Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

 

Welcome Back, Booklovers! There was a lot of early buzz about this one last year since it's got picked up for a Netflix movie. I saw the cover for this and thought it was a cozy mystery. I received an arc from Berkley in exchange for an honest review. 

I came into this story thinking it was some kind of mystery but really there's no mystery to solve. We already know the killer and her name is Meddlin Chan who works as a photographer for her family's wedding business. Meddy's mother is desperate to find her the perfect man so she signs her up for a dating site with a fake profile pretending to be her. Meddy agrees to go on the date but after her date tries to attack her she ends up killing him in self defense. Rather than drive to the hospital or police station she panics and drives home. Her mother and aunties immediately go into protection mode to help her hide the body and wacky hijinks ensure from there.

Meddy and her aunties have a major wedding to attend the next day on a private island at an exclusive new resort. This resort happens to be partially owned by Meddy's college sweetheart Nathan who she's been pining about since dumping him for ridiculous reasons.

While Dial A For Aunties started off as a fun satire it quickly became an insane fever dream full of random clichés and plot points. There was no clear sense of direction with the author seemingly undecided if she wanted to write a satire or rom-com and not achieving either. Halfway through the story I could no longer suspend belief at the ridiculousness of it all. The endearing aunties became caricatures, Meddlin became more dimwitted by the minute, the author randomly revealed some side characters were lesbian in a jokey way that felt haphazardly thrown in. The best satire has some believability in it and a sense of direction. this was just one over the top plot point after another.

I can see how it would work better in movie form vs book form but even then it's going to feel like an older Bollywood film minus the singing and dancing. I wasn't looking to take this book seriously at all but it asked way too much of me.  I couldn't even laugh at the jokes because they were all so dated. 

The strongest points of this story were the cultural aspects and the second chance romance. If Jesse Sutanto writes a cute Indo-Chinese romance in the future I'll check it out. When it was grounded in reality the novel worked. But between this story and The Obessesion her throw everything and anything at the wall and hope it sticks type writing might not be for me.