“Dial A For Aunties” From Jessie Q. Sutanto

My dear friend Bridgett recommended Dial A For Aunties by Jessie Q. Sutanto, so I gave this one a shot without looking into it. She said it was funny and I trust her, so no synopsis or review checks at all… so I really had no idea what I was getting into.

Dial A For Aunties is about an Indo-Chinese woman named Meddy who kinda feels trapped. She doesn’t feel like she can leave her mother and her three aunts due to a family curse, so she stays where she’s always been and works for the family wedding planning business. She also sacrificed the love of her life when he wanted to move to the other side of the country, because that’s just what good daughters do.

However, her mother is slightly impatient about Meddy getting married, so she gets on a dating app pretending to be her daughter and sets up a date. Meddy agrees to go, and by some unfortunate turns of events, the dude ends up dead and in Meddy’s trunk. She goes to her mother for help, and all the aunties get involved in trying to solve the problem.

But, things never go as planned. This all unfolds the night before a major wedding gig and they don’t have time to fully deal with it in the middle of the night. But mistakes lead to the body ending up on its way to the wedding on a private island.

Dial A For Aunties is this unusual blend of crime story, romance, family drama, and comedy. I’m not sure what to call the genre, but it somehow works. I didn’t laugh out loud like my friend did, but I was smiling quite a bit at all the hijinks and bad luck Meddy’s family faces. It’s definitely an enjoyable read.