Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite

In the memoir Flavors I Carry, Emily Wei recounts her life as an American-born Chinese woman whose sense of home is shaped by movement between the United States and Taiwan. At ten, she leaves Houston for Taipei, where school exposes her to social hierarchies she does not yet understand and pushes her to find a voice through debate. Returning to the United States for college brings another cultural adjustment, eventually leading her to San Francisco, where she builds the adult life and career that become central to her story. Years spent adapting herself to workplace expectations begin changing how she sees herself. A return to Taiwan after the pandemic reminds her of the ease she once felt there, while later travel through China with her parents brings family history closer as food becomes her way of understanding where she belongs.

Emily Wei’s Flavors I Carry: A Memoir Seasoned by San Francisco, Taiwan, and China is a thoughtful memoir, and the author writes about belonging with total openness. I went into the book curious, as I am a half-Asian reader who was born and raised in San Francisco, and connected almost immediately. Wei's conversational style creates intimacy, especially when she admits uncertainty about herself. I loved how useful her memories can be to readers carrying lessons into adult life. A college chef advises her to choose simple recipes, advice she later uses when cooking Thanksgiving dinner for her family. I was equally moved by the author’s ability to make Chinese history physical. At Wuzhen’s Foot Binding Museum, seeing tiny shoes makes her own toes curl inside her shoes, giving readers a bodily sense of what those women endured. Throughout, Wei’s food-based structure gives the memoir a truly distinctive character of its own that's wonderful. Well written and heartfelt, readers drawn to cross-cultural memoirs about discovering where they belong will adore this.