Lex from “Sushi for One” by Camy Tang

I’m a few days late in recognizing the New Year; I hope everyone had a Happy New Year’s celebration!  

The New Year always makes me think about Japan ever since my year of studying abroad there (2006-07), New Year’s is such a big deal in the Japanese culture.  It’s a time of eating special foods, getting together with friends and family, and prayer for the coming year.  It’s their most important holiday, their “Christmas,” minus Christ.

Thinking about Japan reminded me that I’ve wanted to post on “Sushi for One,” a title that’s been out for a while, but I personally just read last year.  It doesn’t have anything to do with New Year’s but it was my connection to Japan that attracted me to Camy’s book when I saw the cover.  With a good mix of funny and serious scenes, I thoroughly enjoyed it and l look forward to reading the rest of the series sometime.

The main character Lex is a Christian, and a Japanese American, something that she shares with her creator Camy Tang.  Camy explains on her website how Lex also shares her love of playing volleyball, and her troubles with tearing her ACL and having to go through physical therapy to recover.  Volleyball is a big part of the story because it’s what Lex is most passionate about, but the other driving force in this one is the element of romance, or more like, the lack-there-of.  Some of the funniest moments happen from being under pressure from her large family to find a husband ASAP or face the wrath of Grandma!  The very first scene had me laughing out loud when Lex’s Grandma offers a solution to her dating problem by saying she'll buy Lex a boob job!

The story also has a lot of sincere moments of searching for answers and learning to trust in God.  It was hard for Lex to not have things happen on her time schedule and not get to do things her way, but when she trusted in God to put the pieces of her life back together He did.  They maybe didn’t happen the way she’d expected them to, but her life did start falling into place.  Time and again God has worked like this in my own life.  Not on my schedule, His, not what I want, when I want it, but what I need, when I need it.  It can be a hard thing to accept, but also a freeing thing.  As I think about the New Year, I want to continue striving, as Lex did, to trust in God.

-Monica

Check out Camy Tang's website: http://camytang.com/