Only Uni

Like I told my adult Bible study this morning, I blame Camy Tang for the fact that I got very little sleep last night. More specifically, I blame her book Only Uni. You know how you get to a point in a book where you just have to keep reading until the very end. I hit that point last night right about the time I should have gone to bed. Thankfully, I made it through the morning without becoming too incoherent.

But this was a great read. I'm not a regular reader of romance, especially not chick-lit (I mean, hello, Y chromosome), but I had heard some very good things about Tang's books and I had to check it out.

I'm really glad I did. This is the story of Trish Sakai. Trish is feeling a bit ashamed of herself after sleeping with her artist ex-boyfriend Kazuo. In a spiritual funk, she reads both 1 and 2 Corinthians and comes up with three rules for herself: #1, no looking. #2, tell more people about Christ. #3, persevere with God's help.

But this isn't going to be easy. Kazuo keeps popping up everywhere she goes. And then there's Spenser, a hunk who she's assigned to work with. But she's determined to make herself better for God and somehow redeem herself from her past.

Tang's story is an interesting journey into Japanese American culture. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and quite a few gut-punchers as well. And there were a couple big twists I didn't see coming until I was right on top of them. That's part of the reason I was up so late last night. In the interest of fairness, I haven't read the first book in the series, namely Sushi for One, but that wasn't a problem. The book stood alone on its own just fine.

I do have one major gripe about the book. Actually, it's not just this one. It's something that popped up in Jerk, California as well. The kicker is, I can't really go into detail here because if I try to explain it at all, I'll be guilty of dropping major spoilers for both books. I can understand that what was said came from the genuineness of the characters. But the message that was delivered (perhaps unintentionally) really upset me and made me kind of angry.

But that should not stop anyone from reading this. I'm probably overreacting to nothing. If you want a delightful, romantic story told with (as Camy's website puts it) "a kick of wasabi," then this is for you. I'm even tempted to go out for a little Single Sashimi.