Dial A for Aunties
"Sutanto brilliantly infuses comedy and culture into the unpredictable rom-com/murder mystery mashup as Meddy navigates familial duty, possible arrest and a groomzilla. I laughed out loud and you will too."--USA Today (four-star review) "A hilarious, heartfelt romp of a novel about--what else?--accidental murder and the bond of family. This book had me laughing aloud within its first five pages... Utterly clever, deeply funny, and altogether charming, this book is sure to be one of the best of the year!"--Emily Henry, New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read
One of NPR's Best Books of 2021! One of PopSugar's "42 Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2021"! What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family? You get 4 meddling Asian aunties coming 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 inadvertently 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 the 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 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?
One of NPR's Best Books of 2021! One of PopSugar's "42 Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2021"! What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family? You get 4 meddling Asian aunties coming 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 inadvertently 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 the 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 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?
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Community Reviews
Six years ago in her Junior Year, Maddelin (Maddy) Chan fell in love with Nathan Chan during her college years. She even met his parents (Chris and Annie) in London (Oxford, England). She however never wanted him to meet her family because she feared they're too overbearing and loud. They'd swallow him up. This is actually a sore spot for them as this hurts his feelings. At college, Maddelin feels she's most authentic with Nathan. She's sarcastic, witty, sharp and most of all, free.
Her family and his are a stark contrast to one another. His parentâs house is clean and neat and House and Garden. Her family's house, well, let's just say they are hoarders because they grew up so poor.
Maddy decides, When they get back from Oxford, England, she will tell her mother about Nathan. Sheâll even tell her aunts. The heck with the family curse. She believes with all her heart this is where the curses will die. How wrong she will be.
That was then, now we're in the present day and they have sadly broken up. Her mother felt Maddelin had isolated herself and should go on dates. Ma even goes as far as going onto an online dating app and catfish a guy Jake into meeting up for a date. Ma and the aunties, who all know about this, tell her he's rich and quite handsome. Okay, so they don't really know what he looks like because he gave them a fuzzy computer-generated AI-looking guy.
Maddy and Jake meet. Shockingly, heâs not bad-looking as he resembles a K-pop rock star look. He thinks he knows Maddelin really well because all this time, he's been chatting with her. In reality, he's been speaking with Ma. Maddy can't let her family down so she keeps up with the pretense. He constantly talks about how much money he has because owns many hotels. Yada yada yada. She drinks way too much champagne to deal with his nonstop chattering and she can't drive home because she's drunk.
Jake offered to drive her car and to drive her home and heâll just get a lift from one of his employees. As theyâre going into her sob, he puts his hand on her lap in a suggestive way. She tries to calmly move her leg so that his hand would fall off her lap. He looks at her and says âoh youâre gonna play it that way huh?â he starts to menacingly drive fast on a lonely highway and itâs scaring her. She decides to taser him. Fade to black. She wakes up and she discovers he slumped over her steering wheel. She sees blood coming out of his ears and onto his polo shirt. She touches his pulse on his wrist and thinks OMG, heâs dead. Her cell phone is dear and so is he.
She pulls Jake out and stuffs him into her trunk. Luckily Maddelin is able to restart her car. Freaking out with a dead Jake in the back, she knows she needs to drive to the nearest gas station and beg for help. Instead, when she sees the gas station, she speeds up and passes it. Instead, she does what her body tells her to do, which is to drive home to Ma.
Oddly, after Maâs initial shock, she goes into breast mode and knows what to do: call all the Aunties and start slicing up fruits so that when they come over to help, offer them food. Maddy just killed a man, and all Ma still cares about is for Maddelin to be respectful to her elders. All the aunties donât even seem bothered with the dead body. Instead of talking about how nothing beats Indonesian mangoes.
Maddy finally asks Ma to see the texts that have been going on and she is shocked that Ma who isn't fluent in English accidentally wrote very suggestive texts with suggestive innuendos. When 4th Aunt reads this, she's dying of laughter but Maddelin is mortified. This explains why Jake put his hand on her lap and was expecting her to âput outâ (insert all those eggplant emojis as her mom did).
With the wedding that could put them on the charts that following morning, will they be able to get away with murder? If you think it's a piece of cake, wait until you read what happens at the wedding between the bride and groom. More mayhem and âyouâve got to be kidding me?!â It is a fun story but not the greatest. It was a bit of a let down for me because Maddelin could not catch a single break between her quarreling aunties and the on-goings of the drunk groomsmen, a vindictive sheriff who is a complete idiot, how to constantly dump Jake's body, and the stolen gifts, it just became too much of a slapstick. While some reviewers may say it's comparable to Crazy Rich Asians, I don't agree. This one is more like dark humor. On a positive note, you do feel the love the Aunties and Meddelin have for one another.
Her family and his are a stark contrast to one another. His parentâs house is clean and neat and House and Garden. Her family's house, well, let's just say they are hoarders because they grew up so poor.
Maddy decides, When they get back from Oxford, England, she will tell her mother about Nathan. Sheâll even tell her aunts. The heck with the family curse. She believes with all her heart this is where the curses will die. How wrong she will be.
That was then, now we're in the present day and they have sadly broken up. Her mother felt Maddelin had isolated herself and should go on dates. Ma even goes as far as going onto an online dating app and catfish a guy Jake into meeting up for a date. Ma and the aunties, who all know about this, tell her he's rich and quite handsome. Okay, so they don't really know what he looks like because he gave them a fuzzy computer-generated AI-looking guy.
Maddy and Jake meet. Shockingly, heâs not bad-looking as he resembles a K-pop rock star look. He thinks he knows Maddelin really well because all this time, he's been chatting with her. In reality, he's been speaking with Ma. Maddy can't let her family down so she keeps up with the pretense. He constantly talks about how much money he has because owns many hotels. Yada yada yada. She drinks way too much champagne to deal with his nonstop chattering and she can't drive home because she's drunk.
Jake offered to drive her car and to drive her home and heâll just get a lift from one of his employees. As theyâre going into her sob, he puts his hand on her lap in a suggestive way. She tries to calmly move her leg so that his hand would fall off her lap. He looks at her and says âoh youâre gonna play it that way huh?â he starts to menacingly drive fast on a lonely highway and itâs scaring her. She decides to taser him. Fade to black. She wakes up and she discovers he slumped over her steering wheel. She sees blood coming out of his ears and onto his polo shirt. She touches his pulse on his wrist and thinks OMG, heâs dead. Her cell phone is dear and so is he.
She pulls Jake out and stuffs him into her trunk. Luckily Maddelin is able to restart her car. Freaking out with a dead Jake in the back, she knows she needs to drive to the nearest gas station and beg for help. Instead, when she sees the gas station, she speeds up and passes it. Instead, she does what her body tells her to do, which is to drive home to Ma.
Oddly, after Maâs initial shock, she goes into breast mode and knows what to do: call all the Aunties and start slicing up fruits so that when they come over to help, offer them food. Maddy just killed a man, and all Ma still cares about is for Maddelin to be respectful to her elders. All the aunties donât even seem bothered with the dead body. Instead of talking about how nothing beats Indonesian mangoes.
Maddy finally asks Ma to see the texts that have been going on and she is shocked that Ma who isn't fluent in English accidentally wrote very suggestive texts with suggestive innuendos. When 4th Aunt reads this, she's dying of laughter but Maddelin is mortified. This explains why Jake put his hand on her lap and was expecting her to âput outâ (insert all those eggplant emojis as her mom did).
With the wedding that could put them on the charts that following morning, will they be able to get away with murder? If you think it's a piece of cake, wait until you read what happens at the wedding between the bride and groom. More mayhem and âyouâve got to be kidding me?!â It is a fun story but not the greatest. It was a bit of a let down for me because Maddelin could not catch a single break between her quarreling aunties and the on-goings of the drunk groomsmen, a vindictive sheriff who is a complete idiot, how to constantly dump Jake's body, and the stolen gifts, it just became too much of a slapstick. While some reviewers may say it's comparable to Crazy Rich Asians, I don't agree. This one is more like dark humor. On a positive note, you do feel the love the Aunties and Meddelin have for one another.
Big yikes on this one. I want to be fair so I will say that the teaser I read wasn’t totally my cup of tea, so I went into this trusting a buzz feed quiz that told me I would like this even though when I read the summary I wasn’t so sure. I should have trusted my gut. I really enjoyed the cultural aspect of this, but the story was way too outlandish for me to suspend my disbelief. I would read and be like “there is no way I can believe this happened.” The book is too grounded in reality to make the far-fetched plot work. Then there is the love interest. Honestly, it suffers from the same problem: it’s just not believable. She dumps you for no good reason and totally breaks your heart and never tells her family you exist and you’re just ready to jump right back into it? Hmmmm. Ok so anyway, there is a lot happening here and it just didn’t do it for me. No hate to this book- it just wasn’t for me.
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