Book Review: "Four Aunties and a Wedding" by Jesse Q. Sutanto

 

Spoilers warning!

4/5 stars

Jesse Q. Sutanto pulls off another delightfully escapist read in Four Aunties and a Wedding, the sequel to Dial A for Aunties. For me, this was another light and fun read, exactly what I needed after reading some pretty heavy stuff recently, concerning imaginary pandemics (The End of Men) and a volatile period in American history, the Revolution (Our First Civil War). 

Our favorite aunties are back as wingwomen to Meddy Chan, whose wedding day to college sweetheart, Nathan Chan, has finally come. 

Everything seems to be going well, as Meddy has found a family business that handles all the complicated business of wedding planning, catering, and photography, etc. Meddy wants her aunts and mother to not to have to work on her wedding day, to sit back and enjoy the festivities. 

Also, it's a weight off the couple's shoulders, who are giddily looking forward to their big day. (They are so adorable! I say that as someone who doesn't tend to read romance-centered books.)

Meddy and Nathan's wedding is to be held in Oxford, England. Ahead of the wedding, Meddy and her immediate family are to have dinner with Nathan's parents, who live in the area. 

Let's just say there's a bit of culture shock when the two sides of the family meet. Nathan's proper English parents are put-off by the odd mannerisms of Meddy's family. (Meddy's mother and aunts surprised Meddy with the fact that they'd been taking lessons in British English, and show off their slang vocabulary to much hilarity and embarassment.) 

While their hearts are in the right place, dinner is unbearably awkward, and Meddy leaves thinking that Nathan's parents will never fully accept her or her family, and that her family embarrassed her at such an important event. 

As if pre-wedding jitters and self-doubting isn't enough, poor Meddy finds that someone is looking to use her wedding as a front for some sinister plots. Meddy overhears her photographer talking about a planned hit on one of the wedding guests. The business Meddy hired for her wedding apparently are mafiosa. 

And Meddy is blackmailed into silence, lest her caterers go to the police about the incident from the last book. (If you haven't already, just go ahead and first read Dial A for Aunties, otherwise not much of this book is going to make sense.)

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Much like in Dial A for Aunties, Meddy and her family take matters into their own hands. I understood that they tried to do all these machinations without involving anyone, including poor Nathan, who is hurt and confused as to why Meddy isn't spending most of her time with him on their wedding day, but it seemed maybe if it'd be better if the police had been involved right away. 

(Also, I found Nathan to be almost a too-perfect saint at putting up with Meddy and company's antics, especially the not-telling-the-truth-until-it's-too-late stuff. He must really love Meddy.) Alas, that would mean we miss out on the antics and there wouldn't be much of a book.

Aside from those quibbles, which kept my rating from being five stars (but I suppose I did say that it's good escapist fiction; perhaps that requires a suspension of disbelief), I found myself pleasantly surprised about the twists that Sutanto pulled off in this one. (Perhaps I should've known from the beginning, but alas, I was just laughing at the hilarious antics involved. To me, they had the energy of the frying-pan-involved scenes in Tangled, and I was there for it!)

Leaving out the sketchy antics, it is another story attesting to the fierce love Meddy and her "four mothers" share, their support for one another despite all the obstacles thrown in their way. It's as much a family-centered story as anything, sprinkled with a bit of mayhem and borderline illegal activity. 

Ultimately, Four Aunties and a Wedding is a good read if you're looking for something light, fun, and heartfelt.

Happy reading!

--BookOwl