Terroryaki!

by Jennifer K. Chung

978-1-55152-412-2, $14.95

3-Day Books

Reviewed by Jessica

From the book blurb’s usage of the phrase “mysterious take-out truck,” I immediately knew that I would very much enjoy Terroryaki!, the winner of the 33rd annual International 3-Day Novel Contest.  Creepy mystery? Bizarre romance? Hilarious family dysfunction? Terroryaki! has it all in perfect portions, all against the backdrop of the Seattle food scene. At only 122 pages, this is a quick, fun read that will definitely stir up some cravings for your favorite comfort food by the time you’ve finished.

The title is a play on “teriyaki,” the dish that is what pizza is to New York or what hot dogs are to Chicago; Seattle’s symbol of culinary identity that seems to be everywhere but never appears in quite the same incarnation. Teriyaki here in Seattle refers to any kind of dish adopting its namesake Japanese cooking technique in which meats are grilled in a sweet marinade and served usually atop a bed of rice. You can find everything from a standard beef teriyaki to the Pacific Northwest-inspired salmon teriyaki, but it’s undoubtedly chicken teriyaki, in that sweetly salty, glistening sauce, that will always reign supreme.

It’s precisely her search for the tastiest teriyaki in town that leads Daisy to experience a chicken teriyaki dish so delicious that it might possibly be from another dimension. Daisy, an aspiring artist with little life motivation outside of adventuring to new restaurants to review them on her blog, randomly eats from a pirate-themed teriyaki truck in a dark parking lot while trying to console Sam, her angrily lovelorn sister who is fighting with her fiancé. After finishing her first serving of the aforementioned otherworldly dish, Daisy tries to return to the truck to get their Twitter handle but finds them mysteriously gone. Over the next few crazy weeks leading up to Sam’s wedding, Daisy tries to return to life as normal but keeps thinking about the pirate food truck and its oddly handsome driver. Why does the truck keep disappearing whenever she finally finds it? What makes their food so damn good?

While the main story arc of Terroryaki! is Daisy’s search for the answers behind the mysterious food truck, the book also touches on themes sure to resonate with most readers. The sisters’ Taiwanese parents’ disapproval of Sam’s “hopelessly white” fiancé is a source of much biting family tension and frustration throughout the book, and Daisy’s deep-seated dismay of growing up in the shadow of her “perfect” sister re-emerges often as reminder that she needs to find her own voice.

What I most enjoyed about Terroryaki! is Jennifer K. Chung’s talent in propelling Daisy’s growth and search for personal fulfillment forward by placing her in hilariously offbeat situations and then gaging her reactions. The book is chock full of examples of this, but most hilarious are Chung’s descriptions of Daisy’s awkward yet well-meaning encounters with Sam’s scary Norse wedding planner, the sisters’ “battle scene” with an overly aggressive pedicurist, and an imagined storyline of a bizarre Korean TV drama.

This book comes highly recommended, and is available now through Powell’s Books or your favorite independent bookstore.

*45th Parallel Communications is in no way professionally associated with 3-Day Books. I reviewed Terroryaki! because I simply wanted to…and because I’m addicted to food trucks!*