Café Con Lychee

 Café Con Lychee by Emery Lee, 320 pages.

Theo Mori and Gabi Moreno both have parents who run ethnic food cafes in a town in Vermont that has a very small ethnic cafe enjoyer population, which means their families have been rivals forever. Then a new fusion cafe moves into town that has way more social media appeal than either of their businesses, and both boys have to struggle to find a way to save their respective family businesses, which leads to a secret baked goods delivery service at school and the two boys suddenly having to spend time together. Before to long enemies goes to rivals, goes to friends, goes to something more romantic, and both suddenly have someone to talk to, and their problems seem much more manageable.

Unfortunately the writing of this book was extremely alright. Which is a shame because the concept sounded really cool, and I even quite liked the protagonists. But there are a lot of cases where what we're shown is very different than what we're told, and while I do like a happy ending, this one felt saccharine enough that it sort of retroactively made most of their problems feel like they never really existed to start with. Overall, disappointing.