First off, this book is pretty funny. The quirky aunties and their bickering with each other is hilarious. While Dial A for Aunties is a second-chance romcom, there’s also some mystery and family drama mixed in. Meddy is the main character but her ma and aunties definitely steal the show. There are two timelines in the beginning of the book and I found myself wanting more every time the story switched back and forth. It was interesting to follow and wonder how the past romance ties in to the present. Dubbed Crazy Rich Asians meets Weekend at Bernie’s, this is a very different kind of book and I really enjoyed it.
If you read this book, please read the author’s note in the beginning. 💕
I did a mix of ebook and audio and I have to say the audio is fantastic! I’ve read that this will be a Netflix movie and I’m looking forward to seeing Meddy and the aunties on screen.

Thank you to @berkleyromance @berkleypub and @netgalley for the digital arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book started off so strong - I loved the dialogue, the way the aunties and Meddy interacted, the text message exchanges. But about halfway through it started to get very unbelievable and off the rails. The story line really took a dive and I found myself less interested with the direction this was going. So many things became just absurd and I like my stories to be a little bit believable!

“It’s going to be a crazy weekend, isn’t it?”
You have no idea, I want to say.

Meddelin Chan is terrible at dating but when her mother tells her she’s found her the perfect date (and that she has been posing as Meddelin on a dating site to get to know him for her) she realizes that it’s probably too late to establish boundaries. When the date goes riding off the rails (and straight into a tree) Meddelin finds herself alone with her now dead date and the fear that no one will believe her that it was self-defense, so she decides that shoving him in the trunk and calling her family for help in getting rid of his body is the best decision. Naturally.

The body gets accidentally included in the supplies for the wedding that Meddy and her family are working on the next day, on an exclusive island with no possible transport to get back to the mainland. And as if there wasn’t enough on her plate, Meddy runs into her first love who she never quite fell out of love with. The story is interspersed with snippets from the past when Meddy and her ex were together and explains how the duo found themselves crossing paths yet again.

The cringe-worthy yet hilarious moments were aplenty and the story keeps you constantly on the edge of your seat, convinced that the family has finally backed themselves into a corner that they can’t escape from. It’s a roller coaster ride full of accidents and misunderstandings, drama and levity, and while it requires some suspension of disbelief (how they weren’t caught is beyond me) the hijinks were hilarious and had me genuinely laughing out loud. I thought while reading this story that it would make an amazing movie so I’m delighted to hear that this is actually happening!!

‘Trust Ma to take pride in my etiquette when I’ve just shown her my date, whom I’ve killed, in the trunk of my car.’

☎️ Dial A for Aunties ☎️

This book was so fun and hilarious! I didn’t quite know what to expect and I’m glad I didn’t go into the book with any ideas.

Dial A for Aunties starts with Meddy, the only daughter of Ma. She lives at home with her mother for cultural reasons. She is a photographer for their family business - a full service wedding concierge. They provide flowers, photography, hair and makeup and entertainment along with her 3 aunties. When Meddy goes on a blind date at her Ma’s insistence, it doesn’t go quite as planned. Her Ma and Aunties have to help cover everything up! Meddy also runs into her college love during this novel and their reunion was very sweet. I liked that the romance was just a little part of this story.

I loved Meddy’s Ma and her aunties. I love their rivalry with each other, but they are fiercely protective of each other. They had no issues ripping on each other, but they would help with anything someone asked of them. I loved their whole family dynamic.

This is an incredible debut novel by @jesseqsutanto and I’m so happy there’s already a sequel on the way! And I heard a rumor Netflix is picking this up too!

Such a fun read! It is way over the top and it took me a bit to get into the humor and the outlandish plot but once I just went with the flow of it, I really enjoyed it! It definitely had Crazy Rich Asians meets Weekend at Bernie's vibes and yes, it's a crazy combo but that's what made it fun and over the top. I think we need a re-boot of Weekend at Bernie's! Loved all the descriptions of Indonesian-Chinese culture and family. And the Aunties were a hoot too! I'm very much a realist and you really need to kind of put that to the side to really enjoy this one but if I could do it, I think you can too!

Everyone seems to adore this book and I’m know I’m the outlier, but it wasn’t that funny to me. It seemed to be trying way too hard to be funny and the text speak was cringeworthy (“creepy AF” is an example). The mom and aunties were cute but Meddy just didn’t do it for me. Definitely still recommend this one as most people have given it at least 4 stars. For me it was a solid 3.

Jesse Q. Sutanto’s book Dial A for Aunties is not your average murder mystery novel. If you are looking for your next terrifying whodunnit thriller, then it’s best to continue looking—Dial A for Aunties is not that book. It is, however, a hilariously entertaining and completely absurd murder mystery slash rom com. At its heart, though, Dial A for Aunties is about family, sacrifice, and communicating across languages, cultures, and generations.

[rest of review included in link below]

Meddy desperately wants to break free from the confines set by her family.

As the last of her generation to stick around, she always heard about the disappointment associated with her cousins leaving. So she chose a college close to home and when she graduated, she joined the new family business. Where she's been ever since.

But on the weekend of one of their biggest weddings, she begrudgingly agrees to go on a blind date with the owner of the new resort where the wedding will take place—and accidentally kills the man. With the help of her three aunts and her mother, they plan to dispose of the body, but everything goes completely upside down with it's delivered to the wedding by mistake. Throw in some very unusual wedding day drama, some unhappy local officials, and a brewing storm and you have the recipe for a hilarious madcap disaster!

Oh, how I loved this book!

Meddy is a wonderful narrator! A woman stuck between her own hopes and dreams and the expectations of family, with the added complication of her being a first generation American in a family of immigrant women whose own parents moved from China to Indonesia.

Meddy admits that her Mandarin and Indonesian are terrible. But otherwise she's done pretty much all she can to keep her mother and her three aunts happy. And if that means sticking around in a job that's very much less than exciting, that's what she'll do.

But she's been single since college and her mother really wants her to settle down. Which is how she finds herself on a blind date with a man her mother has been chatting to (as Meddy) on a dating app. And things do not go well!

Meddy's aunts are fabulous! Though she is the narrator, each of the aunts and her mother all come through as splendidly built characters with huge personalities! And they each comprise one component of the family wedding business: the oldest of them is the pastry chef, next in line does hair and makeup, Meddy's mother is the florist, and the youngest is the singer. And then Meddy is the photographer. And things have gone really well for their business. But Meddy isn't happy. And hasn't been for some time.

Until now, her biggest issue has been trying to find a way to broach the topic of leaving the business...

Dial A For Aunties is a great read! It's all about family, relationships, and the weight of culture and expectations. And it comes in a lighthearted and funny package that had me laughing out loud and desperate to find out what would happen next!

This is definitely going to be one of my favorite reads this year :)

A rom-com, cozy mystery, slapstick hybrid, 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘈 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘈𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 by Jesse Q Sutanto provides an antidote to a difficult day or a lift for a bad mood with its quick pacing, sweet love story, and hilarious bad-to-worse predicament of Meddy, the main character.

Unlike her cousins who went as far east as possible, Meddy has stayed in California, living with her mother and joining the family wedding business, its slogan: Don’t leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans! And the Chans’ biggest wedding ever, between the scions of two billionaire families to be held on an island resort, offers them an unprecedented opportunity.

However, the night before the wedding, Meddy accidentally kills her blind date. Rattled and with no cell phone charge, she drives home and enlists the help of her mother and three aunts, all with big personalities. They devise the perfect plan, but it goes awry when the body, hidden in a cooler in Big Aunt’s freezer, gets sent to the resort with the other supplies.

Meddy tries to juggle her responsibilities as a wedding photographer, manage her family, and keep the body hidden, and as if that wasn’t hard enough, she learns the owner of the resort is her college boyfriend whom she never stopped loving.

Granted, the plot moves from one absurdity to another, and it is necessary to suspend disbelief to completely enjoy the book, but if you do that, it is an extremely fun read, and Sutanto includes some surprising obstacles and a satisfying conclusion.

Im fairly certain that I haven't ever read a comedic thriller before but Sutanto took that description and elevated it.

This book was a comedic joy. I personally loved the preface that was given. We as readers were informed from the authors Own Voice experience and how best to read this novel. This definitely enhanced the experience for me.

In this book we follow Meddy both in the past and present as she navigates her familial life.

And then she accidentally kills someone and we get to see what he family is really like. Spoiler....they're a joyous riot!

Thank you Berkley for the advanced copy of this read. I LOVED IT!

This was a laugh out loud read, I found myself reading passages to others to share the giggles. As unrealistic as it all is, it’s so fun that it didn’t matter to me. I loved the relationship between the characters and the aunties.

This book is such a fun ride! I love a book that I can handsell to fans of almost any genre -- this one works for fans of mysteries, romances, and general fiction that makes you laugh out loud. Can't wait to see what Jesse Sutanto writes next!

Dial A For Aunties was a wild and fun ride and I enjoyed every minute of it 😁 You know how some books aren’t so serious but still make your heart jump with all the fun you had while reading it? Well, this book was that! It always amazes me to read stories about cultures that are different than mine but still same. This story represents Indonesian-Chinese culture and it was so much fun to see the similarities between it and Indian culture; right from wedding traditions to behaviour of Aunties, and how protective they are of their children.

Meddelin Chan aka Meddy is a photographer who works with her mom and aunts in their wedding business. She has four aunts and all of them, along with her mom, keeps medaling in her life (just like you expect from an Asian aunty 😬). Her mother arranges a blind date for Meddy after disguising herself as Meddy on a dating website! But Meddy ends up accidentally killing that blind date! Next day they have to attend an extravagant wedding and now Meddy and her aunt have to decide what to do with the body. And let me tell you won’t believe the number of places that dead body traveled in the book 😂

Seriously, it had been a while since I read a book that was so much fun! I laughed out, I wondered, I sympathised, I cringed! And the best thing is everything is in proper proportion- the humour, the romance, the mystery- except drama that is full on and I live for drama (we are Bollywood people after all) 😅 This was not a hardcore mystery and yet I was excited to see what dramatic event will turn out next. I am still grinning typing this review 🙊

And the romance! It was not capturing the center spot in the story and that made it really sweet. And find yourself someone who treats you like Nathan 🥺

The main theme of the story was of course family. The way whenever there is something wrong, you family are there to back you up, to support you in your darkest time. You would think that Meddy’s mom scolded her or was angry after she revealed she killed a guy, but well, she and the aunties were actually proud of her that she alone brought the body to her home. Well these are Asian Aunties after all, always taking pride in their children 😂

So trust me, if you want something light and fun, and yet entertaining, go for this book, add it to your TBR!

Thank you @berkleyrance for a copy of this book. Let’s start with this was an over the top over exaggerated Asian soap opera. Once you have this mindset,...enjoy the ride. This was a fun mix between Crazy Rich Asians and Finaly Donovan is Killing it. I loved all of the aunties and how they remind me of all the aunties that I have in Hong Kong and how close my mom are to them despite being so far apart. The aunties really stole the show and the love story between Meddy and Nathan took a back seat which I didn’t mind at all.

3.75 stars

Thanks to NetGalley & Berkley Pub for the digital arc of this title. All opinions are my own.

One sentence review: Dial A for Aunties is a humorous, wild ride for people who like their humor with a bit of a dark tinge.

I'm not quite sure how to classify Dial A for Aunties with regards to genre. What I can tell you is that it is a really funny, over the top story about a woman, a dead body, her mother and three aunts, a lavish wedding and finally an ex-boyfriend she's never quite gotten over.

This book really does read a lot like a comedy you'd see on the screen (so it is not so surprising that it is being adapted just for these purposes for Netflix). The book is pretty quick placed and really funny in parts. I loved the Asian representation and learning about the traditions that take place in Indo Chinese weddings. There are also some really great characters. The four aunties really are the best. I was really taken by the sense of family and love you get from the book.

Where the book was a bit of a miss for me was in the middle of the book where some moral ambiguity really started to bother me. At this point the humor got a little less funny for me and the story lagged a bit. I really wanted someone to step up and take responsibility for their actions. In the latter part of the book I do feel like this is somewhat addressed and the story picked back up for me.

So overall I'd recommend this book. It is a really funny story with some great characters and cultural representation. I think it would make a great beach read. I'd just go in expecting there to be a kind of cavalier attitude towards death.

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto is a hilarious over-the-top joy ride that follows Medellin “Meddy” Chan as she, her mother and 3 Aunties frantically try to deal with a dead body while overseeing an over-the-top lavish Chinese-Indonesian wedding that could put their family-owned wedding business on the map—IF they can successfully pull it off. Layer on the meddling but loving ways of Chinese-Indonesian mothers and aunties, a lost love Meddy never got over, and a ridiculously fun plot that puts them in positions you think they will never get out of and you end up with a truly laugh-out-loud page turning adventure.

The highlight of this book for me was the scene stealing Aunties. The author does a wonderful job of humorizing language barriers without resorting to tired stereotypes and I could not stop laughing during certain passages as they hit home with similar conversations I have had with my own extended family.

As many reviewers have described, this book is like “Weekend at Bernie’s” meets “Crazy Rich Asians”. Its more Com than Rom but what was there was sweet and and I liked how the book worked through Meddy’s personal growth as she strives to find her own voice outside her family.

If you dial ‘C’ for my advice, I will tell you to suspend your disbelief, make yourself comfortable and enjoy a few hours of fun and laughter.

Thank you @jesseqsutanto @letstalkbookspromo @berkelypublishing and @NetGalley for the eARC of this book. Opinions are my own.

Super fun and quirky book. Just one disaster after another until it felt like if it could go wrong, it would. The kind of family that will literally help you move a body.

With the tiniest amount of suspension of disbelief, you will fall into this zany, madcap tale of a loud and loving family hiding a dead body in plain sight. Hilarious!

Meddelin Chan's mom calls her aunties when Meddelin accidentally ends up killing her blind date. They agree to help her get rid of the body, but accidentally put the body in the cake cooler. The bad news is that the cake cooler is on its way to a wedding that Meddelin, her mom, and her aunties are working!

This isn't a genre I usually read and it's rare for me to really like a romance book...BUT this one was so entertaining and a nice break from my usual reads! It's a romance mixed with a murder mystery plus it was funny and fast-paced, what more could you ask for? Oh yeah, a movie!! I'm sure this will be picked up soon and I'll be the first one to go watch the adaptation.

I really enjoyed everything about this book, the Chinese-Indonesian representation, family dynamic, the aunties, the flashbacks, the murder, it all flowed so well together! If you're looking for a really fun book to read this summer, this is definitely it!!!

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Oh my, this is satire at its finest. Jesse Q. Sutanto sure knows how to bring the funny.

Meddelin Chan is part of her family’s wedding business. She photographs the event from start to finish and with Indonesian – Chinese weddings that entails a lot. “Big Aunt” makes the luscious cakes, “Aunt 2” is in charge of hair and make-up. Meddie’s mother takes care of all the flowers and “Aunt 4” sings, providing entertainment. Together all five of them try to hide a body but wait, I am getting ahead of myself.

Meddy’s mother is so worried about her daughter’s love life that with some help from her meddlesome aunts she sets Meddy up on a dating site and pretends to be her. Meddy finds out when she learns she has a blind date with a man her mother feels is perfect. Sadly the date doesn’t go well and Meddelin accidentally kills the man and could have killed herself. But she survives and makes it home with the date in the trunk of the car. With a huge wedding the next day they try to keep the body on ice until after the event but due to circumstances beyond their control that darn body ends up at the wedding site. What ensues is a wild ride of a story I could not put down. Heck, Meddy’s college boyfriend even enters the scene and plays an integral part.

Okay, you need to suspend reality while reading this story but you will catch yourself laughing out loud and immersed in a wonderful escape.

Meddy is the dutiful daughter and “Ma” and her Aunties are an absolute hoot! The Chans are a close family and there is so much love there. The Auntie’s get a little snippy with each other but they truly support each other even when it comes to getting rid of a dead body. These characters practically jump off the page. The dialogue which includes a little bickering just sings. I laughed so hard when Meddy and her aunties had to explain to Ma the text messages she had received from the man she set her daughter up with.

The story had a few Weekend At Bernie’s movie moments too as we moved to the wedding part of the story. That poor dead body turned up in some surprising places.

But the story isn’t all laughs. We get a nice look at the traditions and stress of an Indo-Chinese wedding. I really felt for the bride as certain things came to light.

I loved the twist that brought Meddy’s college boyfriend, Nathan Chan back into the story and the little flashbacks to their previous relationship. Don’t worry Chan is like Smith in the Indo-Chinese world so they are not related.

I absolutely loved everything about this story and I was thrilled to read it is going to be adapted into a movie on NetFlix. It was such a wonderful escape I have to give it my highest – deserves more than 5 stars – Paradise Rating. Dial A for Aunties is a fantastic story full of delightfully quirky characters that I wish I could meet in person. Crazy chaos overtakes these pages and will have readers grinning ear to ear. Fun and entertaining. A must-read!

*Note: The book does include explicit language.