own arc in the novel and are somewhat remedied by the end, but it’s a lot to take in without a real ‘happy’ break for a big chunk of the novel. That, in part, might have also been caused because it takes a long time for Gabi and Theo to be distinguishable in their voices—for the first half of the book, I was constantly looking for indicators in their chapters to remember whose perspective I was reading because, apart from their friend group and familial situation, their negative commentary sounded incredibly similar. Thankfully, this changes around the time the two of them become co-conspirators.
And though there are moments of joy and the last chapters of the book offer some cathartic and sweet scenes, I kind of needed a bit more…relief from a novel marketed as romcom. It went so far that at times, I wanted to put the book down just because it was bumming me out so much—but that’s in part my fault because I went into this with the wrong expectations, expecting a fun enemies-to-lovers romcom whereas the book is just a bit more heavy on the reality aspect. However, if you are a fan of stories that take the enemies of enemies-to-lovers part seriously, I think this might turn out to be the perfect read for you!
Sparks fly in Café Con Lychee when two sons of family rival shops find themselves working together to compete with the new fusion café in town—fans of enemies-to-lovers romances, mutual pining and all the food puns better watch out for this one!
Café Con Lychee is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of May 10th 2022.
Will you be picking up Café Con Lychee? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
Sometimes bitter rivalries can brew something sweet
Theo Mori wants to escape. Leaving Vermont for college means getting away from working at his parents’ Asian American café and dealing with their archrivals’ hopeless son Gabi who’s lost the soccer team more games than Theo can count.
Gabi Moreno is miserably stuck in the closet. Forced to play soccer to hide his love for dance and iced out by Theo, the only openly gay guy at school, Gabi’s only reprieve is his parents’ Puerto Rican bakery and his plans to take over after graduation.
But the town’s new fusion café changes everything. Between the Mori’s struggling shop and the Moreno’s plan to sell their bakery in the face of the competition, both boys find their dreams in jeopardy. Then Theo has an idea—sell photo-worthy food covertly at school to offset their losses. When he sprains his wrist and Gabi gets roped in to help, they realize they need to work together to save their parents’ shops but will the new feelings rising between them be enough to send their future plans up in smoke?
