What I liked:
-Really great food descriptions, catch me heading to the nearest pho restaurant after this!
-this is a high school YA so there were some cute and sooo awkward moments of “what do I do with my hands near a girl I like” moments
-I enjoyed the inclusion of the history about family’s respective escapes from Vietnam and the fall of Saigon. -The audiobook was nice to listen to because both narrators were Vietnamese and so you could hear them properly pronounce the Vietnamese words sprinkled through the book. It’s a very tonal language and it’s so much better to listen to than to read (imo)
-the heart to hearts with their parents and them understanding each other better

What I disliked:
-described as a “forbidden lovers” trope but there’s not really that much tension especially since the protagonists don’t understand the source of the feud for the majority of the book
- far too slow paced, it also is a longer book than it really needed to be
-usually I have no problem believing two people should be together but I didn’t understand the depths of their feelings for each other at all. It felt like they had three convos, kissed a little, and decided they were willing to risk it all for each other. For what????? I was surprised they were so impacted by various events in the book, this seemed like a medium-level friendship.

Misc:
If you like this book you might also like Last Chance Books by Kelsey Rodkey, it’s a similar high school YA with competing family run businesses (this one of bookstores) and one of the families is also Asian, though that’s not really mentioned not a central feature/plot point like in A Pho Live Story. Tbh I felt similarly about that book as I did this one