In Cynthia So's second novel, sparks fly between two foodies brought together by the blogosphere

“Coming from fandom, I’m very aware of how people fall in love through words alone,” Cynthia So tells me, speaking on video call from their London home. Falling in love online was an idea explored in their debut, If You Still Recognise Me, and one they were keen to explore further in their second book, This Feast of a Life, which will be published by Little Tiger Press in January. So explains that readers always raved about the food in their debut, so they began to play with that idea. “How do I expand on it and make people even hungrier? The food blog seemed perfect for that.” The inevitable preamble you have to scroll through before you reach the recipe on a food blog was key to their inspiration. “What if there is someone who is a food blogger, putting so much of their life and who they are in their blog posts, and there is someone out there who is actually reading all of it, feeling like there’s a connection there?”

The novel is the story of two young people who are both finding themselves and are brought together by a shared love of food. Auden, who is non-binary and getting accustomed to using their preferred name and pronouns, starts a food blog to share their passion for family recipes and the stories behind them. Valerie, meanwhile, is still grieving a year after her mum’s death, the family kitchen now cold and empty as she and her dad drift ever further apart. When she finds Auden’s blog, she feels a spark and a relationship slowly builds, at first through blog post comments and messages and later in person.

“I liked the idea of two chaotic bisexuals who are falling in love, but find it really difficult to be in a relationship with each other,” So recalls. “It’s about exploring: Why are they so different from each other? What is it that’s stopping them from getting into a relationship?” A scene from Channel 4 TV series “Feel Good”, when two characters are discussing what being non-binary means, was also pivotal. “It’s that feeling, from that scene, of having a conversation with somebody who really sees you and is really open to everything you are and how moving that can be. I wanted the whole book to be about that feeling and how you get to that.”

Making food for others is an act of love, but it’s also about nourishing yourself; making something you enjoy eating is an act of self-love

So has a real gift for creating believable, complex characters, and isn’t afraid to give them the time and space to evolve. In This Feast of a Life, this was a conscious move—deciding to pare back the sub plots and obstacles to concentrate on the alternating voices of the two leads. They decided to write the book out of chronological order, instead penning scenes from before and after the two meet in person. “This helped me just focus on them, to build their character arcs more, to see how their past and future selves connect,” So explains. This change of direction helped the plot flow; the book was eventually reordered chronologically on the advice of their editor.

Unsurprisingly, food is a real passion for So. “Food is a huge part of what family means to me,” they enthuse. “Sharing food together is so beautiful.” The scenes where Valerie and her father tentatively begin to cook together are heartbreaking and beautiful. “Making food for others is an act of love, but it’s also about nourishing yourself; making something you enjoy eating is an act of self-love.”

So was born in Hong Kong and moved to the UK aged 11. Around the same age, they discovered fan fiction—which had a profound impact. “I read a lot of queer fan fiction and that was how I discovered that being queer was even a thing,” So remembers. “I didn’t know any queer people in real life, no one talked about queerness around me.” Reading and writing queer fan fiction helped them discover an online community of like-minded people.

“It also honed my interest in character and romance. I was writing the same characters falling in love, in lots of different ways, and that really helped me get into the emotions of how that works.” In 2019, they were one of the new voices included in Proud, an anthology of stories, poems and art by LGBTQ+ creators.This led to a publishing deal with Little Tiger Press for If You Still Recognise Me, which was shortlisted for both the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the YA Book Prize. So recently sat on a panel alongside American author David Levithan, whose LGBTQ+ YA books were groundbreaking in the early 2000s. So discovered his books on return trips to Hong Kong and says he is probably the main reason why they are writing queer YA. “Outside of fan fiction I felt like I didn’t really have access to a lot of queer books; the few books that were around (in the UK) were quite miserable for the characters involved.” The publication of Alice Oseman’s Radio Silence in 2016 was another landmark moment.

“It was incredible. I remember thinking, this is the kind of book I would like to write. Maybe there could be a market for this now.” So does feel, however, that the US market is way ahead, with more trans and non-binary voices, and more queer writers of colour.

After the publication of their debut, So received messages from readers, who told them that If You Still Recognise Me made them feel less alone.
“I always want to emphasise that it’s OK to take your time to figure out who you are, there’s no rush, you can always change your mind.” This Feast of a Life is dedicated to themselves, as a reminder to be proud. “I really want people to read the book and be proud of who they are and who they want to become, even if it’s not something they think other people in their lives want for them.”