I was a great fan of the previous books in this series:
Sushi for One?
,
Only Uni
, and
Single Sashimi
so I was glad to hear that Camy Tang had finally written a book about the fourth cousin, Jennifer Lim, but I wondered. Since writing the first three, Ms. Tang had gone off in a different direction, creating an Asian-American Christian suspense romance novel series:
Deadly Intent
,
Formula for Danger
, and
Stalker in the Shadows
, also very enjoyable but an altogether different kind of writing. Could she recapture the screwball comedy lunacy of the first three novels in the Sushi Series?
I needn't have worried. At the end of chapter 1, Jenn, the "good" cousin is thinking, "Sure, she knew him. Knew the next time he came for his goat she'd ram her chef's knife, Michael Meyers style, right between his eyes."
Yep, same old cousins, same old Sakai family.
The title of my review comes from the famous line so frequently uttered by Bugs Bunny when he has been pushed too far and is about to invoke his own version of Shock and Awe. First uttered by Groucho Marx and others in
Duck Soup
it was a signal to the audience that peaceful and placating Bugs was about to massively retaliate, a deliberate attempt on the part of director Chuck Jones to justify to the audience the mayhem that was about to ensue.
Camy Tang performs something similar here. Jenn, the quiet cousin, the good cousin, the one who liked everyone to get along,... the doormat, finally rebels against the selfish expectations of her censuring and crying and arguing and yelling and nagging family after they ruin her culinary degree celebration party by inviting the thug who beat her up in college and trying to force her to go to work at the family restaurant. So they respond by trying to bully her.
BIG Mistake.
With the help of her four cousins: Lex, Trish, and Venus, the heroines of the first three books; Mimi, finally fighting on the right side this time; and Edward Castillo, the (in Jenn's opinion) dreamy, Hispanic, Harley-riding but secretly nerdy farmer who rescued her from a couple of flat tires, Jenn will wage a war of increasing retaliation against her vengeful and uncaring family, and before I give you the wrong impression, let me assure you that every minute of it will be falling down laughing on the floor funny. According to the Author's Note, Ms. Tang was listening to the album
Every Time I Breathe
for inspiration while she was writing this book. As for me, I was hearing
The Carl Stalling Project: Music From Warner Bros. Cartoons, 1936-1958
playing in my head while I was reading it.
So thus ends the saga of the screwball Sakai Family, or does it? After the events of this novel I can see the makings of a 5th book: cousin Mimi's story. In a Customer Discussion on the Sushi for One? Product Page Ms. Tang contemplates it, and the observant reader will notice that in this novel Ms. Tang places her Sushi Series and her Deadly Intent series into the same universe.
Note: Ms. Tang is also the author of the start of another Asian-American Christian suspense romance novel series:
Protection for Hire
.
Note: For full disclosure I was given this ebook by the author rather than purchasing it.
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