The Aunties series by Jesse Q. Sutanto is a hilarious story about a family of Chinese-Indonesian immigrants who work in the wedding industry. Each of the books takes on a new story from the book previously so I recommend reading it in order to know exactly what they are referencing in each new installment. The first book has the family working one of the biggest weddings of the year. Things are looking great until Meddelin Chan’s mother and aunties have decided to meddle in her love life and set her up on a blind date that ends horribly. Bear with me on this plot point, because it sounds horrible and not like a comedy book, but the story telling and aunties make it so hilariously outrageous, especially when you are listening to Risa Mei read the audiobook. After the horrible ending to the blind date, Meddy freaks out and asks her mom for help who in turn gets Meddy’s aunts involved in the scheme of how to hide a body. This book has no business being so funny with a plot like this, but then the aunts come up with one ridiculous plan after another and the family hits one obstacle after another.
The book does a great job of balancing the background of these Chinese-Indonesian immigrants but not making it too stereotypical. I recommend the audiobook version of these three books as the writing does include some phrases in Indonesian and the aunts do mix up English words so it’s more enjoyable to hear those spoken parts aloud than to try to read them in your head. I also really loved each voice she gave to the aunties and it made it so funny to hear the banter between them, their praises at the younger generation, and everything in between. I would love to see these books adapted into movies because it would be comedic gold to see some scenes played out. There are serious moments, but the characters are not serious in the slightest or just have the most outlandish reactions to certain situations. At one point, the aunties have a gun pointed at them and rather than freaking out, they chastise Meddy and tell her to be more like the wielder because “she’s a smart girl, she knows what she wants in life”.
Honestly, I adored these three books in the series and laughed out loud so many times while shaking my head. Listening to the books and reading along with the physical books let a movie just play in my head that I enjoyed so much. If you need something ridiculous to listen to, I recommend this insane series.
