Only Uni

Title: ONLY UNI
Author: Camy Tang
Publisher: Zondervan
March 2008
ISBN: 978-0-310-27399-8
Genre: Inspirational/women’s fiction/Asian chick lit

Trish Sakai is the senior biologist at her job, but too bad her career smarts don’t transfer over to her private life. She’s caught her dad in an affair, her loser ex-boyfriend, Kazuo is her grandmother’s top pick for Trish’s mate, and Trish wants nothing more to do with Kazuo, even though he is dangerously tempting.

When Trish’s mother ends up in the hospital after a heart attack, Trish enlists the help of her three best friends (and cousins) Venus, Jen and Lex, hoping that they will keep her on the Christian straight-and-narrow. But life has a way of throwing curve balls, and Trish doesn’t know which way is right. Instead of being a virtuous woman for God, she’s going nuts. Will Trish figure out what God wants her to do?

ONLY UNI is the second book in the Sushi Series but it easily stands alone. Trish is a member of the same loud, huge, and pushy as her cousin Lex in book one, but unlike Lex, Trish hates making scenes, and instead of infuriating her matriarch grandmother, she usually does what Grandmother wants. But now, Trish doesn’t want what Grandmother does, and it means that Trish is being forced to stand on her own two feet and make her own way in life…even it means that Grandmother disowns her as a member of the family.

I enjoyed both books in the series, Sushi for One, and ONLY UNI. The characters are flawed and realistic, and the faith message is expertly woven in. I don’t understand all the family dynamics, but the extended family is very close, and everyone is expected to be present and accounted for at all events. The tone is sassy, and includes all the ingredients of solid chick lit, even though it is written in third person. A sample chapter of the third book in this series, Single Sashimi is included at the end of the book. $12.99. 367 pages.