Our FIRST Non-Fiction Sign Up 🥹

We are so excited to be able to bring you a Creative Book Tour for Restaurant Kid, written by Rachel Phan. Out on 1st April from Pegasus Books! The tour will run from 2nd to 8th April 2025 and we'd love your help to promote this book.

Restaurant Kid is a warm and poignant narrative about finding one’s self amidst the grind of restaurant life, the cross-generational immigrant experience, and a daughter’s attempts to connect with parents who have always been just out of reach.

This tour is open internationally to book influencers who can share their thoughts on the book in an Instagram feed post and share a creative reel, a TikTok, or a blog post. If selected, you’ll receive a confirmation email from us within a week.

Digital copies and physical copies will be available for everyone.

Scroll down to learn more about the book and sign up for this tour!

Goodreads | Amazon | Blackwells

When she was three years old, Rachel Phan met her replacement. Instead of a new sibling, her parents’ time and attention were suddenly devoted entirely to their new family restaurant. For her parents—whose own families fled China during Japanese occupation and then survived bombs and starvation during the war in Vietnam—it was a dream come true. For Rachel, it was something quite different. Overnight, she became a restaurant kid, living on the periphery of her own family and trying her best to stay out of the way.

As Rachel grew up, the restaurant was the most stalwart and suffocating member of her family. For decades, it’s been both her family’s crowning achievement and the origin of so much of their pain and suffering: screaming matches complete with smashed dishes, bodies worn down by long hours and repetitive strain, and tenuous relationships where they love one another deeply without ever really knowing each other.

In Restaurant Kid, Rachel seeks to examine the way her life has been shaped by the rigid boxes placed around her. She had to be a “good daughter,” never asking questions, always being grateful. She had to be a “real Canadian,” watching hockey and speaking English so flawlessly that her tongue has since forgotten how to contort around Cantonese tones. As the only Chinese girl at school, she had to alternate between being the sidekick, geek, or Asian fetish, depending on whose gaze was on her.

Now, three decades after their restaurant first opened, Rachel's parents are cautiously talking about retirement. As an adult, Rachel’s “good daughter” role demands something new of her—and a chance to get to know her parents away from the restaurant.

Bringing to lyric life the poignancy of growing up in a "third culture," Rachel Phan has crafted a vibrant new narrative of growing up, the strength and foibles of family, and how we come to understand ourselves.

All the best,

Colored Pages Team

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