Dial A for Aunties

Five minutes into this book, I was already regretting my purchase! It was read by a narrator that I found over-the-top although she nailed the auntie accents, and the story itself was really stupid — as in, « oh my god, this boy is so cute and his eyes are sparkling and I am so in love! »

The first half of the book goes back and forth between the present and the past, which is confusing. This young lady is Malaysian-Chinese-American, and she has a very large and close-knit family, so she goes to a local university to stay close to them, and then she breaks up with her amazing boyfriend because he got a job in New York and she wants to stay close to her family in California.

Then, her mother sets her up with a new boyfriend (there are a few funny parts, to be honest, when her mother tells her how she found the boyfriend), and lo and behold, the new boyfriend is a jerk, and our lovely young lady accidentally kills him.

The second part of the book takes place at a wedding, where the whole family is trying to get rid of the body of the dead boyfriend. That part is completely idiotic but also quite funny, fortunately. I listened to it while driving to Toronto (2.5 hours), which was perfect.

The only thing I really liked was that the author talks about stereotypes at the beginning of the book. She explains how it is difficult to write a story that sounds real (about these Malaysian-Chinese-American people, in this case) but not stereotypical. And I must admit that the aunties, with their accents and unique perspectives, were sometimes quite funny, even if a bit « too much » at times, too.

In conclusion, if you like to read a cheesy, dumb, sometimes funny, and probably culturally stereotypical story, this is for you!