Camy Tang, $2.99, ISBN 978-1-942225-04-1
Contemporary Romance, 2015

Maybe they do things differently in America, but I personally have a hard time reconciling the fact that a story with a Chinese heroine will have “wasabi” in the title and is part of a series that has the word “sushi” in its name.

Sure, Jennifer—the heroine of Camy Tang’s Weddings & Wasabi—has both Chinese and Japanese family members, but still, my brain keep nagging at me that wasabi and sushi are Japanese delicacies, not Chinese. It’s distracting. I can only imagine my late grandmother’s reaction to this, heh—a Chinese marrying a filthy Japanese, oh the blasphemy!

Jenn has two first world problems to get over here.

One, her aunt expects her to take over the family restaurant, but despite having dutifully done everything her family wanted her to up to this point, Jenn decides that it’s time to grow a spine so that this story can happen.

Two, she meets that guy she hates… wait,  that guy isn’t the hero of this story, so I guess that entire chapter exists just for the author to highlight to me what a petulant heroine Jenn is, heh.

The hero is one Edward Castillo, a Hispanic dude with a Harley-Davidson, and before any of you snobs recoil at the possibility that this man could be filthy poor, be assured that his uncle owns a successful vineyard and is generous with his money. 

Oh, and they are both Christians, so this is a romance with Jesus’s stamp of approval.

I’m glad that the author has Jenn trumpeting that she is one, because I never would have guessed from how the heroine constantly judges people and looks down at them over her nose. She also orders people around like that is her default mode, which makes me wonder how I am supposed to believe that she has meekly obeyed her older family members all this while. 

Also, the author starts out having Jenn wanting to strike out on her own, to start her own restaurant. That’s in the first chapter and in the official synopsis. However, instead of me getting a story of Jenn showing off her business and culinary savvy, I find myself reading a story of her being petulant when she’s not bossing people around or acting all haughty and condescending, as well as her taking a ride on Edward’s bike and feeling so daring because, ooh, she is on a bike or something.

I guess the heroine’s “rebellion” extends to just finding a beau, which I’m sure is not exactly something that will send her older family members into a collective faint. They don’t even object to the guy’s race, so the whole thing is a nothing burger as far as “rebellion” goes, hmmph.

Anyway, the heroine is unlikable, the hero is more like a trophy love interest to prove to the heroine that she can attract a hot man better than her so-called hotter cousin sister, and the story seems to give up on its original premise shortly after it begins to serve something else that is far more mundane and blah. The romance could be fun had the characters feel less like cardboard and more like people with chemistry, but that’s not happening here.

All in all, the whole thing is a dry read that doesn’t serve much in terms of fun romance or anything else.