By Meghan Mazzaferro
Content warning: attempted murder, assault, kidnapping, taxidermized animals, attempted sexual assault (referenced), murder (referenced)
If you thought the hijinks were crazy in Dial A for Aunties, just wait and see what Meddie and her family have in store in book two! It looks like the consequences of Meddie’s blind date and all the disasters that followed are finally behind her. She has a healthier relationship with her family, she’s engaged to the man of her dreams, and it seems like they got away with murder. Now all Meddie has to do is get through her wedding. Unfortunately, when her family hires a wedding company with ulterior motives, Meddie ends up in yet another sticky situation. Now she has to juggle her family’s shenanigans as they try to impress Nathan’s conservative English parents, a wedding photographer who knows nothing about taking pictures, and, oh yeah, trying to prevent a murder! Things get even crazier in the second installment of Jesse Q. Sutanto’s genre-bending hit; the hijinks go higher, the aunties get wilder, and poor Meddie has to deal with all of it in the biggest wedding gown you’ve ever seen.
This book is still nonstop jokes and humour, and while I didn’t laugh out loud quite as much as book one, I couldn’t tear my eyes off the page because I was so entranced by the train wreck that is Meddie’s wedding. This book sets up so many scenes in a way that you can picture them in your mind, and the picture is just absolutely absurd. It’s wonderful. The physical comedy, while difficult to execute in writing, is done very well, and there were times I could picture dramatic cuts and cinematic zooms in my mind as I read about the latest crazy thing these ladies had gotten themselves into. Both Meddie’s family and the new cast of characters that get introduced in this book are hilarious, and their actions and reactions within this crazy plot are a delight to read.
While I do feel like some of the shenanigans in this one got a little too over the top (don’t get me wrong, the entire premise is over the top in the best way, however in this book, sometimes the antics went just a bit past what my suspension of disbelief could handle), I feel like the heart of the story, the relationship between Meddie and her family helps ground the book. There are lots of heartfelt moments as Meddie learns to embrace her family for who they are, and those were lovely to read.
Meddie herself is also incredibly relatable in this book. Her struggles with balancing her love for her family and her desire to be considered “normal,” paired with her very realistic responses to her relatives’ often murderous suggestions for solving her wedding problems, and the ways she deals with her wedding vendors as she desperately tries to foil their evil schemes, are all really realistic. It feels ridiculous to say a character’s reaction to such crazy scenarios could be realistic, but that’s what I love about both the first book and this one. While the circumstances are bizarre, being in Meddie’s head gives the reader the chance to acknowledge the crazy, often with really fun or really realistic internal monologues to go along with it.
One thing I wish we had seen a little more of was Nathan’s relationship with the whole situation. The book prioritizes Meddie’s experiences with her family and the plot explains a way to keep Nathan on the sidelines, but I would have loved for him to be a bit more of a character on his own wedding day. That being said, I loved the bits of him we do see, the romantic element was definitely elevated a bit in this book which I liked.
Overall, I think it’s really tough for a sequel to compete with something as unique as Dial A for Aunties, but this book keeps the same spirit and is a really fun ride. If you like book one, you’ll definitely enjoy this one too!
Thank you Penguin Random House for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review!