Celestial Banquet

By Roselle Lim

Book Overview

Iron Chef meets The Hunger Games in Roselle Lim's dazzling YA fantasy debut, following a young noodle chef who competes in a cutthroat cooking competition for the gods.

"Celestial Banquet is a magical and delectable adventure through a culinary landscape rich in East Asian tradition. It is also a very real look at family, home, and how food ties into both, with an empowered and resilient teen girl at the center. Equal parts action-packed and heartfelt, I cannot wait for readers to devour it." --Ayesha Curry, Sweet July Books

Once every generation, the Major Gods hold a Celestial Banquet, inviting chefs from all over the Continent to prepare mouthwatering fantastical feasts. The winner is awarded the fabled Peaches of Immortality, along with a lifetime of fame and fortune. The losers perish per the whims of the fickle gods.

Hot-headed noodle chef Cai enters the competition with dreams of owning her own restaurant and supporting her impoverished Peninsula town. Along with the drunken Minor God Kama, her childhood crush-turned-friend Bo, and dreamy noble Seon, Cai must now compete against the Continent's finest culinary masters in trials that range from hunting and serving up mystical sea serpents to preparing a magical omurice from the eggs of the legendary Jian bird.

Battling impossible odds and inconvenient feelings for both Bo and Seon, Cai is determined to prepare a feast fit for the gods--even if she loses her life. Set in a spectacular world inspired by Chinese and Southeast Asian folklore, Celestial Banquet is an ode to food, home, and family, wrapped in an epic and thrilling adventure.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1638931267
• ISBN13: 9781638931263
• Release Date: June 2025
• Publisher: Zando - Sweet July Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.1" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Cooking for the gods!

Okay, love the narrator for this audiobook! I have listened to other books narrated by Natalie Naudus and she does a phenomenal job in bringing the characters and worlds to life. I ended up really liking most of this book because of her. The parts I liked were Cai and her plan to make it to the Celestial Banquet by convincing minor god Kama to participate so she could fulfill her father's wish and also help out the peninsula which keeps being attacked by the awful Empress. The trials to get the special ingredients for each dish to be judged were cool and how though it is not like the Hunger Games in that the participants volunteered, you still get some cool deaths from not being prepared properly to make the dish. Also, there are interesting tidbits about the history of Kama that I found intriguing, and the secret princess. Those I could see being expanded in future books that I would like to read. Plus the cooking of the dishes which were cool especially since the chefs needed to be very careful or risk maybe having acid eat through your hands! I also enjoyed the excerpts from scrolls at the beginning of every chapter which helped give depth to this intriguing world. Now what I did not like and was definitely not needed: a stupid love triangle! I mean, it was not the time for Cai to choose between Bo and Seon while trying to cook the dishes to impress the major gods and not end up cursed or killed! Those scenes were very irritating and had me telling them to shut up and let Cai concentrate! The only other thing that was odd was that the ending seemed incomplete. I am hoping that means there will be another book with more meat. I would read or listen to that. So, great narrator and pretty good story that went by really fast and was mostly enjoyable (except the Bo and Seon showdown) and so five stars for the narrator and 3 1/2 for the story. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to listen to this entertaining audiobook.