Review: Dial A for Aunties

Title: Dial A for Aunties
Author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
Genre: Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: April 27, 2021
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

A hilariously quirky novel that is equal parts murder mystery, rom-com, and a celebration of mothers and daughters as well as a deep dive into Chinese-Indonesian culture, by debut author Jesse Q. Sutanto.

1 (accidental) murder
2 thousand wedding guests
3 (maybe) cursed generations
4 meddling Asian aunties to the rescue!

When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is accidentally shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working, at an island resort on the California coastline. It’s the biggest job yet for their family wedding business—“Don’t leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!”—and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie’s perfect buttercream cake flowers.

But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy’s great college love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend?

Review:

When Meddelin Chan accidentally kills her blind date, her mom calls her aunties to help them get rid of the body. Meddy’s family are wedding vendors, so they have to figure out what to do with the body while they’re at a billionaire’s wedding the next day. The cooler where they store the body is accidentally sent to the wedding, so they have to keep the body hidden while they’re at the fancy resort. To make things more complicated, Meddy’s former college boyfriend who never met her family is also at the wedding. Meddy and her family need to somehow get through this wedding while hiding the dead body and avoiding murder charges.

This story was hilarious from the beginning to the end. Meddy had three aunts and her mom. I loved how the aunts were specific characters and weren’t referred to by their names. Instead, Meddy called them Big Aunt, Second Aunt, and Fourth Aunt. They were each so distinct that I never got them mixed up. There were a lot of things lost in translation, since the aunts were not as fluent in English as Meddy. This made for some hilarious misunderstandings, especially in terms of the common meaning of certain emojis.

Even though this story was about an accidental murder, it actually had a light tone. Things kept going so spectacularly wrong that I couldn’t help but laugh. There are so many things that can go wrong with a wedding, but adding in a secret dead body makes even more possible problems. The scenes were so cinematic that I can imagine this story being turned into a movie. I hope it will be on the big screen one day!

Dial A for Aunties is a hilarious romcom!

Thank you Berkley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Have you read Dial A for Aunties? What did you think of it?